Dropping Sticks

 I found myself in deep thought as I “studied” a patch (field) of tobacco one day last week. The last time I was assigned a job in a tobacco harvest it amounted to the simple task of dropping sticks. 

Now, to the uneducated, the term “dropping sticks” might sound a bit foreign. It is not like you are walking through a tobacco patch and accidently let some sticks fall to the ground – like “dropping a stick.” Veterans of the tobacco patch, on the other hand, know that dropping sticks is a very important part of the tobacco cutting (harvesting) process.

In years gone by, when cutting and spiking tobacco was a two man operation, tobacco sticks were dropped on the ground between the two rows to be cut. As the cutter downed the two rows in front of him, he reached down, picked up a tobacco stick and handed it to the spiker. Then, he cut the next 5 or 6 stalks of tobacco and passed them back to be spiked. As the plants were cut and spiked, another tobacco stick magically appeared in the row. Best I can recall, my brothers and I were taught to lay (or drop) the sticks end-to-end, or let them overlap an inch or two. It was no small feat to tote an arm-load of tobacco sticks through big tobacco when dropping sticks that way. You kind of had to walk sideways.

In today’s world most tobacco it cut and piled by the cutters – 5 or 6 stalks to the pile. Later, when the tobacco has “fallen” (wilted), the same ones who cut the tobacco come back and spike it. Even though the process is different, tobacco sticks still have to be “dropped.”

On the farm where I grew up my father had a simple philosophy when it came to cutting tobacco – “Make it easy on the man who follows you.” So, we were taught “the art of dropping sticks.” It involved two unspoken maxims: (1) Don’t make the spiker have to hunt for the stick. (2) If possible have the stick land with the high end of the stick near the butt-ends of the stalks in the pile. That may sound a bit technical, but it was really very simple – “Pay attention to what you are doing.”

I found early in my career you have much more control over where and how a tobacco stick lands if you spin it as you let it go. That is especially true if you are dropping sticks on more than one row as you go through the tobacco patch. Anyway, I was afforded the chance to apply my skill the last time I approached the task.

As I “studied” the tobacco patch I remembered a bundle of 50 tobacco sticks was a heavy load, especially when I was a boy.         

I smiled as I remembered the many personalities of tobacco sticks. Some were fashioned from a tree limb – dark in color – round and straight. Others were of the “split-out” variety – irregular in shape and one-of-a-kind. There were skinny ones and heavy ones – some so big they felt like 2 by 4’s. And there were slick ones and splintery ones. And later, the cut-out, sawmill variety (Sticks void of personality.)  My thoughts took me right back to tobacco stick dropping heaven. I recalled the unmistakable sound (Like a “clap” of thunder.) of bundles of tobacco sticks as they landed on a wagon, and the feel of tight, grass strings in my hands, and of barn dust and spider webs.

That night I found myself dropping sticks in my dreams.

 Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall

Never Give Up

In this writer’s opinion, Winston Churchill was the greatest man of the last century. Known as the “British Bulldog” he was the epitome of determination and resoluteness.  

After the miraculous evacuation at Dunkirk in World War II where the British and French armies escaped certain disaster, it appeared the invasion of “The Island” by the German army was inevitable. On June 4, 1940, Churchill closed his speech to The House of Commons with these words:  

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender….”

In the course of my years, I have observed friends and family and neighbors and total strangers meet with what I have come to call “crushing circumstances.”  There is so much tragedy in our world. Sometimes it is beyond explanation – the depth of heartache and despair - unfathomable.

It may come as a singular, catastrophic event as in a senseless death, or a tragic accident, or “Stage IV cancer,” or “I want a divorce.” Or, “crushing circumstances” can unfold as a series of setbacks, one right after the other. Like body punches in the early rounds of a boxing match, each one takes its toll. You’ve heard it said, “When it rains it pours.”

Whatever the circumstances may be there is something in all of us that whispers, from time to time, “Why don’t you just give up?” It is a ghostly whisper - that whisper which beckons us to “Throw in the towel,” or worse yet, suggests “It’s no use.” It is a temptation of a ghastly sort.

