This past week’s sweltering heat took me back to the days when I was young and strong, and burley tobacco was king in Middle Tennessee and other parts of our great state. Days when weather forecasters spoke not of the heat index. If you grew up on a farm no one had to tell you how hot it was. And we didn’t have to be warned about dehydration. If you were hot and sweaty, you had sense enough to drink lots of water. When we were experiencing a heat wave nationwide, we were not warned of 150 million being at risk as if we didn’t know how to take care of ourselves. Someone looked in on elderly neighbors who might be vulnerable, and pets and livestock were afforded adequate water and shade.
And no one spoke of global warning or climate change in those days as if it were something of which no one was aware. Best I can surmise the earth’s temperature has fluctuated over thousands, maybe millions of years. I took note that not much was said of climate change recently when we were enjoying an unusually cool late spring and early summer.
During harvest time if the weather was extremely hot, we went with it. I remember loading tobacco before daylight, and unloading until the heat was unbearable. (Somewhere around 10:00AM on the hottest days.) If the dew was heavy, we fashioned “skirts” out of plastic and secured it around our waists with grass string. That prevented the dew from soaking our clothes and giving us a case of “tobacco poisoning.” If we were cutting tobacco, we started around 4:00 PM which exposed the tobacco to enough sun to allow it to “fall,” (wilt) without it sunburning. Spiking started at daylight on the next morning.
Someone once said their father was a reasonable man. “He only required that we work a half-day. And he didn’t care which 12 hours it was!”
In harvest time we managed to get in 10-12 hours a day regardless of the heat. And in those days, there was no government mandate that required us to take breaks. Our father was also a reasonable man. If the weather allowed us to work throughout the day, we took an extended rest after dinner (noon meal) to let our food settle.
Speaking of “dinner,” I think there were “high school” boys who would have worked for us for free just for the chance to sit at our mother’s table. Meals at our house were a “happening.” My mother never claimed to be a great cook, but he did say, “I can put plenty of good “grub” on the table.” And that she did.
I recall with fondness the Hawkins boys, Bobby and Stanley; the Denton brothers, Thomas, and Jim Dave; the McClenahan boys, Janson, Chris and Richard and so many others who graced our dinner table; and brought their wholesomeness and youthful energy to our workdays.
And I recall one young man who, till this very day, claims my mother saved his life when he overheated one scorching August day.
Looking back across the years I have come to realize so many of my generation in this part of the world cut their working teeth in tobacco patches, tobacco barns, hay fields, and corn fields. It was hard work, that which we experienced there. But at the time, I don’t think we realized how hard it was. It was simply that which we were called to do as part of a farming family. But it gave us roots, and to many, it gave wings.
Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall
