To the Little Boy in the Strawberry Fields Whose Name I Never Knew:<\/p>\n
I hate picking berries.\u00a0 Strawberries, raspberries, marionberries\u2014I hate picking them all.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 In the rain.\u00a0 In the heat.\u00a0 In the slugs, the mud, and the rotting berries.\u00a0 Back-breaking work even for the eleven-year-old kid that I was those four decades ago.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Five cents a pound.\u00a0 A dollar for a full crate was a good day for me, though rumor had it that one fifteen-year-old girl sometimes made ten dollars a day.\u00a0 Just not my talent, I guess.\u00a0 Sure, I learned how to whistle in the rows.\u00a0 Sure, I filled my belly with the luscious berries.\u00a0 But know this: I hate picking berries even to this day and will pay with great alacrity for a nicely mounded crate filled by someone else–anyone else, perhaps that fifteen-year-old girl now middle aged.<\/p>\n
You had just finished a full crate to my skimpy quarter crate, but I hardly noticed; everyone finished before I did.\u00a0 You left it in the next row over and headed to the old wooden outhouse.\u00a0 Again, I didn\u2019t notice; I was off in some daydream, most likely.\u00a0 But the three older girls two rows over noticed.\u00a0 They stood above me and said, \u201cWe\u2019ll cut you in if you don\u2019t tell.\u201d\u00a0 With a submissive nod I agreed.\u00a0 They poured your berries into our crates, and we all went back to where we\u2019d been, though at the time I didn\u2019t know you can\u2019t go back to innocence.\u00a0 I took a peek at you when you returned.\u00a0 Your lips quivered, but you didn\u2019t say a thing.\u00a0 You quietly began to work, refilling your empty crate.\u00a0 I made an extra twenty-five cents that day.<\/p>\n
Oh, little boy, forgive my laziness, forgive my greed, but most of all I beg that you forgive my weakness.\u00a0 I\u2019m so sorry if you were angry, if you were hurt.\u00a0 I\u2019m so sorry if you were disillusioned.\u00a0 I\u2019d go back and change things if I could, but I cannot.<\/p>\n
As a child I confessed in a darkened stall to a hidden priest such sins as calling my brother names, lying to my mother, or taking an apple from the fruit bowl without permission.\u00a0 And when there were no real sins to confess, I made up ones such as kidnapping my sister\u2019s pet rock, coveting the neighbor\u2019s gorgeous fourteen-year-old son, or taking God\u2019s name in vain when I bit my tongue on the communion wafer.\u00a0 But I never confessed to stealing your berries.<\/p>\n
I confess to you now and to all who will listen that I am guilty and have been for decades of theft from a hard-working and earnest little boy.\u00a0 The only way I can think to make amends is to try hard to be a good and giving woman.\u00a0 Even so, it will take the rest of my life to repay the interest accrued on that twenty-five cents worth of berries I stole from you.<\/p>\n
Submitted by: Susan McElheran <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To the Little Boy in the Strawberry Fields Whose Name I Never Knew: I hate picking berries.\u00a0 Strawberries, raspberries, marionberries\u2014I hate picking them all.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 Pluck.\u00a0 In the rain.\u00a0 In the heat.\u00a0 In the slugs, the mud, and the rotting berries.\u00a0 Back-breaking work even for the eleven-year-old kid that I was those four decades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strangers","category-yourself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iregret.net\/wp-goodies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/p>\n