Remembering North Carolina
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wo new books by historian and third-generation tobacco grower Billy Yeargin recall North Carolina’s rich tobacco heritage through snapshots, residents’ recollections and geographical research. In “North Carolina Tobacco: A History,” Yeargin explores the influence of tobacco on the state’s history, taking readers back to the days when communities were founded and built upon tobacco culture. In “Remembering North Carolina Tobacco,” Yeargin and other agriculturally minded folk reminisce, often humorously, about the frustrations of slugs and tar, the cropping of dew-drenched leaves, the love-hate relationship with farming and the ultimate connection of man with earth. The books are $21.99 and $19.99, respectively, and are published by The History Press in Charleston, S.C. (866) 4575971 or www.historypress.net. The following is an excerpted recollection by heritage author Bruce Woodard from Yeargin’s “Remembering North Carolina Tobacco.”
A Shocking Experience
By Bruce Woodard One of the rewards the scaffold hands had if they worked fast handing and looping the tobacco was “catching up.” That’s when they finished a slide truck before another arrived from the field. Then everyone could sit down and rest a spell. Daddy tried to coordinate the work well enough to keep this from happening. He despised paying folks for sitting down. He would send word to the primers in the field to speed up because the scaffold hands were waiting for tobacco. This seemed to create a sort of contest between the two crews that always produced the results Daddy wanted. Mary, Lila Mae and Betty were the buxom but very attractive daughters of Elm and Betsy Sawyer, sharecroppers on the Woodard farm during the 1940s. They were cute, jovial and very likable girls. They especially took pleasure in “catching up” and sitting down to rest. All three were pleasantly plump and welcomed the opportunity to take a load off their feet. Grandpa’s old rocking chair sat next to the barn. At every opportunity the Sawyer girls raced to see who could get to it first. The chair was not only comfortable, but it was also wide enough to accommodate their broad behinds. Those not fortunate enough to get the rocker had to sit on the ground, the barn doorsill, a stick of wood or the empty slide truck. My brothers and I were envious of the fact that we never seemed to be able to sit in the rocker. That’s when we came up with a plan that would break the Sawyer girls from hogging the rocker. Earlier that year we had performed major surgery on our grandpa’s old, junked, hand-cranked telephone. We had taken it apart and inside we found small copper wire about the size of horsehair. Little did we realize that the old telephone would later be worth a small fortune in antique value. We saved the wire figuring that it might be useful someday. On Sunday afternoon Carl and I took the tiny wire to the barn. We wound it back and forth across the seat of the old rocking chair. Tobacco barning was to begin on Monday morning and we wanted the chair to be ready for the Sawyer girls. After wiring the rocker we hooked a larger piece of insulated wire to wire in the bottom of the chair and ran it to the battery-powered electric fence at the pasture nearby. Now we were ready! The plan was to turn on the electricity before we finished stringing the first load of tobacco. Before all the leaves of the first truck of tobacco were out, Carl slipped around the barn and hooked the wire to the electric fence. Now the chair was charged with a healthy six volts. As expected, just as soon as the last leaves of tobacco were out of the truck the Sawyer girls
26 SEPTEMBER 2008 Carolina Country