Fall, my favorite season
That wonderful season–fall–is here. Orange and red leaves on trees, brisk days (with a fire in the fireplace some days), football, the World Series of baseball, the beginning of the opera season, and recollections of aromas.
Aromas? Yes, nostalgic aromas of tobacco being brought to warehouses by farmers for sale at auction in the small North Carolina town where I was born and grew up. Beginning in mid-September and lasting into early November, as I would walk out the front door to go to school, I received a strong whiff of the tobacco. The odor was all over town. The farmers brought the tobacco in, tan in color (having turned from the original green in the fields by the curing in barns heated by fuel oil) and tied in bundles (six or eight leaves about twenty inches long tied together at the top with another leaf).
On my way to school on my bicycle, I would go by two of the six or so warehouses in town where the auctions took place. Often, men working for the warehouses, like carnival barkers standing in the street in front of their entrances, would wave to the farmers approaching in their trucks and shout, "Bring it here! Get the best prices!"
On the way home from school I would sometimes stop by one of the warehouses and watch an auction. The bundles of tobacco were stacked in layers, one on top of another, in flat baskets (about three feet wide on both sides) to a height of about four feet; the baskets were lined up in long rows. The auctioneer was followed by a retinue consisting of buyers from the major cigarette manufacturers, middle men (my town had three local companies that bought for export to foreign manufacturers), clerks to put tags on the stacks showing who bought the stack from what farmer, Federal government graders of each stack, and others. (Old-timers will remember the radio auctioneers who, after several seconds of their chanting, would shout, "Sold to American!", followed by the commercial pitch, "Lucky Strike means fine tobacco!")
Tobacco was the life blood of the community. When I was a young teen (about 14, I believe), I worked several days at a farm where with others I unloaded the tobacco leaves, having been cut and brought in from the fields by mule-drawn slides (with runners on them, like sleds), and put on a long table where other workers tied them into the bundles mentioned above and put them on sticks (about six feet long) to be hung from rafters in the curing barn. Tobacco leaves, freshly cut from the field, have a gum on them, which I held next to my bare chest when unloading the slides; when I finished for the day, my chest and stomach were black from the gum.
I was picked up at my house by the farmer’s wife about 6 A.M. and driven to my day’s work, and then driven back home about 3:30 P.M.; my pay was $1 per day (plus a huge midday meal that was called "dinner"). I suspect that the farmer was in violation of the child-labor law in having me do the work I did.
I have just learned that, for the first time in probably 150 years, there will be no tobacco auctions in that town this year. Since much of the entire world has adopted a no-smoking regimen, apparently there is not enough demand to warrant these auctions. I suppose that the few farmers there who still grow tobacco sell their crops directly to the cigarette manufacturers (much like tomatoes and other farm vegetables that are sold directly to food companies).
Fall foliage. We have some of the most beautiful maple and other foliage right around us in Baltimore County. Although we do occasionally go to New England for the mountains and fall foliage there, we don’t have to, since we have the foliage here and we can go to western Maryland for it and also for the mountains.
Football. I still have my boyhood excitement about college football. In fact, nostalgia plays a large part of my interest in sports. My father and his bachelor brother who lived with us were intense University of North Carolina football fans, their father and they having been students there, as I was later. Every year they went to the home games at Chapel Hill and to the game with Duke, whether at Chapel Hill or Durham (Duke was then a powerhouse, and the Carolina/Duke rivalry was like Harvard/Yale, Army/Navy, and other traditional pairings). My uncle was so passionate that he often went to the freshman* Carolina games on Friday afternoon and then back the next day if the varsity team was playing a home game; he also occasionally went to spring practice sessions of the varsity to get a bead on the outlook for the following fall season. He sometimes took me with him to those events.
* Prior to World War II, college freshman football players could only play on the school’s freshman team, which had its own schedule with other freshman teams. These teams had names such as "Tar Babies" (as related to the University of North Carolina’s "Tar Heels"), "Blue Imps" (for the Duke "Blue Devils"), and "Wolf Cubs" (for the North Carolina State "Wolfpack"). Only in their sophomore year were they eligible for the varsity. For whatever reason, that arrangement was abandoned shortly after the end of the war.
I often wish that, as an adult, I could do something that would give me the wonderful thrill that I experienced when going to Carolina football games with my family. They took me to the game with Duke when I was eleven; the next year they took me to all of the games. All during the week before, I would be thinking about the Saturday game; the Friday before the game I was barely able to keep my mind on school because I was so excited about the next day (especially when the next day’s game was with Duke).
My nostalgic memories of game day are picking up my father at the bank where he worked around 11 o’clock and beginning the 42 mile trip to Chapel Hill, getting into thick traffic over the last 12 miles between Durham and Chapel Hill, while walking through the woods surrounding Carolina’s Kenan Stadium, hearing the cheerleaders warming up the crowd, the deafening roar of the crowd as the Carolina team ran onto the field through a cordon of the student band playing its fight song ("I'm a Tar heel born, I'm a Tar Heel bred, and when I die I'll be a Tar Heel dead..."), the band later playing its alma mater ("Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices") and the students singing the words, and course, the game itself.