As I write, on the wall behind me, hangs a photograph of Winston Churchill which overlooks my workspace. It is a prized possession. It is Sir Winston to a tee - his penetrating eyes, his set jaw, his face lined with the wisdom and experience of many years. Underneath the photograph is another of his quotes:

 “Never flinch, never weary, never despair.”

Which brings to mind words of Paul, the apostle: “We are hard-pressed on every side yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; stuck down, but not destroyed…..” The apostle’s words sound almost “Churchillian.”  Or should I say Churchill’s words sound Paulinian?  

There is a great little stanza in Rudyard Kipling’s poem titled, “If” that goes like this:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them, “Hold on!”

Sometimes we simply must hold on until the light returns.

On October 29, 1941, in a speech to the boys at Harrow School, Churchill spoke these words: "Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.''

And now, back to the apostle Paul, who wrote: “And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”

There are a number of ways of saying that. Let me give it a try.

“No matter what happens to you in life, never grow tired of fighting the good fight. For in time, the payoff will come if you don’t give up.

We have Joseph Fort Newton to thank for these words:

“We cannot tell what may happen to us in this strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us, how we take it, what we do with it – and that is what really counts in the end.”

Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall

The Old Feed Barn

 I spent many an hour in our old feed barn. To a boy it seemed vast in its size and expanse. I became intimately familiar with each stable and hallway. I  especially enjoyed the large barn loft which provided endless opportunities for exploring. But I suppose the old corn crib stands out most in my memory.

Situated on the west side of our barn it featured a 4’x4’ “window” all of 10 feet above ground level. It allowed a man, with corn scoop in hand, to stand on a wagon bed and “pitch” ear corn into the crib. The crib’s wooden floor lay two feet above ground. When the crib was filled to the window, it showcased a mountain of ear corn no less than 8 feet tall. As the crib filled with corn each fall, my father placed boards, each above the other, at the crib door to keep the corn from flowing out into the upper hallway. As the level of corn was reduced, the boards came down one at a time. Working your way through that door was challenging to say the least. It was important to avoid a corn avalanche.

A crib filled with ear corn had two best friends – barn cats and chicken snakes. My brothers and I were given strict instructions to leave the chicken snakes alone. They played an important role in keeping rodent numbers down. And any mice the snakes didn’t get, the barn cats did.

I had a silent arrangement with the chicken snakes – “You don’t bother me, I don’t bother you.” I will admit, though, it’s a bit unsettling to be sitting in a pile of shucks while shucking corn and happen upon a snake’s “shedding.” You knew the snake couldn’t be too far away.

Our feed barn always featured a good number of barn cats. My father encouraged their multiplying – more cats, fewer rats. Sometimes, to the cats’ delight, he provided them with a pan of warm cow’s milk. I’ve watched a throng of cats sit patiently in hopes of getting in on the cow’s milk. My father was skilled in the art of milking a cow. He could squeeze a cow’s tit and hit a cat’s mouth with a stream of milk all the way across barn hallway. To see a cat licking fresh warm milk off its face is a picture I will not soon forget.

I was often sent on a mission to find new egg nests in the mountain of square baled hay stacked high in the barn loft. It seemed the hens preferred the higher elevations. The secret was to find the nests before they had been there too long. A nest filled with eggs (I’m talking two dozen or more.) was not always a good find, especially in the summertime. Good, fertile eggs could go bad pretty quickly. I learned to hold an egg up to my ear and shake it gently. A bad egg is a dead give-away. (They don’t teach these things in schools these days.)

Is there anything that smells worse than a rotten egg? I was sprayed in the face by a baby skunk one time. It was bad. It was nauseating. It was debilitating. But it didn’t make me want to lose by breakfast like the smell of a rotten egg. 

A feed barn presented the perfect setting for a corn cob battle. The corn crib provided an ample supply of ammunition, and there were plenty of places to hide and stage forays.

I remember one particularly heated battle involving the Ellenburg brothers. That day, I got hit in the head with a wet corn cob. I found out that a wet corn cob gathered much more velocity than a dry one. The battle went back and forth until someone discovered a nest of rotten eggs. I was the first casualty. That brought the corn cob battle to a screeching halt!

Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall

August Mornings

 The coming of August marks a fascinating time of the year for me. It is usually in the month named after Caesar Augustus that the rustle of leaves stirred by the wind takes on a different sound. It is to me the first sign that fall is near. But August mornings are of particular interest to me. There is something about them that takes me back in time. It may be the feel of the early morning air or a combination of the sounds and smells of late summer. Whatever it is, I find myself suddenly standing in tall weeds at the edge of a tobacco patch an hour before first light. The dew is cold and thick as I am, by the light of pickup truck headlamps, tying a large piece of plastic around my waist to cover my legs. Without the makeshift rain skirt, the first sticks of tobacco, heavy with dew, would give me a soaking. It is one thing to be cold (and the early morning had a chill about it). It is another thing to be cold and wet. 

By mid-morning the dew is long gone and now the culprit is the August sun.

The morning has been turned from cool to suffocating, the temperature climbing a sweltering 30 degrees. I manage not to be wet by the dew, but now I cannot avoid being drenched with sweat….next stop, the tobacco barn.

Growing up, I was usually the tobacco hanger in the top of the barn. There is one advantage to that. You handle fewer sticks of tobacco. The disadvantage is this: you are up near the tin roof. It was like an oven. It is amazing the relief the slightest hint of a breeze can bring when you are hanging tobacco in a barn that is almost full.

I reckon I took part in raising no less than 25 crops of tobacco. When you have survived that many crop years you have seen about all there is to see about a tobacco crop. Most of those years were pre-MH-30 and Royal MH-30. We pulled a lot of suckers. In some wet years, we pulled suckers twice. When you are shorter than the tobacco is tall, it’s hard to find air to breath.

For most of the years I was involved in raising the crops, allotment was based on acreage instead of poundage. Whether we raised two acres or twelve, it seemed like getting the first half of the crop cut, spiked and hung in the barn was at least bearable. The second half just about killed us. By the end of the harvest, you were as tired when you got out of the bed in the morning as you were when you laid down the night before.

And the labor supply? Except for a neighbor occasionally and a high school boy or two for a few days, we were it. My father, my three brothers and I weathered the load.

(My sister sometimes reminds me that she drove the tractor for the tobacco haulers when she was old enough.) We suffered it out with every crop. We celebrated when the last stalk was cut. We celebrated when the last stick was picked up. And we celebrated when the last stick was hung.

Over the years, I have observed many tobacco crops being raised by other farmers.

My experienced eyes have given cause for me to make many assessments as I considered different phases of various crops. A few of the comments that I have made in my self-talk are: “That tobacco needs a rain,” “Somebody needs to find their hoe,” “That tobacco is burning up!” (or in my father’s words) “That’s a fine piece of tobacco,” or “One more rain and that crop is made.”

A few years ago I drove by a large field of tobacco. We call them fields today instead of patches. This particular tobacco was golden in color, the top leaves long and spread off. I observed to myself, “That tobacco needs to be cut.”

Not many days went by and I passed that same field again. To my amazement, the tobacco was gone! Cut, spiked, hauled, gone! A labor force from south of the border had made short work of the situation. It kind of made me mad! I said to myself, “No one suffered with that crop like we would have. We would have had to fight it to the bitter end to finish that field.”

That brings me back to the subject of August mornings.

To this day, on some mornings in the eighth month of the year, I will walk out of the house and into the morning air; and there is a stirring of my memory. And I can’t prevent the smile from coming across my face as I whisper to myself, “I’m glad I don’t have to go to the tobacco patch this morning.”

But even as I think it and say it; I have a strange longing to return to those days – if just for a moment.

  Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall

Smoking in the Brim Hollow

The story you are about to read is true. Names have been changed or omitted to protect the innocent…or the guilty.

