Mushroom Mines - Part 2

"On the floor their is a metal grate and underneath us are the downstairs crew, picking the top bed because of a low ceiling. I pity them. I hate picking down there, though I've only ever had to do it once or twice. While downstairs I picked under where I wo9uld usually be upstairs. Right tear, shoved between the cement wall and the wooden beds. However downstairs my head was brushing against the pickers dirty runner and mushroom stems and topsoil were falling through the grate and into my eyes and in my hair. There wasn't much room to reach out while on my stool. My crocked arm moved slow and often hit still standing mushrooms causing them to fall as my hands just barely hovered over the dirt. My elbow hit the hot light bulb hanging from the wall beside me or banged against the bed posts separating tears and my wide set hips often scraped the hard walls.

Whether upstairs or downstairs you deal with close quarters and a fast pace. Starting on the top bed I rush to finish picking the mature mushrooms, so as to finish and move on to the middle bed. I reach out and twist the cap with my left hand and cut the root of with my right then toss the root in the dump bucket. I throwthe white, hard, button mushroom in to the five pound box sitting on my carrier. The many white mushrooms are often packed tightly together. Looking over the room it's like a sea of white. Both beautiful and intimidating.

In an hour the woman who collects and weighs the mushrooms. Ellen wears a long, white, lab type coat that buttons up over her heavy set body. "Upstairs hand down your boxes!!!" she will yell much too loudly. The other workers will roll their eyes and make hateful comments. No one like Ellen.

At this time you should have eight boxes picked to rightfully earn your eight dollars and hour, though you will earn that as a minimum whether you do or not.

When Ellen calls I pick up twenty pounds of mushrooms and cart them over to the end of the room in my arms perched under my chin to keep them from toppling on my way. I carefully set them down on the floor and crawl to the window's opening. Below Ellen stands looking up at me. "How many Katie!?" she will yell up and humiliated, kneeling looking down at her I will give her an embarrassed five finger sign. "Five!?" she will yell "yes.." I say loud enough for everyone to hear. Stupid woman. I pass the cardboard boxes out into her reaching hands, two by tow. She marks the number down and I go on my way."

Mushroom Mines Narrative- Part 1

"The workers for Cherokee Mushroom farm clock in for the start of their early day. Outside of the break room door each one equips them self with latex gloves and secure a white hairnet over their head like a stretchy spiderweb. Like elementary school children each worker then goes to an assigned locker and retrieves a pairing knife and permanent marker. Then they go to their labeled hook on the wall where they reach up with their ghostly gloved hands and retrieve a metal "carrier". A frame like device with two hooks attached and two holes meant to fit a bucket in and 2 boxes on.

The group of about ten workers, many of whom seem so vacant they come off as if dead inside walk purposely down the dark, dirty hall. The hall is long and uniform. On the left their are many numbered doors, sixteen to be exact, each one the same as the last. Large and brown with a small window and a large lock mechanism on the outside.

The workers reach room 1 and separate into two crews; upstairs and downstairs. I climb up the short set of stairs to the top floor clinking my metal carrier on the metal stairs as I approach the wooden hatch. In the room there are twenty "tears" of mushroom beds. Each tear is made up of three beds. A bed is like a set of bunk beds with one extra bed piled on top. Each bed is like the frame of a single bed and filled with dirt and of course many, many mushrooms that it is my job to "harvest". A fancy term that at first made me think of festivals, the country, fall colors and magical characters, like elves and fairies dancing around these mushrooms in fields. 'Picking' is the word we use, it is much more suitable. More of a practical, factory term that efficiently encompasses our dirt stained knees and hair nets.

I still remember my first day while on a tour of a growing room as workers slaved away digging in the tightly packed beds. Something that was so foreign to me , and yet because of my girlish nativity, enchanting. As my boss pointed out diseased specimens I feasted my eyes on a short, brown skinned woman ducking into the middle bed and reaching to the back. "Katie this is Julia" my boss mentioned offhand. Julia's carrier hung beside her, her grubby hands dug deep into the dark soil as she painstakingly thinned the densely packed sections of the bed. Julia's nose seemed close to the dirt, her small, dark, beady eyes stared with determination at the clumps of growth. I looked at this portly, middle aged woman in the shadows of the bed digging so intensely in the soil, and conjured up the clear image of a blind mole digging a hole. As we walked on, continuing our tour, I zipped my lips and withheld my laughter hoping to be hired."

To be cont'd..