Wahiawa Flights

As a teenager, I worked in the Pineapple factory, the big one with a huge Pineapple Water Tower on top of the Building.
I usually rode in with another fellow who worked with me. He was a University student, I was still in high school. When we pulled into the parking lot, we would see these very same trucks, they are huge. See the size of the car in the picture. There were dozens of trucks lined up and around the entire parking area, snaking their way to the unloading docks.

When unloaded, the pineapples were given a spray bath on the way to a conveyer belt. This transported the pineapples picked only hours before to a series of 48 machines. These machines had white capped ladies sitting at long tables where the machines ejected the now skinned and cored pineapples. We accessed the building by walking along an observation catwalk which stretched the full length of the building and the pineapples were just below us, trundling dutifully along to their fate.

Below them, were the machines and behind a glass wall, the ladies who sat opposite one another. The skinned and cored pineapples needed one last trimming and passed in front of the ladies on a conveyor belt, endless and perpetual. When reaching the end of the table, the fruit was absolutely spotless, the pineapples were run automatically into a slicer and into cans. A Trayboy would then wheel these to another station where fresh juice extracted from undersized pineapples was machine added to these cans and lidded. My job was the next in the line, all of this was cooked and cooled and then sent for labels or storage and further cooling.

Those of you who have been to sushi bars may think that the concept of these bars is innovative, perhaps even creative. Huh-uh, the concept derives directly from automated factories that I worked in 50 years ago, not a dime's worth of difference. Except there were nothing but pineapples, an endless and exhaustive supply 24/7 for months. Then the season went into a one shift mode, we went back to school and eventually all of this became just a distant memory. I'll never forget those times. It sure kept us off the streets. And at $1.31 an hour, time and a half up to 2X when the season was at its high point, it sure helped the college fund.

Three summers of pineapple factory work paid all of my travel expenses, fraternity fees and spending money. As all of my other expenses were scholarshipped, my folks were not burdened at all.

Now it is all but gone, that's progress. The memories?

Priceless!

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