I usually don't forward things, leave that to Winnie Ruth. But, because this is our history, very interesting post about tobacco. When we were growing up, nobody thought about age of kids working, just if they could do it.
I started cropping (we didn't call it picking as the article did) tobacco at age nine. I can't think of another single person in our class involved with tobacco but me. Right/wrong? What struck me about this article and video was the fact that I got sick everyday I was cropping tobacco. What I thought then as a youngster was that because I had to deal with the dew, leaves getting in my mouth, made me sick and throwing up. According to this article, it was probably nicotine poisoning. Amazing. Dang.
Every small farmer had a small patch of tobacco. It was an allotment, set by some mysterious entity. I think it had to do with how big our farm was.
The strange thing is that usually we had five croppers. I was on the outside and as I got older, I was one of the fastest ones. I was next to what we called the "drag" row. A mule pulled a sled and the croppers laid the tobacco in the drag to go to the barn to be tied and ready for curing. Do any of you know all this. Well, interesting.
I have always been a friend of tobacco. When I have been in situations here in California where "health nuts" have put the "bad mouth" on smoking, my usual response is that I can't ever criticize those who smoke as when I was growing up on a tobacco farm in NC, tobacco put food on the table. Most of the time, if anybody is paying any attention they give me the" nobody is home look." Anyway, here is video.
God bless and as the NASCAR guys say, God bless, "Merica."
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