Albert B. McCall

I had the privilege of speaking at an uncle’s funeral two weeks ago. His name was Albert Burr “A. B.” McCall. Known to thousands of Middle Tennesseans as the silver-haired spokesman for D.T. McCall and Sons on WSMV’s Ralph Emory Show, he was a driving force in turning a small-town furniture store into a multi-million- dollar business.

Born the fourth child (third son) to David Thomas (D.T.) McCall and Amy Manning McCall, he seemed destined for a career in business. His father was an accomplished salesman, beginning his career driving a mule wagon as he sold his wares throughout Middle Tennessee. He began by selling (and trading) chickens and eggs. That led him to represent the Corn King and Morman companies as he delivered animal feed supplement products to farms for miles around.

In the earliest days of my career in livestock marketing, I was asked by countless farmers of his generation, “Are you any kin to D.T. McCall? He’s been on my farm!” As a salesman, D.T. McCall took his products to his customer’s farms. As a marketer, A.B. McCall came into their livingrooms.

In the beginning of his longstanding relationship with WSMV Television and The Ralph Emory Show, it was a reach, and somewhat of a risk, for a business in a small town to pay $200 for 30 seconds of airtime. But that $1000 dollars per week made “D.T. McCall and Sons” a household name. For many years, Middle Tennessee woke up to the live music and antics on the Ralph Emory Show at 5:00AM. A. B. McCall was right in the middle of it all. Whether he was promoting an outhouse race, bedroom furniture made of “real tree wood,” or a microwave oven that would “brown a biscuit,” he was laughing, smiling, and saying, “Heyyyyy!”

The entire WSM (later WSMV), Channel 4 viewing area opened up to D.T McCall and Sons - from Harriman to Hohenwald, from southern Kentucky to northern Alabama - all became McCall’s marketing domain.

But A. B. McCall was more than a marketing wizard. His marketing savvy was complimented by his buying prowess. He knew how, and when, to buy. He bought right and he bought “big.” In its day, he purchased Ashley Wood Heaters by the boxcar load. He purchased entire inventories of air conditioners from bankrupt hotel projects. He was a master at taking advantage of year-end closeouts. Come late December, manufacturers knew who to call if they needed to move inventory. A. B. McCall would buy in volume, and he would pay “cash.”

He liked to tell about a “buy” from time to time. One day he told me of this one. “Pigman,” he said. (He called all the sons of his older brother, Frank, “Pigman.”) “I had a company call yesterday trying to sell me 200 dishwashers… in almond (color.) The price was right, so I bought ALL of ‘em.” Then, he laughed, and said, “It may take me two years to move ‘em, but I will sell ‘em for less than the competition can buy ‘em!”

I said at his funeral; in a small-town sense, A. B. McCall was liken to a Harvey Firestone, or a Goodyear, or a Rockefeller, or a J.P. Morgan. He simply found himself in a smaller pond.

He was personal friends of, and adviser to governors. He was as comfortable talking on the phone with George H.W. Bush as he was making small talk with dirt farmers and sharecroppers.

Toward the end of his working days, he was offered a chance to teach a business course at Cumberland University. He told me all about it. It pleased him immensely.

“They asked me if I needed a book for the course,” he said.

“I told them I wrote the book!”

A.    B. McCall, dead at age 94.

He was one-of-a-kind.

Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall

Hot Weather, Cold Water, and Other Things

Well, several weeks ago I wrote about the subtle signs of fall’s approach. Wouldn’t you know the next thing we would experience would be a week of blazing heat. Of course, the news media and weather forecasters played the heat for all it was worth as usual. I can only guess it increases viewership.

I had a friend send this text. “You would think by listening to the news that it’s never been hot in August!”

“You know what we used to do when it got this hot in August?” said an old timer.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We went right ahead with what we were doing!” he snarled.

Over the weekend, before the heat eased off, I had the opportunity to take a long walk in the evening in a nearby city. I realized after the first mile I should drink some extra water. So, I stopped and purchased a bottle. The water was ice cold, and I don’t especially like drinking really cold water.

