... but one thing was the same. We also called ant lions doodlebugs, so I don't think it was strictly an Arkansas thing.

I never worked the cotton fields around Fresno, CA, but did do some agricultural work with many of my friends in the same time frame, 1950-1954, when I was 6-10.

We lived 6 blocks away from what was called a 'migrant labor camp'. Actually, the workers were not migrants. Most lived year round in permanent well built homes they rented from labor contractors. One or both parents went to 'The HQ' daily or every day but Sunday, and were bussed or trucked out to wherever the work was, whether it was stoop labor planting, weeding, or picking crops. Few took their kids with them. But there were always a number of women who took care of the kids. Most of the younger kids were taken care of in the fields or with the older kids after school, in co-op nurseries within the 'camp'.

Taking care of the older kids, say 5 and older, usually meant that outside of the school year they were taken to nearby fields or orchards to pick by the pound or bucket. These 'Migrant Workers' who were mostly full time residents, be they Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Basque, Armenian, Black or White Americans, wanted their kids to be Americans, and sent their kids to school during the school year. That meant that those my age were my classmates, and friends.

It was nothing for me to be invited to their homes to play and/or for dinner, and vice versa. My dad was an engineer on the Bureau of Reclamation's Central Vally water project and at the time, Mom was a stay at home mother.

But though our economic circumstances were different, though us kids, they had friends in the camp, and during the summers I was sometimes allowed to go our and make some money picking crops with my friends. Usually that was picking fruit with long handled picking baskets that would pluck a peach or apricot, which would fall only a couple of inches into a basket below the claw that snagged to fruit. The basket might hold 3 or 4 peaches, or a dozen apricots, Then we would lower it and help each other remove the fruit from the baskets into the large bushel baskets.

It was good pay for a 5 -10 year old. Unlike you,I did not pick up much of the many languages, in part because there were many different languages, but mostly, because the parents all wanted their kids to speak English. The parents themselves learned English and tried to speak as little of their first language as possible, as they wanted themselves and their kids to assimilate.

I can easily imagine some of the Armenian kids as the older generation of the Essegian family or their friends in Portia Bennet's California Saga series posted here.

On days when I did not go to the fields with 'the migrants', I often worked for the farmer who ran a produce stand alongside state hwy 41, which runs from Fresno to Yosemite National Park to the north. He raised about half the produce himself, and bought the rest from the owners of the fields and orchards nearby. But behind the stand, he had huge sections of land in beans, peas, melons, etc, and he often paid me to go out and pick them as required to keep the stand supplied. Sometimes I worked there for hours at a time, but sometimes, only when he called my mom to have her send me over there. 3 of my friends also worked there the same way.

He did a booming business, as he not only sold to people just driving by, but also to a number of groceries, who used him as a middleman, so a dozen bushels of string beans a day was a bad day. And they were picked fresh, several times a day. Before school was out and after it started, he had to hire a few of the 'migrant workers' himself.

He also paid us a bonus in watermelons, and at our parent's request, some of the other produce. I almost gag at today's prices. 60 years ago, watermelons were selling for as low as 1-2 cents a pound at the grocery, and the farmer ( I wish I could remember his name, sometimes sold them at 5-10 cents apiece for melons weighing 10-20 pounds., that is, melons up to 10 pounds were a nickel, and over 10 pounds, a dime, even if it was a giant over 20 pounds. Cantaloupes were a flat 5 cents each.

Sometimes he had two of us actually mind the stand when he needed to do something else, such as pick and bring in the really large watermelons, which we had marked with sticks topped with orange flags.

The produce stand was about 4 blocks north of the city limits them. Now, it is about 5-8 miles south of the city limits, depending on direction, and the farmland is under a huge shopping mall, smaller stores, and houses. The four lane road is a freeway splitting the town, so to get to where the produce stand was, would be a hike of almost 2 miles. The house I lived in, is still not in the city, though it is surrounded by the city.

It was a different day and age. At 6-10 years old, I was trusted to walk the four blocks to the stand, which included crossing a busy 4 lane road with no traffic lights, by myself. I was also allowed to walk to catch the bus into downtown Fresno all by myself to visit the library or go to the YMCA for swimming lessons. I just don't see that happening anymore.

It was a good time, and I was 11 before I ever lived inside a city limit and ran into racial prejudice, and up tight fear for kids. Even then, kids walked to school without an escort or biked 2 miles to the library on their own, without the paranoia, too often justified, of today.

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About the same time, 1950-1954 ...

Nobody except a few in the medical field knew about transgender or transsexuals. I was seven, collecting tons of newspapers for a Cub Scout paper drive when the news about Christine Jorgenson hit the media in late 1952. The treatment she got was very not good, folks. If you think what you see in today's media is bad, it is cotton candy compared to the vitriol poured on her. Transgender was not even a word yet. It was coined in 1972 or 1988, according to different sources.

And what little was really known except that, 'this guy'd had surgery to make himself into an imitation woman', was secretive, hidden away on the reserved shelves in the library, if they even had any information. Even 21 years later, as a 29 year old, I was refused access. There was no internet to spread the word.

I am so very happy the word is out and relatively easy to access now.