Mon Pellier: Best summer job

Last time I was in California, a friend told me about mexican seasonnal workers while we drove close to some miserable houses. I would have thought that the teams of grape pickers were mixed: professionnals, owners and their family, students, travellers, men and women as strong and tanned as kibboutzim. I thought they would have diner in the evening around bonfires, with people playing guitar and singing, preferably with the voice of Dean Martin, my Rifle, my poney and me.

My american friend had another idea on it. A mix of modern slaves and drug/arm dealers. Students, apparently, had for ambition to work in fast food restaurants or air-conditionned shops/offices.

What a disappointment it was to me!

Working on something essential, usefull, in nature, is necessary. Industrial vineyards might not be natural, nor even have any ecosystem left. Taking part to other kinds of harvests (oranges, olives, etc.) seems less convenient to students as these harvests don't concord with holidays, but it's also interesting. In France, the usual opinion is that grape picking is popular enough. Students consider it is tiring but fun, but there are other points of view. In the movie "Sans toit ni loi" (1985), Sandrine Bonnaire played a homeless teenager befriending a tunisian grape picker. It was a dark, sad movie about homelessness.

The best Summer job is in Summer - Summer taken as a place on Earth.

I hardly understand people can prefer Fall or Winter... There are nice colors and mushrooms at Fall, sparkling whites in Winter, but somehow I define these seasons with subtractions. Less daylight, less songs and sounds, less smells. Do you feel less active in Summer? One is as active, but at other times. The days seem longer, and they are indeed: naps are ok. Southern people are not lazy, but adaptable.

Plants adapt themselves... in a wide way.

Some species of pines need a fire to regenerate themselves, and some human beings, fascinated by regeneration/resurrection, believe they are cleaning angels when they destroy what has been given to them - and to others. Have you ever seen a forest afer a fire? It smells ash - ash from living beings. A doctor told me once that one of his patients, a woman, was obsessed with fire. She poured oil in snails shells, in Summer on dry hills. The Sun could set fire to them, it was her game. This story made me mad. She was a killer. She killed living beings who couldn't fly away - because of their roots, young or old age, constitution, etc. She murdered babies.

My favorite Summer job was horseback riding fireguard.

The department recruits in Summer various seasonnal workers in the fire-fighting section. Bikers are 99% male, riders (much less numerous, though they can go in the woods and forests) are 99% female, but in the watching towers there is more mixity. Working in towers in boring, and computers do as well. Let's be serious, for prevention, there's nothing like horseback riders. They can go everywhere, follow a smoke till its origin in a garden or no-BBQ area, talk to smoking walkers on paths where a spark could set a dealdy fire, give informations to those who wonder what to do if there is a fire - in which direction to walk/drive, for instance. It is a shame people tend to consider horse-riders are there for parade. They should know better. They also should know how not to frighten horses - but some smoking drivers and other intentionnally frighten the horses when the riders witness them throwing away matches, cigarette ends, or lightning a campfire... Some accidents happened. The riders should stay away and call the police and fire-fighting base, but how to distinguish uninformed good-willing people and stubborn/drunk/machist human-shaped dangers...

Male chauvinism is a problem then and there, of course. Mowgli shouldn't have told cousin Louie how to make fire. Sorry, real chimps, you don't deserve such a reputation. You know better. As Uncle Vania said, Back to the trees!

The Evolution man, from Roy Lewis to Jamel Debbouze...

The cities are invading the woods and the roads trap animals on territories too small to eat and mate, but what is left is to be treasured.

A fire close to La Paillade

Have you ever walked in a place after a fire? The landscape is sepia. Trees can still have leaves, but it's all in sepia. All you can heart is crackling noises. Vegetal fragrances are gone, you just smell ashes of life.