Daddy was a John Deere man. Never did he fritter away money on blue or red equipment – no Case or International Harvesters and certainly no Kobotas. Our lawn mower – which the Tate girls commandeered every weekend – was a John Deere. We even had John Deere bicycles. Fancy schmancy. We were green and yellow John Deere people all the way. Other brands and colors were only much slower imitations.
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| Tate Farm |
My sister and I grew up on that equipment, spending entire days climbing on the gargantuan combines and dirty tractors out at the shop on the home place. If a piece of farm equipment sat idle, maybe because the fields were too muddy to plow or it was just the wrong season, we would claim that cotton picker or combine as our own for the entire afternoon. It became our submarine. Always a submarine – never an airplane or boat or tractor. We climbed all over the surface, up into the rafters of the shop, swinging from one side to the top. Amazingly, we never broke any bones or farm implements. But, if we could have figured out how to actually start our submarine, we would have driven it over to Little River.
Daddy hired several families from south Texas each summer to chop cotton. One summer, Dallas equipped us with hoes, and we chopped with them. We were hoe’rs. I know they must have been absolutely thrilled to have us in their midst. They were serious about their work, and quick. Speaking no English – at least not to us – they were covered head to toe in long sleeve work shirts, boots, jeans and wide brimmed straw hats. It was freakin hot, and we thought that was idiotic. Laughing and singing to our portable radio, we wore our bikini tops and Daisy Dukes. We didn’t even wear hats – we wanted those natural highlights you only get from the sun.
We quickly identified the low spot with standing water at mid-field as our natural turning around spot. It certainly wasn’t our fault there was a huge area in the field with standing water – that was totally an act of God. So my sister and I chopped to the water, turned around and chopped back to the highway. The crazy farm hands went around the water and then continued chopping all the way to the ditch. We could barely see that ditch on the horizon! Daddy was not too thrilled with our progress – evidently we were slow hoe’rs. He should have paid us per row instead of per hour, but a deal was a deal. I’m pretty sure we never got that deal again.
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| Mississippi County Cotton |
The cotton that survived was harvested in the fall. This was one of our absolute favorite times because we loved to tromp cotton. We parked our submarines and spent every moment in the cotton trailers. There was nothing like seeing a full John Deere picker opening along side a trailer and dumping a giant load of freshly picked warm cotton. Sometimes we stood underneath the basket while the cotton was emptied on us like popcorn, then we climbed into the basket high up in the air to make sure there was no cotton clinging inside. Once it was dumped, our ‘job’ was to tromp it. We stomped it down, packing the corners of the trailer so that it would hold more. As soon as the picker returned to the field, we began digging tunnels in the cotton – long, deep, hot tunnels – totally un-tromping it. At dark, we went home exhausted, with cotton lint covering our clothes and burs in our hair. It was the mark of a great day.
I love the smell of freshly picked cotton. It has a very distinct smell that cannot be duplicated. If you’ve picked it, tromped it, turned head over heels in it, or napped in it, then you know. And you’ll always remember. It’s a sweet, clean, damp smell. It smells like cotton.
talya
Musical Pairings:
Creedance Clearwater Revival, “Cotton Fields”
Buddy Jewell, “Sweet Southern Comfort”
talya
Musical Pairings:
Creedance Clearwater Revival, “Cotton Fields”
Buddy Jewell, “Sweet Southern Comfort”
