If it’s Summer, it must be time for Tomatoes!

By John M. Goralka
Sacramento, CA

Getting a Job

As most of you know, I have five brothers and three sisters. I was the only family member to go to a junior college after high school. I am proud that I paid for my entire college education on my own. I had a great job in high school at a small grocery store similar to a large 7-Eleven convenience store. I was living on the ranch which I loved, and I did not have any idea regarding what I wanted to do for a career.

Chabot College

Chabot College opened an extension campus not far from our ranch. I enjoyed a 25 minute all country drive to school. When I was completing my second year at Chabot, I knew that I would have to move off the ranch. I felt that I needed a higher paying job to put more money aside for college.

Heinz Pickle and Ketchup Factory

A friend let me know about the seasonal jobs available at the Heinz Pickle and Ketchup Factory in Tracy. The job was for the graveyard shift, approximately from 10pm to 7am. You started work in the middle of the dark night and got off with the sun coming up and a bright day just beginning. I never adjusted to sleep during the daylight hours so as time went by, I became increasingly exhausted from lack of sleep.

The job was seasonal just for the tomato season. The job was 7 days a week. At the end of each day a list was posted of the people who were to return to work the next day. If you ever missed a day for any reason whatsoever, you were taken off the list and essentially fired, no exceptions.

Due to the overtime pay rules, you made more on Saturday and Sunday than you did for the entire regular work week (Monday through Friday). My friend who told me about the job was not able to last the first week.

This was my first and only experience working in a factory. Almost everyone asks if I still eat pickles or ketchup. While the factory had a peculiar smell, there is nothing that I observed that makes me hesitant to eat those products. I did smell the factory on me and my clothes for weeks after. Pickles are essentially cooked in a very salty/spicey brine mixture. The pickles were sometimes whole or could be chopped into slices. Tomatoes were crushed and cooked in some type of mixture. The factory itself was very hot and even “steamy” from the machines in operation. There was a unique pungent smell. Most machines would be in operation in a very large open floor area. You could not talk to anyone very easily because of the loud, constant background noise of machines running and people yelling.

My overall job was to spray down the machinery with large high-pressure hoses. The water and hoses themselves were very hot so I wore large, thick, bulky gloves. There were no outside windows whatsoever. Time seemed to stand still when you were working on the floor. Break and lunch times were announced with a loud buzzer.

California State University, Sacramento

I made enough money that summer to not work at all for my first year at Sacramento State University (California State University, Sacramento). I always worked while going to school. Being able to focus solely on school that year made that first year incredibly easy and enjoyable. That is the only time I have not worked at least part-time since I was 14 years old (other than 2 months off to study for the Bar Exam after law school).

Botts Dots

I owe my life to Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts who worked for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Dr. Botts invented the “Botts Dots’ that were installed along the freeway lane markers. The Botts Dots awakened sleep drivers if they began to drift out of the designated lanes. I was always falling asleep on the way home and would almost certainly not be here but for those Botts Dots. Thank you, Dr. Botts!

John Goralka is the lead attorney and founder of the Goralka Law Firm, P.C., and is an experienced Sacramento estate planning and tax planning lawyer.

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