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For the record, I am not a smoker, nor have I ever smoked. But in the summer of 1958, I was living in southern North Carolina on a tobacco farm owned by my paternal grandfather. I had finished second grade and had developed a pretty good Southern drawl. My mother and I had followed the tractor and its wagon laden with water filled barrels down the rows of tobacco earlier in the summer, taking cups of water and offering water to the thirsty plants. By the end of July, the plants were beginning to show their “sand leaves,” beginning to brown and signifying harvest time.

 

Tobacco growing in field.
Picture courtesy of Library of Congress.

 

Cousins, aunts, and uncles gathered at the tobacco barn — a weathered structure with high rafters and a large overhang in front to provide a modicum of shade for the tobacco workers. Some would be sent out with the tractor to cut the stalks of tobacco in the field, filling the large wagon that once carried the water used to grow the crop. They would bring the stalks of tobacco back to the barn where “strippers” with machetes would cut the leaves from the stalks. 

 

I was old enough to be a “hander.” I would hand the cut tobacco leaves to a “stringer” who would take the handful of tobacco leaves and string them onto a pole to hang in the tobacco barn. All day long the tractor delivered the stalks of tobacco. It must have been grueling work; but as a kid, I thought it was grand fun to sing along to the radio blasting songs from Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Ricky Nelson, etc., or listening to the gossip and talk of elders that I probably wouldn’t have heard under normal circumstances. At the end of the day, we were paid our wages. I think I earned $0.25 per day – big time money for a seven-year-old in 1958!

 

Stringing tobacco.
Picture courtesy of Library of Congress.

 

Once the tobacco was strung, it would hang in the rafters of the tobacco barn to cure. And though I have never smoked, I can attest that there is nothing that smells any better in this world than tobacco curing in a barn. As a child, the only thing that came close was the smell of Nestle Quick. It must have been the chocolate notes of the fragrant leaves.

 

Tobacco barn.
Picture courtesy of Library of Congress.

 

I lived just one year on that farm, but I loved every second of it (well, except for hand watering acres of tobacco plants). In the summer, my extended family would gather for Friday fish fries with sun perch caught in the nearby ponds, butter beans, and corn fritters. In the fall, my father would purchase bushels of oysters and steam them over hot coals for an oyster roast and buttery cornbread or hush puppies. My Southern drawl may be gone, but my Tar Heel roots remain strong.