[AT] the way we were raised

[charlie hill]

Chuck, as long as my dad was alive he didn't let me prime tobacco.
He preferred for me to be on the tractor where I could see what was going
on and he never wanted me to have to work as hard as he did as a child.
After he was gone I wanted and needed to work and priming paid double
what driving the tractor did so that's what I wanted to do.  The fact that
daddy kept me on the tractor caused a lot of the neighbors to think I was
not up to the task of hard work or was lazy and I had to prove myself
when I went to work for other farmers (even though I was on the varsity
football team at school).

One of my finest moments in the tobacco patch was one day that one of
our guys was out sick and the farmer got another kid from our school to 
work.
He grew up hard and worked hard and wanted everyone to know how tough he
was but his dad had a mechanical harvester.  You still pulled the leaves by 
hand
(for those that don't know) but you did it from a seat on the harvester.  He 
had
never primed on his feet.  About 2 pm on a blazing hot July day with not a 
cloud in
the sky the other guys and I noticed that he was stopping, looking up and 
putting
his hands on his hips.  It wasn't long before we dragged his bad self to the 
end of
the row and laid him in the shade of a big water oak.   I was sorry he was 
having
heat exhaustion but on a different level it was good to me!

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Chuck Saunders
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 4:28 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] the way we were raised

When we were priming tobacco, the prevailing malady was being "put in the
shade" by the others on the crew. Just the kind of job to make you want to
get a better education so you didn't have to do this anymore.
Chuck Saunders
KCMO


On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Grant Brians 
<sales at heirloom-organic.com>wrote:

> I read the article and was struck by something - no numbers were in the
> article detailing these egregious Tobacco poisonings. I know that I
> benefitted from the work ethic and the skills I learned as a minor (I
> hesitate to call a 17 year old a child as decribed in the article) and I
> started farming on my own at age 14. At the same time I have seen abuse of
> kids too in the past. If they actually were able to document the tobacco
> poisonings, then OSHA and DOL would have shut down those farmers so fast!
>           Grant Brians
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
> [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com]On Behalf Of
> jtchall at nc.rr.com
> Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2014 4:47 AM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: [AT] the way we were raised
>
>
> Off topic for the most part, but considering how most of us were raised,
> maybe not so much.
> The story may be more relative to southeastern states due to the amount of
> manual labor, but I’m certain midwest grain farms could fall into this as
> well, maybe more so if you consider the larger equipment. I’m not in favor
> of putting kids at risk, but with proper supervision and job selection I
> have trouble finding a problem. Your thoughts before you head to the shop
> and tinker on some old iron on this chilly (it’s less than 50deg here, way
> below normal) morning.
>
> Anyway, you know where the delete button is.
>
>
> http://www.wral.com/report-highlights-child-labor-on-us-tobacco-farms/13642674/
>
> John Hall
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