I grew up in tobacco country. My great-grandmother Icey was a snuff dipper. My grandparents on both sides of the family refrained from using tobacco products of any kind. My mother admitted she smoked “a little” corn silk and “rabbit tobacco” when she was a girl. On the other hand, my father enjoyed a good chew now and then. It was not unusual for my father, as he walked down the hallway of a tobacco barn, to reach up and grab a “tip” leaf, blow the dust off, roll it up and stuff it inside his jaw. When he did buy chewing tobacco, he preferred “Redman.”

 My experience with using tobacco products is rather limited. When I was 10 or 11, I smoked a big cigar one time right after eating two big, bologna sandwiches. Made me sick as a dog. I pretty much laid off cigars after that.

Will Herod Brim, my maternal grandfather, died on November 12, 1963. My grandmother, Lena, moved out of the Brim Hollow later that winter. The following summer, four of my best buddies and I “camped out” in the Brim Hollow. I say we camped out. We actually held up in a house long abandoned in the head of the hollow. The house was big…and spooky after dark. One night we had to halt telling ghost storied because one of my buddies got scared.

I was 13 years old in the summer of 1964. My buddies and I were well prepared when we entered Brim Hollow that summer. We had packed extra clothes, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, a four-day supply of food and cigarettes…lots of cigarettes. And we had matches, too. Not just any matches. We had two big boxes of those “Strike Anywhere” matches.

We smoked till our heart’s content for the first two days. I say we smoked. We actually puffed. We were too young and green to tolerate inhaling cigarette smoke. Whenever I did accidentally suck smoke into my lungs, it made me feel sick.

The first two days of “camping” were uneventful except for two happenings. My mother had packed supplies for cooking purposes in baby food jars. There was sugar, salt, pepper, Trend dishwashing powder, etc. The first morning, upon  tasting my attempt at scrambled eggs, one of my buddies cried out, “Oow, these eggs are awful!!” He had seasoned his eggs with dishwashing powder instead of salt!

The other happening was more serious. We ran out of cigarettes. This called for some serious discussion. We decided to walk the two miles to downtown Riddleton, TN and attempt to buy more.

I’m sure it was quite a sight, when all five of us, just barely teenagers, strolled into that country store that morning. If we had had the slightest bit “cool,” we would have requested a carton of cigarettes under the guise of making a purchase of one of our parents. But, oh, no; smoking different brands was half the thrill.

The proprietor, whose name will go unmentioned, had the slightest hint of a smile come across his face as we began to rattle off brands. One of my buddies had the nerve to ask one of the others, “What kind did you father say he wanted?”  The proprietor turned his head to one side to keep from laughing. He had us dead to rights. But, surprisingly, he went along with our charade.

 We left the store that day with a pack of Marlboro, a pack of Winston, a pack of L&M’s, two packs of Kool’s, a pack of Salem’s, a pack of Newport’s, and one pack of Sir Walter Raleigh.

I suppose we got smoking out our system that summer. To this day, none of the five of us are cigarette smokers.

But I will say this. If I am ever accused of illegally purchasing cigarettes as a minor, bet they would have a hard time finding witnesses.

Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall    

Sayings

Webster’s defines “saying” as a “proverbial expression.” Over the span of my lifetime I have heard and used many proverbial expressions related to the animal world. Many of them will be lost to the past as small, family farms slowly disappear, and fewer and fewer children grow up interacting with animal life. Here are some of my favorites.        

 “He (or she) stinks like a Billy goat!” My maternal grandfather, Will Herod Brim, who went by the nickname, “John Reuben” had a large herd of goats. His goats were nothing like the goats we see today. They were of the old, white variety – tough as nails – and they would eat anything that grew out of the ground. They would eat the bark off a tree.           

My grandfather “called them down” every two or three weeks to “salt them.” I can see him now as he allowed the salt to pour out of the sack onto the big, flat rocks that lay just in front of the chicken house. As the goats briskly licked up the salt, he would check the herd. Sometimes, as the goats were coming down out of the hollow, you could smell them before they arrived. Any country boy or girl knows why. The big, “Billies” had long beards. You can take it from there.   

 “He’s as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocky chairs!” That one kind of speaks for itself.

“Don’t kick a dead horse!” A few years back I came upon one I like even better. “If the horse is dead, get off!” That one could be applied to a variety of situations.           