Also, the losses and the wins. In 1940, during the final minutes of the game with Tulane, with Carolina leading 13-7, a Tulane lineman blocked a Carolina punt around midfield and another lineman scooped up the ball and ran it for a touchdown; Tulane then converted the PAT and won 14-13. My family had long planned to stop off in Durham on the way home, have dinner, and then attend the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus there. Ordinarily I would have greatly enjoyed all of this, but I couldn’t because I was brooding over Carolina’s fluky loss. However, later that year Carolina beat a heavily-favored Duke 6-3; the winning touchdown was scored at our end of the field (we were sitting on about the 20 yard line). I hardly need to say that I was ecstatic for days after that win.
Later, I was able to attend the only Rose Bowl game ever played anywhere other than Pasadena, California. It was played on New Year’s Day 1942 in Durham, N.C., at Duke’s stadium, between Duke and Oregon State. The reason for this relocation was that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese the month before, beginning the U.S. involvement in World War II, which caused authorities to decide that it would be unsafe to have a large assembly of people on the U.S. west coast. Oregon State won 20-16. In addition to the excitement of being there for this historic event, I also got the autograph on my game program of Bill Stern, a well-known sports figure of the day who was broadcasting the game on the radio (there was no TV then); I also have this today as well as a pennant (with Oregon State’s name on it). During the game, I was reprimanded by a lady sitting in front of me for rooting for Oregon State, to which I reminded her about it being a free country.
Today, I eagerly anticipate the football season. I spend every Saturday watching the college games of the day on TV; some Saturdays I also attend the home games of Towson University, an NCAA II team whose stadium is a short distance from my home. I also watch the NFL Baltimore Ravens games on Sundays.
-----GO BALTIMORE RAVENS!
----------GO CAROLINA TAR HEELS!
---------------GO TOWSON TIGERS!
World Series. I still watch most of the games even though the Baltimore Orioles haven’t been there in 23 years. They played in the World Series six times, winning three and losing three: they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1966, the Cincinnati Reds in 1970, and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1983; they lost to the New York Mets in 1969 and to the Pittsburgh Pirates both in 1971 and 1979. (I describe some of my World Series memories in my 6/1/06 posting It's June 1st--baseball is here for me.)
The Opera Season. The Baltimore Opera, to which I have been a season subscriber for over 20 years, begins its season in October. Its productions are mostly elegant: fine singers, imaginative props, and a great opera house (the Lyric). Also, radio broadcasts of New York's Metropolitan Opera Saturday afternoon performances begin in late November. (I describe some of my interest in opera in my 4/27/06 posting People dying today ain't never died before.)
Aromas? Yes, nostalgic aromas of tobacco being brought to warehouses by farmers for sale at auction in the small North Carolina town where I was born and grew up. Beginning in mid-September and lasting into early November, as I would walk out the front door to go to school, I received a strong whiff of the tobacco. The odor was all over town. The farmers brought the tobacco in, tan in color (having turned from the original green in the fields by the curing in barns heated by fuel oil) and tied in bundles (six or eight leaves about twenty inches long tied together at the top with another leaf).
On my way to school on my bicycle, I would go by two of the six or so warehouses in town where the auctions took place. Often, men working for the warehouses, like carnival barkers standing in the street in front of their entrances, would wave to the farmers approaching in their trucks and shout, "Bring it here! Get the best prices!"
On the way home from school I would sometimes stop by one of the warehouses and watch an auction. The bundles of tobacco were stacked in layers, one on top of another, in flat baskets (about three feet wide on both sides) to a height of about four feet; the baskets were lined up in long rows. The auctioneer was followed by a retinue consisting of buyers from the major cigarette manufacturers, middle men (my town had three local companies that bought for export to foreign manufacturers), clerks to put tags on the stacks showing who bought the stack from what farmer, Federal government graders of each stack, and others. (Old-timers will remember the radio auctioneers who, after several seconds of their chanting, would shout, "Sold to American!", followed by the commercial pitch, "Lucky Strike means fine tobacco!")
Tobacco was the life blood of the community. When I was a young teen (about 14, I believe), I worked several days at a farm where with others I unloaded the tobacco leaves, having been cut and brought in from the fields by mule-drawn slides (with runners on them, like sleds), and put on a long table where other workers tied them into the bundles mentioned above and put them on sticks (about six feet long) to be hung from rafters in the curing barn. Tobacco leaves, freshly cut from the field, have a gum on them, which I held next to my bare chest when unloading the slides; when I finished for the day, my chest and stomach were black from the gum.
I was picked up at my house by the farmer’s wife about 6 A.M. and driven to my day’s work, and then driven back home about 3:30 P.M.; my pay was $1 per day (plus a huge midday meal that was called "dinner"). I suspect that the farmer was in violation of the child-labor law in having me do the work I did.
I have just learned that, for the first time in probably 150 years, there will be no tobacco auctions in that town this year. Since much of the entire world has adopted a no-smoking regimen, apparently there is not enough demand to warrant these auctions. I suppose that the few farmers there who still grow tobacco sell their crops directly to the cigarette manufacturers (much like tomatoes and other farm vegetables that are sold directly to food companies).
