In some parts of Wisconsin, people raise tobacco. It's for the chewing kind, not cigarettes. I worked in the tobacco fields, sheds and striphouses. About this time of year when there's a fog, perhaps moreso in January, it's time to strip the tobacco off of the lats. Not sure why I thought about this today, but I have many great memories of stripping, in chronological order.
Driving into the country (I lived in town and a 5- or 6-mile early morning drive was nice; I got to hear some of "my" music
before getting to the striphouse.)
Stoking up the fire (it was freezing until we got the fire going in the iron stove; sometimes it got too smokey in the small house
and the first hour wasn't fun)
Cranking the country (almost all of the farmers I worked for liked country music more than rock)
Big Ron (the tobacco farmer I usually helped; he lived up to his name, in the stomach and in the heart. Great guy who always seemed to have something else to do around the farm other than strip)
Stormin Norman (helped this farmer once, too; a high school classmate, he would periodically throw out a 20-minute challenge to see who could strip the most lats -
he got his money's worth on those challenges)
Mark "The Chewer" A crude, hard-working young farmer who would have to spit more often than we'd like. The guy lived in a milkhouse on an abandoned farm one summer!)
Stripping (you pull off the cured leaves and build up handfuls; when the hand was too full, you put the bunch into a wooden contraption that would eventually seal the handfuls into bundles)
Taking out the bundles (it gave you a break from standing in one place. The frigid shed was kind of eerie coming out of a fog, and the loose wooden wall panels often would make creaking noises)
The afternoon stories/jokes/laughs (before noon, it was usually quiet as we all either were still tired or hung over; after lunch, it turned into a boys lockerroom. Mark sometimes laughed so loud,
he'd choke on his chew)
Ending time (though it was as tough as harvesting, stripping wore a person out by 5 - and some farmers pushed us into overtime without the OT pay! But I'd look forward to the next day and I'd do it again.)
No comments:
Post a Comment