Most kids back then: Left eye from Mom; Right eye from Dad.
“Grandpa’s Techniques”
While admittedly brutal (and effective), I cannot imagine the balls it took to walk into enemy fire with a firebomb on your back. They were a special generation. I cannot imagine any of today’s snowflakes doing that - “But what if there is a transexual in that pillbox, and I might ruin my manicure?”
Can’t say that I have “fond memories” but it beat cutting and hanging tobacco; or frankly anything to do with that crop, from planting, to priming, to suckering, etc.
No truer statement ever made. Hardest,nastiest damn job i ever had as a very young man. When i first started i thought how easy. This dumb guy gonna pay me to pick some leaves. No problem. Only took a few hours to know i was deffently getting the short end. But glad i got to experience it and all the other hard workin jobs. I think a great idea for these days would be take everyone 25 and under throw them in a sweaty hot tobacco field with a Gatorade jug half full of luke warm water and not let them leave till jobs done. It will either make some better citizens or completely break them down. Its a win win.
Then you probably didn’t picked acres of strawberries by hand for more fond memories.
I can attest to that! It pays or used to pay more than most any other crop but it is indeed the most work intensive… Dear old Dad did it for 2 years straight back in the early '90’s after he and Mom inherited her family’s farm as it came with a tobacco ‘allotment’. I drove up to help out several different times during the summer and fall. After it hung for a while, I don’t recall the terms but he and I had the pleasure of stripping the leaves off the stalks then pressing them into bundles. I remember him using the term ‘classing’ it but have no idea exactly what it means. Maybe you or somebody else knows them and what they mean. I think I’d rather dig ditches for a living than ever do that!
I would say by “classing” he meant bailing the leaves as to there price. The better bails get a better price. And the more scrubbly stuff gets lower price. Ive spent most of my life crawling under houses and doing some horrible plumbing jobs. And id go back into a nasty septic line under a nasty old house before id want to go back into the tobacco fields.