“Slick as a snake.” This one might be called a misnomer. Once, when I was gathering eggs as a boy, I reached in the nest and grabbed a big chicken snake instead of an egg. The snake did not feel slick! Some things you never forget. After that day, I always looked before I reached.              

 “Meaner than a junk yard dog.” I have seen a few junk yard dogs in my time. And they were all mean (or appeared to be so).            

 “This place looks like a pig sty!” This phrase is often used by people who have never seen a pig sty. I have seen some pig sties – in more shapes and conditions that you might imagine. Throw in the smell and most people have no idea what a pig sty is really like.                

“Don’t eat like a pig!” Since I’m on the subject of pigs, I thought I would throw in another.  My late mother was big on table manners. “Don’t chew your food with your mouth open!” she would admonish. Growing up I had a friend who chewed his food with his mouth open. He ate like a pig.

“As stubborn as a mule.” I have ridden a mule to the bottom of the Grand Canyon many times. Out there the wranglers informed me you can teach a horse to respond on command. In other words, a trained horse would jump off a cliff to its death if trained to do so. Not a mule. A mule cannot be trained to do itself harm. A mule will not go against its instincts. Hence, the saying, “Stubborn as a mule.”             

“A wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Sometimes we must beware. Things are not always as they seem. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was a master at turning a phrase, once referred to Neville Chamberlin, a pacifist; who preceded Churchill as prime minister, as “a sheep in sheep’s clothing.”               

“As gentle a lamb.” I had an orphan lamb once. There is nothing as gentle in the animal world. After a week of caring for it, I came to appreciate the line in the poem Mary Had a Little Lamb - “And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go.” That lamb met me at the door every morning and followed me around all day long.              

And, finally, here’s one to consider. I’ve heard it said two ways. “That cooked his goose!” or “He got his goose cooked.” I was never exactly sure what it meant, but I was convinced it couldn’t be good!

Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall

Count Your Blessings

We take so many things for granted in this great country of ours. Did you know in 1922 (less than 100 years ago) only 3% of the farms in the U.S. had electricity? Not until 1935, (just 83 years ago), with the formation of the Rural Electrification Administration, did electric power begin to become available on a grand scale for rural America.

When I was a boy in the 1950s, the heat of summer nights in the Brim Hollow was only broken by gentle breezes from beneath lazy shade trees, and a small oscillating fan which attempted to stir the night air. Later, back at the home place, my family installed window fans which did little more than move the sticky night air. They did, however, bring some relief. Today most of us live and work in climate controlled environments. And today we think nothing of lights at the flip of a switch, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, electric mixers, TV, and a myriad of electrical gadgets which make our lives easier. Count your blessings.

My eldest son’s water heater “went out” a while back. It took him a day or two to line up a plumber. He and his oldest daughter came to our house one night to take a shower. It seems they preferred hot water to cold. His wife, Emily, went to a neighbor’s house to shower. Reminded me of the old saying, “You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry.”

There was no “running water” in the house in the Brim Hollow. There was a spigot fed by a rain barrel on the back porch. Drinking water was drawn from a well. Today, we Americans enjoy the safest and purest water supply in the world. And it comes to us at the turning of a faucet. Ask a missionary friend about water quality in third world countries. Then, count your blessings.

My late mother was legally blind in her declining years. Her deteriorating knees became so bad she could hardly navigate from room to room, and she experienced constant pain. But of all the things age had taken from her, she confessed she missed her ability to see the most. She especially missed reading her “marked’ Bible. If you have eyes that see, count your blessings.

There were two tasks on the farm where I grew up that my late father never relinquished to his sons. One job was pulling the tobacco setter. (He considered himself the master of laying off straight rows.) The other job was baling hay. (He was a wizard at keeping old equipment going, and he hovered over engines that tended to run too hot like a mother hen.) But the day came when he could no long perform those tasks. Eventually, he was no longer able to leave the house. And later, he became confined to his bed.

If you live on a farm and you are still able to climb on a tractor, or mow the yard, or walk to the barn, or drive out into the pasture and check the cows, count your blessings.