So, for a moment, I pretended. I pretended I was in a corn field, or a hay field, or in a tobacco patch many years ago. I thought of how hot it was, and how refreshing a cold drink of water would be. And I remembered how head-splitting cold the water from a water jug was. I drank the whole bottle.

In days gone by, we took water to the fields in a big-mouth, glass, gallon jug. We filled the jug with ice cubes (from ice trays) and finished filling the jug with water. (It was well water.) Then, we wrapped the jug with old newspapers, and slipped it into a big, brown grocery sack. If the top of the sack was folded down tightly, the ice would last all day. And the water? Cold as ice. The first water from the jug had to be sipped slowly unless you wanted a headache.

My friend, Dr. Paul Enoch, tells back when he was a boy how he and his father were suckering tobacco on a miserably hot day. Paul kept begging Mr. Enoch to let him go back to the house to get water. His father refused and insisted they keep working. When they came to the end of a row, his father spotted a water jug from days before resting in the shade of a tobacco plant.

Of course, the temperature of the water was that of the air outside, and anyone knows water left in the field for days takes on a musty smell.

Paul, desperate for a drink, removed the top, and exclaimed, “Daddy, this water is hot!”

“It will put out a fire, won’t it!” his father replied. They continued working.

My brothers and I had the privilege of working side-by-side with our father for some of our best years. Of course, as boys are prone to do, we complained. We complained about the heat. We complained about the sweat bees. We complained when we finished a row and he insisted we do another. Complain, complain, complain. His patience seemed unending.

One day, he had had enough. He threw down his hoe in the corn row, and with disgust, he said, “Well, let’s just let the Johnsongrass take the corn!”

With that said, he started walking toward the pickup truck. He was not bluffing. Or maybe he was. It took some begging on our part to get him to come back and continue chopping Johnsongrass. That ended the complaining.

I’ve noticed our grandchildren run out of gas very quickly when called to a task. Whether picking up sticks in the yard, unloading wood, or generally cleaning up, they don’t last very long. I sometimes wonder how they will do when life gets hard for them. And I often wonder what they have on their minds – how they are being “conditioned” by the world.

The other day, one asked me, “What would happen if the world blew up?” I thought, “What a heavy thought for a little boy.”

I reminded him of a song titled, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”

Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall

Looking Back

A few weeks back I was on my way to an early morning appointment in a nearby town. I must say I was enjoying the absence of traffic as I sped toward my destination. Coming out of curves, I was fully accelerating in order to be on time. My vehicle seemed unusually responsive.

As I rounded a turn in the road, I was suddenly met with a most familiar sight. A number of cars and pickup trucks were parked in an open field. And in the edge of a tobacco patch, a man stood tall on a flatbed wagon. Men and boys were handing sticks of yellow tobacco up to open arms.

I hit my brakes, and for a fraction of a second, I considered stopping and handing up a few sticks “just for old time’s sake.” My next thought was “Nah!” and I hit the accelerator.

This time of year, so many sights and sounds and smells take me back to the days when tobacco was king in this part of the world. I am not one to live in the past, but I find it refreshing to visit bygone days from time to time.

I was driving through a pasture last week and came upon a tangled mass of “yellow vine.” (Some folks around here call it “love vine.”) The sight of it surely took me back in time. Somehow that pesky parasite always found a way to wind up in our tobacco plant beds every year. I decided it must have been somewhere in the tobacco seeds. Every year, there it was. My father believed in saving every tobacco plant. So, the yellow vine had to go. I have untangled plenty of yellow vine in my time and tracked it down to its host plant. Somewhere you could find it attached to the spongy stem of a plant, forming a slightly raised ridge. A pocket knife, or the fingernail of your index finger was good for peeling off the ridge. Once done, the tobacco plant was as good as new. I can never remember “yellow vine” making it to one of our tobacco patches.

I love old barns, especially old tobacco barns. It makes me sad to see so many standing empty these days. Oh, the stories they could tell.   

A group of old tobacco “hands” were discussing “hanging” tobacco around the breakfast table at a local restaurant the other day.

One said, “The hardest job in the barn was “handing” off the wagon because you had to handle every stick.”

“Or, working the bottom tier because you had to reach down, and hand up!” another chimed in.

“The easiest job was hanging in the top of the barn,” another added. “You only had to handle one out of every 4 or 5 sticks.”

