It was a hot and aggravating day at work. It’s been that way quite often lately. The guy I was working with was not in a good mood. It’s also been that way quite often lately. Trying to maybe ease his mood, I used a line that I use often, maybe too often, this time of year.
“You know, we could be in the tobacco field.” I knew he grew up barning tobacco and would understand.
It didn’t work. He grumbled back, “I just as soon be in a tobacco field.” Right then I knew that it was no use, because I know he knew better. No, he wouldn’t rather be in a tobacco field.
My sister and I started working in tobacco on the family farm when we were around six or seven years old. It began as handing leaves of tobacco to the person tying it on a stick at the barn. It later progressed as I got older to driving the tractor in the field, then back and forth to the barn and finally, to cropping (or picking the leaves, for you city folk) tobacco in the field. The hours were long. Often, the day would start sometimes at 5:30, if we had to take out a barn of cured tobacco and would end late, usually around dark.
And that was what I was usually doing during the summer growing up. As soon as I was big enough, Daddy took me off the tractor and gave me a row along with the other croppers. To those who are fortunately unfamiliar with the process, cropping tobacco isn’t very complicated. You take a row of tobacco. You prime, or crop, the ripe leaves off each stalk, usually three or four leaves, starting from the bottom working your way up the stalk. You tuck the primed leaves under your arm until you get an armful, then carry them and throw them in the trailer. You continue the process until you finish out the row of tobacco. Then you do another row, then another row, and another, and another.
If it sounds like hard work, well, it was. We would start early in the morning. Most of the time the tobacco leaves were soaking wet from the morning dew. So we would get soaking wet. And along the way some of that tobacco juice would be sure to get in your eyes, stinging them. But as the morning passed the sun would come out and the temperature would soar. And the heat and humidity would soon cause sweat to replace the morning dew on your soaked clothes. One thing the experienced croppers would often say when the day would heat up was, “You better watch out. Don’t let the monkey jump on your back.” They were right. You had to watch out for the monkey.
Some of you are probably wondering, “What in the world is “the monkey?” Once again, some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been cropping tobacco all day. The heat and humidity has the sweat pouring off you like you’re in a sauna. You’re cropping the lower leaves, which are called sand lugs, so you feel like you’ve been standing on your head the whole day. You crop an armful of tobacco and straighten up to carry it to the trailer. Then everything starts spinning around. You feel woozy. Then you see him, the monkey. OK, you really don’t see a monkey, but that’s what we called it. Why, I don’t know. But if he jumped on your back, you’ve had a bad day. The tobacco harvest would begin around the first of July and would usually finish up around Labor Day. By then, you were ready to get back to school.
This is one of those “If you know, you know” things. If you are of a certain age and were raised on a farm in eastern North Carolina, you probably know. And no matter how hot and aggravated you get this summer, you can say, “Well, at least I’m not in a tobacco field.”