Fall foliage. We have some of the most beautiful maple and other foliage right around us in Baltimore County. Although we do occasionally go to New England for the mountains and fall foliage there, we don’t have to, since we have the foliage here and we can go to western Maryland for it and also for the mountains.
Football. I still have my boyhood excitement about college football. In fact, nostalgia plays a large part of my interest in sports. My father and his bachelor brother who lived with us were intense University of North Carolina football fans, their father and they having been students there, as I was later. Every year they went to the home games at Chapel Hill and to the game with Duke, whether at Chapel Hill or Durham (Duke was then a powerhouse, and the Carolina/Duke rivalry was like Harvard/Yale, Army/Navy, and other traditional pairings). My uncle was so passionate that he often went to the freshman* Carolina games on Friday afternoon and then back the next day if the varsity team was playing a home game; he also occasionally went to spring practice sessions of the varsity to get a bead on the outlook for the following fall season. He sometimes took me with him to those events.
* Prior to World War II, college freshman football players could only play on the school’s freshman team, which had its own schedule with other freshman teams. These teams had names such as "Tar Babies" (as related to the University of North Carolina’s "Tar Heels"), "Blue Imps" (for the Duke "Blue Devils"), and "Wolf Cubs" (for the North Carolina State "Wolfpack"). Only in their sophomore year were they eligible for the varsity. For whatever reason, that arrangement was abandoned shortly after the end of the war.
I often wish that, as an adult, I could do something that would give me the wonderful thrill that I experienced when going to Carolina football games with my family. They took me to the game with Duke when I was eleven; the next year they took me to all of the games. All during the week before, I would be thinking about the Saturday game; the Friday before the game I was barely able to keep my mind on school because I was so excited about the next day (especially when the next day’s game was with Duke).
My nostalgic memories of game day are picking up my father at the bank where he worked around 11 o’clock and beginning the 42 mile trip to Chapel Hill, getting into thick traffic over the last 12 miles between Durham and Chapel Hill, while walking through the woods surrounding Carolina’s Kenan Stadium, hearing the cheerleaders warming up the crowd, the deafening roar of the crowd as the Carolina team ran onto the field through a cordon of the student band playing its fight song ("I'm a Tar heel born, I'm a Tar Heel bred, and when I die I'll be a Tar Heel dead..."), the band later playing its alma mater ("Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices") and the students singing the words, and course, the game itself.
Also, the losses and the wins. In 1940, during the final minutes of the game with Tulane, with Carolina leading 13-7, a Tulane lineman blocked a Carolina punt around midfield and another lineman scooped up the ball and ran it for a touchdown; Tulane then converted the PAT and won 14-13. My family had long planned to stop off in Durham on the way home, have dinner, and then attend the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus there. Ordinarily I would have greatly enjoyed all of this, but I couldn’t because I was brooding over Carolina’s fluky loss. However, later that year Carolina beat a heavily-favored Duke 6-3; the winning touchdown was scored at our end of the field (we were sitting on about the 20 yard line). I hardly need to say that I was ecstatic for days after that win.
Later, I was able to attend the only Rose Bowl game ever played anywhere other than Pasadena, California. It was played on New Year’s Day 1942 in Durham, N.C., at Duke’s stadium, between Duke and Oregon State. The reason for this relocation was that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese the month before, beginning the U.S. involvement in World War II, which caused authorities to decide that it would be unsafe to have a large assembly of people on the U.S. west coast. Oregon State won 20-16. In addition to the excitement of being there for this historic event, I also got the autograph on my game program of Bill Stern, a well-known sports figure of the day who was broadcasting the game on the radio (there was no TV then); I also have this today as well as a pennant (with Oregon State’s name on it). During the game, I was reprimanded by a lady sitting in front of me for rooting for Oregon State, to which I reminded her about it being a free country.
Today, I eagerly anticipate the football season. I spend every Saturday watching the college games of the day on TV; some Saturdays I also attend the home games of Towson University, an NCAA II team whose stadium is a short distance from my home. I also watch the NFL Baltimore Ravens games on Sundays.
-----GO BALTIMORE RAVENS!
----------GO CAROLINA TAR HEELS!
---------------GO TOWSON TIGERS!
World Series. I still watch most of the games even though the Baltimore Orioles haven’t been there in 23 years. They played in the World Series six times, winning three and losing three: they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1966, the Cincinnati Reds in 1970, and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1983; they lost to the New York Mets in 1969 and to the Pittsburgh Pirates both in 1971 and 1979. (I describe some of my World Series memories in my 6/1/06 posting It's June 1st--baseball is here for me.)
The Opera Season. The Baltimore Opera, to which I have been a season subscriber for over 20 years, begins its season in October. Its productions are mostly elegant: fine singers, imaginative props, and a great opera house (the Lyric). Also, radio broadcasts of New York's Metropolitan Opera Saturday afternoon performances begin in late November. (I describe some of my interest in opera in my 4/27/06 posting People dying today ain't never died before.)
posted by Mycroft Watson at 3:05 PM
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