Lesson in the Burley barn

Do you remember the turning points in your life; certain things or people which caused you to rethink and redirect your future self? Maybe it was a historical event like the assassination of President Kennedy or possibly more personal such as when you found out that yes, you can become old and infirm. I have one from my mid-teens that I shall always remember as influencing the course of my life. It all came about on a cool Saturday morning when I was hired by a local farmer to help “pull” tobacco. Pulling tobacco means that people would pull the cured leaves off the stalks and sort them by color or location on the stalk. In East Tennessee, growers cultivated a type of tobacco known as Kentucky Burley which is a favorite of cigarette manufacturers. Burley is planted in late springtime and harvested in late summer or early autumn. Field hands work in pairs with one person cutting the stalks just above the ground and the other person “spearing” each stalk onto a metal-tipped tobacco stick which holds from four to six stalks. When the first stick is full, the worker removes the spear tip, leans the filled stick against his hip as the cutter picks up another stick from the ground, and hands him more stalks to fill it. When he has two full sticks, he props them against each other and they remain standing until a truck or farm tractor and trailer comes by to pick them up. Because there was but little help to be had on the farms, most of the cutting was done of the mornings and the plants were allowed to wilt in the hot sun. If the weather was supposed to be fair the next day, most times they would cut all day or until the patch was all cut and then haul it to the barn the next day. Wilting made the plants handle with without as much chance of breaking the fragile leaves. After the tobacco air cured in a drafty barn for two-to-three months, it was usually ready for market. The last thing we had to do was the above mentioned pulling, grading, tying, and packing it onto baskets ready to haul to a warehouse. Before that could be done, the leaves must come into “case”, meaning they had to have enough moisture in them to resist crumbling when handled; they were very dry from curing and could quickly turn to powder. We worked at grading tables where someone would bring us tobacco stalks to strip and gather the tied ones we had ready. If you know what a skunk smells like, you know what greeted us when we opened the barn doors that morning. The air was heavy with cool mist and each droplet smelled as if it had absorbed the entire output of a full grown, loaded for action skunk. For some reason known only to the critter and whatever it was he was punishing, the interior of the barn was well covered with stink. We left the doors open to allow the fragrance to moderate a bit, but we had to get to work soon before the Burley went out of case when the air dried out. When we finally began our chore, the old farmhand across the table from me said something about the “polecat” smell being so strong. In my school science class, it hadn’t been long since we had talked about the difference in a skunk and a polecat; polecats live in Europe and stink, but are of no relation to the American skunk which smells even worse. I offhandedly remarked that what had actually been in the barn was a skunk and not a polecat because polecats lived across the ocean. I phrased it something like this: “They ain’t no polecats around here; we have skunks instead.” The old fellow gave me a sideways look and said, “My daddy said they are polecats and my granddaddy said they are polecats”. He then hit me with the clincher, “There are no polecats around here,” he said. I was taken aback and when I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, he spit a shot of tobacco juice against the barn planks and repeated, “There are no polecats around here; you were supposed to say ‘there are no polecats around here’”. You see boy, all the education in the world ain’t no good if it muddies the facts. The fact is, we call ‘em polecats and all the perfume in Paris ain’t going to make them smell like they are from across the seas or from next door.” In one swift blow to my ego, the man had corrected my grammar and set my head straight about how things were in the real world. I was chastised and a bit embarrassed, but the day went on without any animosity between us and my lifetime philosophy of “we are who we are” was set that day. I never correct anyone about their grammar or little else since that stinky Saturday morning. Well, maybe I do correct some people about their politics and chide them about religion, but I don’t take myself for granted when doing so. I think I will eventually expand this story to cover the entire local tobacco raising process from the time the soil is first turned in late autumn until the leaf is sold at market and the money is spent; after all, tobacco was the main cash crop for our farm families until it fell out of favor because of reduced tobacco usage by Americans.
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Have a Mary Poppins weekend, my friends.
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