My uncle James owned a farm in Georgia. Back in the 70's and 80's he grew a lot of tobacco . . . a LOT of tobacco. Smoking was a popular then . . . long before people really understood the damage it did to their lungs!
I spent two summers down there working side by side with my cousins . . . helping Uncle James in the tobacco fields. For him, we were pretty cheap labor, and we worked hard . . . for us kids, at least for me, payday was incredible, and we got to spend time together!
Aunt Gwenera had breakfast on the table right about sunrise, and we kids would file in groggily taking seats . . . eating enough to keep us going until dinnertime. Uncle James, who had already been out to the barn to get things ready, would be waiting in his pickup truck outside the house. Shoving last bites into our mouths, we'd all pile into the back of his truck (unless you were lucky enough to get the front seat) . . . some even sitting on the tailgate which was usually down . . . and head to the first field.
Sitting on that tailgate was the best! If your legs were long enough, you could drag your feet in the dirt . . . as long as you pulled them up once we hit asphalt. But there's not much asphalt in the country. Dangerous, no doubt, but we never thought about it . . . guess Uncle James didn't think about it much either . . . probably figured we'd learn a hard lesson if we fell out. I don't recall anyone ever falling out though.
Those mornings were the best! The air smelled of pine and pigs . . . red Georgia dirt . . . tasted like freedom.
The tobacco combine was always waiting patiently . . . like a dinosaur grazing before the hunt. It was a complicated piece of machinery . . . a behemoth. There were four seats that hung at plant level below the upper deck where the pickers would sit . . . two facing forward, two facing backward. In front of them, a conveyor belt would carry the stripped leaves, all turned one direction, to the packers topside. The packers would stack them as compactly as possible and put them into spiked tobacco racks. When racks were full, they'd be loaded up in the back of the truck to take to the drying barn.
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| I don't know if pictures of us exist, but this is sort of what the combine looked like |
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| This is tobacco harvesting in Tennessee |
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| This isn't Uncle James' barn, or exactly how we racked it, but this gives you an idea of the way it was dried in Georgia |
And then there are the worms!! Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Gigantic hornworms that feast on the leaves . . . one of the biggest reasons tobacco farmers work long hours getting their crops harvested. Most farmers spray the plants with pesticides, but I swear I think those worms just licked that stuff off! I don't know which was worse: being in one of the seats on the bottom where you were expected to get rid of the worms or being on the top deck and getting a half squished worm you had to toss! Mostly the boys threw them at the girls though. I was 15 . . . way past my bug-loving stage!
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| Hornworms are HUGE!!! |
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| They're also "sort of" cute too |
Dinnertime was a welcome relief in those days. We'd all pile back into Uncle James' truck and head for the house where Aunt Gwenera set a table FULL of fresh cooked vegetables and farm meat . . . beef roast, ham . . . always good. Tall glasses of sweet iced tea sweating as much as we were in the heat! Uncle James would join us at the table. He was always pretty quiet . . . listening to us kids go on and on about nothing! He'd finish up and wander out to the barn to take care of some other chore before we headed back to the field.
We'd work until late in the afternoon . . . when it started cooling off . . . ever so slightly. Returning to the house before dark, we had plenty of time for something fun. The pond offered sweet relief to our sunburned skin, and most of us headed for a dip. Sometimes there would be an ice cream churn waiting on the carport . . . we'd all take turns . . . happily churning away . . . the need for that first spoonful urgent! Fireflies sometimes filled the night are as the sun sank behind those tall Georgia pines, and we'd capture them in empty peanut butter jars . . . barefoot in the waning heat of the sand. Basketball games played under the light of the moon and one lone streetlight . . .
. . . in the yard of that old Georgia farmhouse . . .
. . . summer nights beside that dirt road were always the best.
And sleep ALWAYS came easy in the country to tired bones . . . the sound of frogs and crickets somewhere in the distance . . . cows mooing goodnight.
"Of all the paths you take, make sure some of them are dirt." ~ John Muir
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