“Yeah, but you had to deal with yellow jackets and red wasps in the top,” another said.

“It was ALL hard work!” said another.

“I hated it when the man hanging above was raining sweat down on me!” one declared.

“Me, too!” said one.

“Up in the barn, when the air was not moving, it was like being in an oven!” one remarked.

“Uh huh,” said another. “Remember how the tin roof would ‘pop’ on the hottest days?”

“I don’t miss them days!’ declared one who had been listening carefully.

“Me, neither,” said one old timer in a low voice.

Frankly, I don’t miss the hard work. But I do miss the people with whom I worked, hand-in-hand. People who showed up on time and worked hard with no complaints.

I like to think those of my generation grew up in “a golden age.” Best we pass along what we learned to the coming generations.

  Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall

Some like it hot

I am one who enjoys spicy food. Hot peppers have always been my friends. Well, most of the time. I have a few experiences when they got the best of me.

Many years ago, when I was single, still living at home, and working in the livestock industry, I stopped at a little country store. The store   was once owned and operated by my late, great uncle George Dewey Manning. Later the same store was run by a cousin, John A. McCall. On this occasion the store proprietor was Danny Woodard. That day I was looking forward to having a bologna (bolony) sandwich.

There is something special about a bologna sandwich freshly put together in a country store. Oh, the days of the past! - Fresh light bread straight out of the bag, thick bolony, rolled right off the slicer, mustard, mayonnaise, salad dressing, or Louisianna Hot Sause. The only way to make it better was to add a big slice of ripe tomato.

As Danny delivered my sandwich that day, he casually asked, “Do you like hot peppers?”

“I sure do” I replied.

“A highway patrol buddy of mine left this sack-full this morning,” he continued. “Want to try ‘em?” He pushed a small, brown paper sack toward me.

“Sure!” I said as I reached into the sack. I withdrew three green peppers - three to four inches long and no bigger around that #2 pencil.

“Thanks!” I said, “I’ll enjoy these with my sandwich.”

Danny smiled a devilish smile.

I returned to my vehicle, but before I hit the road, I unwrapped my sandwich and took a big bite. Then, I reached for one of the peppers and bit off half of it. I chewed twice, maybe three times, and suddenly the pepper exploded in my mouth! When I say “exploded” I mean inside my entire mouth – top, inside my cheeks, under my tongue and halfway down my throat! As I write this column, I have broken out in a sweat just thinking about it. I was gasping for air as I reached for my soft drink. This fire had to be put out. I pushed back the bill of my cap as sweat ran down my face.

“Whoa!” I thought. “That is hot!”

It took three more bites of the sandwich to bring things under control. I ate all three of the peppers. The flavor was great. I learned later they were green cayenne peppers. I haven’t eaten one with a sandwich since.

In later years, I was introduced to habaneros and ghost peppers. They bring another level of heat.

I especially like to use these “hot babies” when making tomato juice. Both habaneros and ghost peppers give tomato juice a great flavor and a nice “kick.” But I found I needed to dehydrate them in harvest season in order to have them year around. That got interesting the first time I attempted to dehydrate a batch.

I think I read something like this on the internet: “Do not dehydrate hot peppers in a closed space.” Well, I ignored that warning.

One evening before I left my office, (I had a small kitchen there.) I loaded up my dehydrator with habanero and ghost peppers and plugged it in the electrical socket.

The next morning when I walked into the office my eyes began to burn. After a very few moments, I began to cough uncontrollably as I tried to deal with the discomfort in my airways. Fortunately, my interoffice door was closed off and I could escape there. For two days windows and the front door remained open as the floor fan droned. Lesson learned.

Here’s a recipe for great, hot tomato juice. Three dehydrated habaneros (six halves) added to six quarts of juice. Cook the habaneros with the cut-up tomatoes before you turn them into juice. Makes for great favor – but hot.

Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall

Changing of the Seasons

 It seems I’ve always been attuned to the changing of the seasons. (At least as far back as I can remember.) Maybe it’s because I’m a country boy who’s had the privilege of observing the miracle of the seed and the soil and the sun. Or maybe it’s because I’ve witnessed and felt the rhythm of life with its ebb and flow over many years.

