But as I say, this was once upon a time. No longer do people gather once a week to help Edgar Pickett or George Harris pick, tie, hang, and take out tobacco from the family barn. Chances are that old Edgar Pickett is dead and George Harris has leased his land and now drives a bus. Chances are that one of them sold their land to someone with more land, someone who is no one at all, but many in the name of one. The many who have replaced those brown hands and sweaty brows and aching backs with the clacking metal and durable rubber of a harvester that needs no men, that picks the leaves, stores the leaves, slaps them into small bulk barns that look like chicken coops that cure quicker, easier, cheaper. The many who are concerned with yields and overheads and tax writeoffs. The many who introduce the chemicals, the new super seeds, the superior fertilizer. The many who know nothing of the day Hiram Crum was kicked in the head by that old mule they called Lightning, or the day Mrs. Ada Mae Philips blew out Jess Stokes for telling her she was nosey, or the day Henry Perry took Lena Wilson behind the cottonwood tree and stole pleasure there. The many who have no memory.

Oh, but it was bound to happen. You realize this, don’t you? This is not an evil thing. In many ways it is good. Work has become less torturous . . . for those who work. But it is good to remember that once upon a time hands, human hands, plucked ripe leaves from stalks, and hands, human hands, wrapped them with twine and sent them to the fire. And it is good to remember that people were bound by this strange activity, this activity that put food on their tables and clothes on their backs and sent their young ones to school, bound by the necessity, the responsibility, the humanity. It is good to remember, for too many forget.

Back Cover