Memories around autumn. The most common thread was the presence of extended family.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t raise tobacco, but my grandfather leased fields to a man that did. I got my taste of pulling tobacco as a young child and got a few bucks as a reward. I was too young to do much, but getting those few dollars meant the world to me. Every now and then you\u2019d see one of the laborers take a leaf straight off the plant, cut it up and share it with his buddies. They\u2019d roll the leaf right there and smoke it like a cigarette.<\/p>\n
When I was older and soccer practice began in mid to late summer, we\u2019d run anywhere from 2.5 to 3.5 miles as a team before practice. The entire run was surrounded by tobacco fields and I still remember the aroma. That farm is still in business some 28 years later. They\u2019re still growing tobacco, soy beans and milo depending on the crop rotation.<\/p>\n
Fall meant festivals and pork BBQ of any variety you could imagine. My school had a fall festival each year and they smoked hundreds of pounds of hams over hickory wood and sold plates to local businesses all night long for the 3rd shift workers, and to the festival-goers the next day.<\/p>\n
It meant Saturdays with the cousins trying to knock each other off of rolling barrels while our parents made furniture to sell at the fall festival.<\/p>\n
Fall meant dove hunting, squirrel hunting and deer hunting were all in full effect. You\u2019d wake up to the sound of shotguns in the field next your house every Saturday\u2026 that is, if you weren\u2019t the one waking everyone else up at sunrise.<\/p>\n
It meant playing in the hay loft and building forts out of the square bales. Or setting up obstacle courses to try and conquer to see who could do it the fastest.<\/p>\n
It meant Halloween and candy and a party at the church near our house with all the younger kids in our area.<\/p>\n
Man, I miss those simple times.<\/p>\n
Seeing the world today is almost enough to make you weep. I read an article two days ago where the white author was proclaiming how racist it is for a white person to own a dog. He ended it by saying that all white people should give their dogs to POC or give them to the nearest no kill shelter.<\/p>\n
What have I done to my children by bringing them into this world? I moved \u201cback home\u201d 18 months ago. We\u2019ve built a house \u201con the farm.\u201d I\u2019d love for my kids to experience things like I did growing up. It beats Atlanta, that\u2019s for sure, but they\u2019ll never know those simple joys. I didn\u2019t intend for this to be such a downer comment. Focus on the good parts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories around autumn. The most common thread was the presence of extended family. We didn\u2019t raise tobacco, but my grandfather leased fields to a man<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2501,1489,2650],"tags":[2649,83],"class_list":["post-12038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americana","category-guest-contributors","category-jason-m","tag-autumn","tag-family"],"yoast_head":"\n