Letters to the Editor: This reader had a crop-picking job as a teenager. He lasted only a week

To the editor : In Bakersfield during the summer of 1966, most teenage jobs were tied to agriculture, and mine was no exception. Columnist Gustavo Arellano has written about those times with accuracy ( “Can homegrown teens replace immigrant farm labor? In 1965, the U.S. tried,” Aug. 14), but my own experience came in a cantaloupe field near Mettler, Calif. I lasted exactly one week.

The work was relentless. A tractor pulled a long conveyor belt through the rows, dictating our pace. As pickers, we spent the day either on our knees or bent over, tossing melons onto the moving belt that carried them to a waiting truck. Breaks were rare — just long enough for the tractor to turn around at the end of a quarter-mile furrow before starting up again.

By the end of each shift, I had eaten en