McFarland - Trabajo y Memorias

Almond bloom and sulfur dust

McFarland

Trabajo y Memorias

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            A week ago yesterday almond bloom peaked in Kern County, California.

            I remember the first time I experienced it. There were still a few Kern Royals in old orchards and that red against the white blossoms captured attention as much as the essence in the air. It was the latter that just consumed you. The drone of bees deadened other sounds and the sweetness of the smell was almost overpowering.

            Within days, the first applications of sulfur would follow to commence the mildew programs for the sea of grapes that stretched north and east for miles. The smell of sweet almond bloom would then be corrupted by the biting edge of sulfur.

As the freshness of California spring played out, the heavy, dirty air of the blistering harvest season would start to build. It was then the dreary expectation of marathon 100º days would sink into your soul. The yellowish air would steal away any glimpse of the Sierras, and … summer would descend.

            McFarland

            On the same day of peak almond bloom, we sat in a darkened theater and watched the new movie, McFarland. I was surprised by the emotion it prompted.

            The story is good. It follows the career of Coach White and his nationally recognized cross country program at McFarland High School located in California’s southern San Joaquin Valley. His first year was 1987.

            We preceded him to the McFarland area in 1981.

That was the year I finished graduate school at NMSU and California became home. Similarly to the suggestion by the young English teacher who spoke to Coach White on his first day of class, our home became Bakersfield. The cultural impact and the feeling of loneliness and despair demonstrated by the character were no different from our arrival responses. There was little comparison to our roots in New Mexico. It was intimidating.

That first job in California was with Superior Farming Company. The company farmed just over 41,000 acres of ground in Kern, Fresno, Madera, and Imperial counties. Over half that acreage was trees and vines and the field headquarters was just south from McFarland on Kimberlina Avenue.

McFarland became a landmark and hub that impacted our entire California career.

The references uttered here and there within the script were lost among the majority of watchers, but they were not missed when I heard them. Kite Avenue and Elmo Highway are real as are Whisler and Sherwood avenues. Kite Avenue was not just a route to run in the difficult practices, it was the home of Hollis Roberts and the center of an empire that began in Dust Bowl poverty in Texas and wound up with more than 165,000 acres of farmed land in California. I came to know Hollis well, and the immensity of his human experience was no different than that of the kids and the coach the story portrayed.

In fact, the parallel of McFarland on many people is striking. If you were engaged in the business of farming in McFarland at that time, chances were you faced the same challenges of escaping poverty or lower middle class that the story reserved for farm workers.

In the end, a half dozen New Mexico kids migrated there simply trying to find a place to gain a toehold and exist. We had nothing but a shared will and driving ethic. We were terrified of failure. If our circumstances could be caricatured by military vernacular, we had long outrun our supply lines and were operating totally on our own.

As for the farm workers, though, they were very much part of our lives.

My negative memories come from the violence advocated by Caesar Chavez. Delores Huerta, and the United Farm Workers. McFarland was the center of that universe. I will remember the firearms in the vineyard on Ashe’s Alley, and confrontation years later when our company inherited a major fruit operation and its ongoing labor union dispute. Without question, I was despised by the position I held and the color of my skin.

Positive memories come from the interaction with the crews and individuals. From those ranks came men and women who are brothers and sisters for life. Xavier Salinas, Genaro Monzon, and Narciso Arzate became not just capable supervisors they became trusted comrades and good businessmen. They demonstrated what the American dream means.

Women were no different. The crew leaders and individuals, ladies who endured, were, in 1981, young and ambitious just like me. I remember how I was taken by the bright colors of protective scarves and covering that the table grape crews wore to protect themselves from the sun and heat. When I last walked among them calling old friends by name, we were no longer so young. Those of us who had been together for those 20 years understood what that meant.

When we started our own company, Met West Agribusiness, McFarland continued to be important. We were managing an almond orchard on Whisler Avenue, but when we took over the management of 4200 acres of vineyard on Sherwood, we were on our way.

New Mexican, Mike Dallas, became manager of that division. Through Mike’s efforts, the company’s impact on McFarland became more profound. He would serve as president of the local school board. He would become the chairman of the local irrigation district. He founded a Christian ministry in the prison that was a feature in the movie, and he was a deacon in his church. He made that division the most consistently profitable in the entire company. He also suffered the accident that resulted in his death …all of which took place in the town of McFarland.

The spirit

I watched the movie trying to recognize land marks and points of correctness for 1987. I’ll suggest period and authenticity shortfalls for matters like tarped and ground stored almonds, poled tomatoes, the prison, and covered grapes in that era, but the immensity of the industry is correct. It was and remains monstrous. I reveled at glimpses of the citrus belt, the Friant Kern Canal, and vineyards (that were more likely Delano than McFarland), but what a homecoming the experience sparked.

We saw the movie with our youngest daughter, Lindsay, and her family. Like her mother and I, the movie became a personal reflection. She and her older sister, Stephanie, were both California State FFA officers and their respective years of service each took them the length and breadth of California.

Lindsay talked about her chapter visit to a McFarland FFA banquet. She walked through the front door of the high school exactly as it appeared in the movie. It was her favorite visit and it became a topic of continuing discussion that evening. It was suggested a similar story line could be developed with the McFarland advisor, Mr. Elliot, and his program. The same tough little town and kids fighting for a chance were exact parallels to Coach White and his cross country teams. Like Coach White, Mr. Elliot chose to make McFarland home. His FFA program showed the results.

Lindsay remembered how motivated the members were. She invited them to the upcoming state convention. They took her up and descended around her prior to her retirement address. She doesn’t remember last names or skin color. She remembers kids of the San Joaquin learning, creating, and growing in confidence and expression.

Epilogue

It was so familiar.

The hot, clammy yellow haze of late summer was captured brilliantly in the filming. The almond orchards they ran through displayed stress induced from water being cut off for harvest. The citrus scenes were right at the 500’ frost line elevations, but the glimpse that created the most emotion was a glimpse of the Friant-Kern canal.

It was right there one morning John Oglesby and I found a dog in the canal. The situation was critical. The pads of his front feet were bleeding where he had been trying desperately to climb the steep concrete walls.

“What are we going to do,” John asked.

“We are going to get him out,” was the response.

In John’s pickup, I found a short piece of hemp rope. It wasn’t long enough so I tied a chain to it.  I then tied a honda and shook a loop out. On the first shot, I roped that dog. The dog was big probably weighing over one hundred pounds. John joined with me pulling him up the embankment. When we got him to the top, he never stopped. He climbed right up and looked me in the eye. I fell back into John sending us all to the ground. There I laid under that soaking wet dog as he licked my face in serious appreciation.

“Can all you New Mexico boys rope like that?” John asked from underneath me.

I never said yes, but … I never said no, either.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “McFarland … go see it.”