Many years ago, when burley tobacco was king in Middle Tennessee late of June and early July would find most tobacco “laid by.” Dark green and growing, burley seemed to thrive as temperatures were on the rise. By then, my father would be looking ahead to July 4, a day when his sons were conscripted to fall in and “top” tobacco and dig potatoes. And hot? It mattered not.
When we grew older and had other holiday plans, those plans were put on hold until the work was done. We never resented it. It was part of the call of farm life. Looking back, I have come to realize we grew up in a Golden Age.
Neighbors helped neighbors. Swapping work was as natural as breathing. Dependability was the order of the day.
I say it was a Golden Age because of the security which surrounded us. We encountered “absolutes” at every turn.
You absolutely attended church on Sunday. You absolutely remembered the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy. (Unless the ox was in the ditch.) You absolutely respected parental authority. If you got a paddling or whipping (I hesitate to use the word “whipping” because it seems so severe in today’s world) at school, you absolutely got another one when you got home. I was introduced to a paddle on more than one occasion, beginning in the 1st grade, and so far, it seems I did not suffer any permanent mental of emotional scars.
You were absolutely expected to carry your share of the load. You could absolutely count on your neighbor. You were absolutely expected to show good manners. Adults were absolutely shown respect.
The boys and girls of those summers experienced the hazards of life, first hand. Sometimes newborn calves didn’t make it, hens were snatched away by predators, and occasionally puppies and kittens died.
Speaking of hazards, most of us ran barefooted in the summertime. Shoeless feet fell prey to honeybees, rusty nails and broken fruit jars. I ended the life of many a honeybee. Any country boy or girl knows the honeybee gives up its life in its last defense. I have pulled many a honeybee stinger from the floor of my foot. If my foot wasn’t too dirty my father would attempt to suck out the poison. Baking soda paste or tobacco juice was good for drawing out the venom.
Rusty nails were another story. In my mother’s mind puncture wounds were serious business. Rust only complicated the situation. To her, blood poisoning was no laughing matter. If you were stuck with a rusty nail, you were going to be stuck with a tetanus shot. No two ways about it.
Broken fruit jars lying in tall grass were altogether another matter. They were known to “lay a foot wide open.” My bothers and I have scars to prove it.
After enduring the scorching heat we have experienced lately, a friend asked, “How did y’all deal with 90 degree-plus temperatures when you worked on the farm?”
“First of all,” I said. “We didn’t know about the “heat index” or the “wind chill factor” when I was growing up. Hot was hot, and cold was cold. Secondly, we did not have to be reminded to hydrate. If you sweated a lot, you had sense enough to drink a lot of water.”
When the temperature climbed into the 90’s, we went to work before daylight. (My brothers and I handed up many a load of tobacco under the beam of truck headlamps.) Then, to use my brother, Tom’s words, we “dogged it off” around 10:00AM , and rested during the hottest part of the day. We returned to work around 3:00PM and finished the day. Any way you count it, we managed to get our 10 hours in.
It was a good life. Sometimes hard, but good. I appreciate it more today than ever.
Copyright 2024 by Jack McCall