An old preacher used to visit the church I attended as a boy. He usually showed up at revival time. When called upon to pray, he would, invariably, come across this line, “And Lord, thank you that I woke up this morning and put my feet on the floor in a sound mind.”

If you woke up this morning, and you still “had all your marbles,” count your blessings.

We have 8 grandchildren – 5 girls, 3 boys. They say the funniest things. I love to hear the girls giggle. Sometimes it seems they can think faster than I can. They make me feel younger. If you have grandchildren, count your blessings.     

The late newspaper columnist and humorist, Lewis Grizzard used to declare “I am a citizen of the United States by birth and by choice; and Southern by the grace of God!” So am I.     

I am convinced we Southerners live in the very best part of the world. At least some of us still know some of our neighbors. Folks in our part of the world have a tendency to look out for each other - makes for a safer place to live and raise your children. Just another reason to count your blessings.

Copyright 2022 by Jack McCall

Tobacco Rows

I’ve spent some time traveling down rows of tobacco. In freshly plowed ground, I’ve struggled to keep my balance as I lugged a pressure sprayer filled with insecticide. At other times, I’ve walked, almost leisurely, with a hoe in my hands as I looked for stubborn weeds or grass. Then, again, I’ve walked briskly down the rows topping tobacco trying my best to keep up with the torrid pace set by my late father. He could take two rows at a time, topping with both hands, and never seem to slow down. And I have cut and spiked tobacco in rows that seemed to grow longer by the minute.

But my favorite recollections of tobacco rows were of the times when I was a small boy, probably 10 years old. That was a time when a boy was expected to help, but not to carry the full responsibility of an adult.

I remember the days before sucker control, the days before MH-30 and later, Royal MH-30. Anyone familiar with tobacco knows that three suckers appear in the top of a tobacco plant soon after it is topped (when the terminal bud is removed.) And when those three suckers are removed the plant will “sucker” from top to bottom.

As growth inhibitors, the MH-30 family of sucker control products; under proper conditions, brought sucker grown to a halt. But they also slowed the growth of the tobacco plant.

In the early days of sucker control products, my father felt he got the most growth from his tobacco if we removed the initial top suckers after topping before he applied MH-30. It meant more work, but it made for longer top leaves in the tobacco plants.

Needless to say, we pulled a lot of suckers in my growing up years. In the years prior to the arrival of MH-30, there were times when we were forced to pull suckers from top to bottom.

As a boy, I got the job of crawling down the row and pulling the bottom suckers. There is a world unto itself near the ground in a patch of mature tobacco.

Hidden under a canopy of big, broad, drooping tobacco leaves, you could barely see the sky. Except in the hottest weather, the ground was cool and moist, made more so by suckers removed in earlier days. Sometimes suckers, fading from green to pale yellow, almost covered the ground. It made for a smell unique to the tobacco world.

And then, there was the soil; deliciously soft and brown, giving up an occasional flint rock or arrowhead – soil which had a rich, clean smell about it. It was the kind of dirt that felt good in your hands as you rubbed off accumulated tobacco gum.

One year, after a prolonged dry spell, my father opted to “prime” one particular patch of tobacco. Down the rows my brothers and I went, removing the brown leaves from the bottom of each stalk of tobacco. As we worked along, we created piles of leaves at varying intervals.  Later, the leaves were picked up and moved to the tobacco barn for spreading out or stringing up. That year, I was just the right size for the job. It was the only time I remember when working in tobacco was fun.

Of course, working in tall tobacco when you are a boy has another advantage. Because no one can see you, they don’t know exactly where you are. So, you can slip in a little “rest” now and then. My brothers contended I was really good at taking breaks in tall tobacco. Of course, I accused them of the same.

Those were good days. A boy came out of the tobacco patch at quit‘en time with ground-in dirty on his knees and on the heels of his hands. Tired bodies made for the best sleep.

I learned many life lessons down those tobacco rows. Sometimes when I think back on those days, I can smell the musty earth and feel the soft dirt in my hands.

 Copyright 2017 by Jack McCall