[AT] History Exam, now kid memories

[Francis Robinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "charlie hill" <chill8 at suddenlink.net>

>I agree with you Ron.  I have mixed feelings about the tobacco business.
> When I was a child it was an honorable profession. Tobacco was the 
> economic
> engine that built this area of the country but it was a hard way to make a
> living.  Then we came to find out it was killing people but by that point
> everyone was so far into it that there was very little way out.  Our farms
> are not all that well suited to other types of crops and back in the day
> there were no other jobs to amount to anything.  Thankfully that has
> changed.
>
> I'm nostalgic about my youth on a tobacco farm.  I'm proud of my heritage,
> having come from generations of tobacco farmers on both sides.
>
> The guy that farms the place now sold all of his tobacco equipment this
> spring.  This year is the first year that our farm is not being farmed by 
> a
> tobacco farmer and one of only a handful of years that no tobacco was
> planted on it for well over 100 years.
> It's sad in a way but I'm happy to be out of the tobacco business ....
> finally.
>
> Charlie





    There is no reason to not be proud of a background in a profession that 
was fully honorable at the time. Many of my ancestors were tobacco planters 
from the time they arrived in Virginia about 1666. Tobacco was one of the 
largest reasons this country was settled as fast as it was. I have a great 
grandfather of another line that is buried in NC. I understand many of his 
ancestors were tobacco growers. As you and I (and many others on this list) 
were growing up it was only thought that young people still growing should 
not smoke because it could stunt your growth. Actually compared to the rest 
of the history of the world the move away from tobacco production and 
smoking especially around other people has transpired pretty fast once the 
knowledge of the risk became evident. I don't have to go very far south to 
hit tobacco plots even here in Indiana and The farm show at the KY state 
fair grounds is full of tobacco related booths.
    My big wish for the tobacco growing areas is that they find enough other 
uses for a fairly useful plant to keep the bulk of the tobacco growers and 
the other workers and handlers of the product in business and employed. I 
have read of several fairly recent kind of promising developments for other 
uses. I'm sure they have only scratched the surface of the uses. Maybe it 
can be incorporated into some kind of fuel product. Hey... it burns...  ;-) 
I know that genetically it is a very flexible plant.
    For many years a lot of restaurants stuck a tiny non-smoking area clear 
in the back and put all of the smokers right up around the food. I never 
cared for the taste of tobacco on my food (and I used to be a smoker) and 
always thought that was really silly. Here now most cities have full smoking 
bans in places like restaurants etc. but I thought that was kind of 
over-kill. I always felt that if a smoking area was away from the food and 
had an ample exhaust fan to keep any smoke out of the rest of the place that 
I didn't care if folks smoked there. Now of course just labeling one side of 
a place as smoking and the other as non-smoking doesn't cut it. You have to 
contain and remove the smoke.
    Getting back on topic... If there was a great new tobacco product that 
would support the market just think of how many great new little tractors 
there are out there now to grow it with...   ;-)


--
"farmer"

Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
robinson at svs.net