Remembering Tobacco

     For those still doing it, the work will begin soon.  Planting the young tobacco plants in the green house.  Once the weather becomes warmer, transplanting them to the fields.  The number of those still doing it to make a living have dwindled to about 200 in the entire state of South Carolina.  For most of the 20th century, tobacco was the number one cash crop in the state.  Last year, it came in sixth, behind chickens, landscaping plants, turkeys, cattle and cotton.  With more people becoming health conscious, the demand for cigarettes has decreased tremendously.

You can see the changes everywhere.  The signs with cigarette and the line through it.  As somone who can’t be around someone puffing away, I must admit that I love it.  In all fairness to smokers though, most are considerate.  You find once in a while that they think they have the right to light up anywhere they please.  Happily, those are becoming few and far between.

I remember the school schedule revolving around the tobacco crops.  School would begin later in the summer if people still had crops in the fields. The kids had to be there to work.  My daddy didn’t raise tobacco but I sure worked in it during the summer to make money for school clothes.  Three dollars a day day was the going rate fif you worked under the barn.  The croppers in the field got a little more.  We weren’t finished until the field was done.  To this day, I can’t pass a tobacco field without remembering the sticky, black gum on my hands.

Another awful thing I remember are those God awful tobacco worms.  Those long, fat, green creatures with little red horns on their heads.  If there were boys working, they thought it was so cool to put them on the girls.  I think this was their way of getting the girls to notice them.  Thank goodness no one ever wanted me to notice them.  I don’t remember anyone ever putting one on me.  Just finding one in the tobacco leaves you were picking up was bad enough.

The end of the day would find you spending quite a while trying to get that black gum off your hands.  Lava soap was probably the best thing to use.  That was some strong soap.  To this day, I hate the smell of it.  I think it’s still being made.

When the government for tobacco ended in 2004, the market went silent.  The tobacco companies could negotiate prices up front, before crops had even been planted, thus being able to control prices.  Some of those farmers have turned to peanuts or grains to earn a living.  Many even moved into unfamiliar territory, trying strawberries or grapes.

In 2006, the U.S. Surgeon General produced a report on the dangers of second hand smoke.  That was the major turning point.  Since then, 18 South Carolina cities and three counties have approved smoking bands.  I am not about to someone they can’t smoke unless it’s polluting the air I’m trying to breathe. If they choose to smoke in their homes, cars, whatever, that is their personal choice.  I won’t tell them they shouldn’t smoke.  They already know that.

For some of us who never acquired the smoking habit, we might think it would be easy to quit.  Everything I have read about nicotine addiction says it’s the hardest of all to give up.  More difficult than hard drugs.  If they just rolled their cigarettes from the curing barns giving them up might be easier, but tobacco companies add harmful chemicals to today’s cigarettes.  With chemicals like these, who knows what you’re addicted to.  It could be benzene, petrol, acetone, ammonia, or formaldehyde.  It takes a super human to give them up.  Some being so addicted that after being diagnosed with COPD and other respiratory ailments, they still can’t let go.  I remember years ago hearing cigarettes called “coffin nails.”  In reality that is true.  With each one you smoke, you run the risk of shortening your life.

Each year, almost 5.4 million people die as a direct result of their addiction to smoking.  Broken down, that means one every 6.5 seconds.  Last Thursday, many smokers in the U.S. took part in the Great American Smokeout.  During that day, they would try to either smoke less or not at all the entire day.  This began as a yearly event in 1976.  It is celebrated every third Thursday in November.  Research shows that people are able to quit often have the support of nicotine replacement products, counseling, support from friends and family, and medications to lessen the cravings.  Whatever gets you where you need to be, I will all of you who are giving it your best shot all the best.