I was cutting the ends of green string beans today getting ready for a dinner party of eight. They reminded me of the great venture of my parents who moved to BC from the small prairie town they lived in where my dad was the station agent. The rules of the railroad were that transfer to a new province meant a complete loss of seniority for three months so he had to take the bottom of the barrel. They had a family of three boys with them and little money or income so they lived in a comfortable barn in Chilliwack on friends property and he bicycled to work at Port Mann at 5 am. My mother and my brother Ken worked on the bean belt sorting beans all day. The month that he arrived he was short before payday and he phoned me where I was working in Rupert on my summer job to see if I could send him fifteen dollars. I didn't have any idea how to do it. That day he rode his bicycle back to Chilliwack to wait for mother and Ken to finish on the bean belt. He sat by the door where they worked on a large empty oil can he found, to wait. The boss of the bean belts found him there sitting relaxing in the sun and said to him, "Fellow, you are fired. Go and pick up your time and don't come back." My dad said to him, "I'm not working here." He said, "Fellow I already told you that." It wasn't that easy coming to British Columbia.
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