I’m especially attuned to the coming of fall. The rains of late summer have thrown things off a bit this year. I can hardly remember pastures being so green this time of year. Usually, by now, the sound of late summer winds in the trees has begun to change. Drying leaves make the wind whisper a different tune – not so this year.

 I did see a gathering of birds a few days back. I had to   smile. It’s hard to fool old eyes.

And so, the last days of summer will soon be upon us.  Not that I’m trying to hasten summer’s departure – just looking ahead.

 Augusts of my past saw the tobacco harvest in full swing. Days of bundles of tobacco sticks brought out of retirement, tobacco knives and spikes having the rust knocked off, and certain muscles, not used all year, made to ache like nobody’s business. It was all a part of late summers I used to know.

And you looked forward to the smell of curing tobacco as it turned golden in the barns, and tobacco patches turning green with a cover of winter rye.

Late summer meant corn would soon be giving up its green and taking on a color of fall unmatched by leaf or blade.

I remember when my father included field peas and pumpkin seeds with the corn seed he planted in the “spring bottom.” It yielded a late summer to remember. We shelled purple hulls and hauled out pumpkins “till the cows came home.”

Speaking of field peas, I heard this story, to be true, once upon a time. Seems this family had fallen on hard times, and late one summer, all they had to eat was field peas. The boy, a member of the aforementioned family who told the story, said he became sick of eating field peas – “field peas for breakfast, field peas for dinner, and field peas for supper.” He was even taking a pint jar of field peas to school for his lunch.

He was so sick of field peas he decided to steal someone else’s lunch. When he arrived at school that day, he placed his lunch pail on the bench in the cloakroom with all the others. Then, he picked up each lunch pail until he found one that was particularly heavy. This one had to be the one! So, he swapped lunch pails.

When lunch time came, he grabbed “his” lunch pail and headed for the tree line that bordered the school property. When he opened the lunch pail, he found three green walnuts and a claw hammer! There’s a lesson in this story.

There are also lessons to be found in the changing of the seasons. “Everything changes. Nothing stays the same.” “Here today, gone tomorrow.” “Make hay while the sun shines.” “For the time comes when no man can work.” “Summer and winter and springtime and harvest sun, moon and stars in their courses above.”

Summer’s labors will soon be laid aside. Don’t let the harvest take you by surprise.

Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall

Canning

My father passed away in 2003 leaving my mother to live alone, for the most part, for the next eight years. Over those years, my brother, John, checked in on her every day, and my sister, Shari, chatted with her every morning and every afternoon. My brothers, Tom and Dewey, and I had specific days and times to visit with my mother. My time turned out to be Saturday morning. Up until her death in the fall of 2011 I was a regular on Saturday.

Mother, who was legally blind for most of those years, sat quietly with her eyes closed as we made conversation. A cornea transplant years before had finally yielded up its usefulness leaving her with what she referred to as “her good eye.” When talking, if she wanted to make a point, she would open her “good eye.” But that eventually became a struggle. One morning, as we talked, I noticed her good eye remained open. I also noticed her eyebrow looked disturbed. Upon close inspection I found she had “taped” her eyelid open with a small Band-aid, attaching the other end to her eyebrow.

“What have you done to your eye?” I asked.

“If it works, it works!” she smiled, winking as best she could.

I especially enjoyed the summers spent in her presence. When the garden came in, we collaborated in the art of canning. She patiently offered advice as I served as the worker bee. We were quite a team. Her loss of sight intensified her sense of taste. She was an excellent “taster.”

“Not enough salt,” she would advise.

“You’re missing something,” she would respond.

Sometimes she would smack her lips, smile, and say, “Just right!”

One day while we were in the middle of canning a mountain of tomatoes, I turned to her and said, “Mother you are a great consultant! You know, consultants get paid big bucks!”

“Well,” she said. “I may be a great consultant, but so far, I haven’t seen any big bucks!” She smiled and I saw a tiny sparkle in her good eye.

So, summer is here, and I am canning again. I still use all the canning equipment we used on those Saturdays that are slowly slipping into the past. I still catch myself doing things the way she would have advised. I’m a good taster, too. I sometimes wonder if I cooked enough foam off the tomato juice before I transferred it to the jars, and if I left enough juice in the top of the green tomato pickle.

