I'm glad you had the opportunity to learn how to work as a kid.

My parents used to grow strawberries and I used to earn enough money in the summer picking to buy my school clothes for the next year. One time I remember as a third grader being the top picker in the field that day, picking over 100 lbs. of berries. Dad paid 7 cents a pound back then in the mid 1960's. Your right back then kids learned how to work and they all were Americans, no illegals. The problem is our wonderful government passed child labor laws. Now kids sit at home and never learn how to work like we did. They become lazy and think they should have what their parents have without doing anything for it. I still hire high school kids to do top work in my trees. At harvest time the kids are in school and so we are dependent on migrant workers that pick apples in Tri Cities Washington to help with harvest and to shear the trees in the summer. I pay one guy $15 dollars an hour and give him a $2000 bonus evry year for one months work because he is such an incredible worker. As you know when you swing a knife all day shearing trees in 90 degree weather you get blisters on your hands and it is extremly hard hot work. Just as Harvest lifting trees that weigh as much as 250 lbs. each, carrying them out of the field, shoving them in a baler stacking them and loading them on a semi in cold wet weather is no fun and Americans don't usually last more than a day before they quit.