Speaking of green tomato pickle, hers was an old recipe handed down for generations. I know a few other experts who have the recipe. Call it chowchow or pickle relish and she would bristle.

“It’s green tomato pickle!” she would declare.

And her green bean canning technique called for vinegar, sugar, and salt.

“They will “keep” better and longer if you add the vinegar,” she would say.

So far, my labors this canning season have yielded 40 quarts of Roma green beans, 28 quarts of tomato juice, and 17 pints of green tomato pickle. And I’m not quite done.

I cooked a mess of green beans last week. They came from a jar dated 7-10. My mother helped me can those beans. Best I ever tasted.

Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall

When the Heat is On

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

Stormy Weather

My wife has a dog. My wife loves her dog. I love my wife. That does not mean I love her dog. I like her dog, but I don’t love her dog. In our almost 44 years of marriage, she has had a dog. Not the same dog, let me remind you. Best I can remember, there have been four of them, all miniature schnauzers. Brandy, Reebok (my least favorite), and Belle have since gone on to Doggy Heaven. Now we have Chancy. Kathy loves Chancy. I like Chancy.

That’s not to say I cannot love a dog. I have loved some dogs in my time. But I grew up in a world where dogs lived outside the house. My wife’s dogs have always lived inside our house and slept in our bed. I realize after all these years my wife made a great concession when her dog didn’t accompany us on our honeymoon. But when we returned home, there was the dog.

I had a dog that I loved once upon a time. I purchased her through a friend from a veterinarian in Chattanooga. I bought her sight-unseen. She arrived by UPS in a little doggy carrier. When she stepped out of the box, I realized I had been sent the runt of the litter. She was tiny. I named her “Lit’l Bit.”

I sat her beside me on the truck seat and started home. Two things happened that day that endeared her to me for the rest of her life. I stopped at McDonald’s and purchased a quarter pounder. When she smelled it, she went nuts! (In a cute kind of way.) She was starved. I fed her the hamburger patty, a bite-at-a-time, as fast as I could pull it apart. I ate the bun. Then I stopped at the Coop and bought her a flea collar. I sized it and placed it around her neck. When I did, the fleas almost ran me out of the truck cab.

We made a trip to the local veterinarian the next day and she received all her shots, worming, etc. For the next two weeks she began to make a comeback, but then she started tiring easily when we took long walks.  Sometimes she just sat down as if she didn’t want to go with me. I thought, at first, she wasn’t training like I had hoped. Soon I realized something was wrong.

So, I took her back to see the vet. As he was in the middle of a thorough examination, I quipped, “Doc, you think she’s going to make it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, thoughtfully, as he turned to me. I did not like the tone in his voice. “She has a bad case of whipworms,” he continued. “We’ll see.”

I buried “Lit’l Bit” two days later. It was a private ceremony – just my dog and me. It was in my 26th year. I cried like a baby.             

I have come to find out dogs are somewhat like people when they begin to grow old. They start acting a little cranky. They become more fractious.

Chancy hates fireworks and stormy weather. She can hear thunder when it is still miles away. It makes her stir crazy. Then she begins to hyperventilate. It is hard to sleep when one of your bed partners is hyperventilating.

One morning last week, I think it was Wednesday, I was awakened at 2:30 am by heavy breathing. Chancy was right beside my head. Outside the thunder was rolling. I had no choice but to retire to my recliner in the den.

I decided to sit quietly and enjoy the storm. It was spectacular! Delayed strikes of lightning lit up the inside of the house and the thunder crashed. I marveled at the power of nature.

Years ago, part of my job responsibility with the Department of Agriculture-State of Tennessee was grading a feeder pig sale in Unionville, TN. In the stockyard there was a bulletin board where some resourceful person posted little quotes and newspaper and magazine clippings. I shall never forget a particular quote I noticed early one morning.

“Stormy weather comes our way from time to time to remind us we aren’t really in control of anything.”  

I once read of One who, in the middle of a great storm, rebuked the wind and the waves and all became still.

If Kathy’s dog knew that we both would sleep better.

  Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall