Sam - part 1

Call me Sam. I'm a farmer, have been for over fifty years now. I guess I didn't do a lot of farming the first half dozen years or so... But I've been raising tobacco as long as I remember. Yeah, I said tobacco. People want it and there's money to be made growing it and I don't want to hear another word about it.

No, I don't kill people. People kill people. Haw. That's what they say about guns, isn't it? And it's true enough, I'd be proud to make a living building guns. As a machine, they're  quite cunning, ain't they? Always had a hankering to work metal. Funny for a farmer. Mind you, I am a mean hand with a torch and brazing rod. Rebuilt the better part of the body of my 1950 GMC pickup myself. You see it out there in the side yard?

Look at it now and you'd never know it spent most of it's life rusty at Timothy's old place down the road there. He was a mean cuss. I spent thirty years trying to talk that son of a bitch into selling it to me. Most of the time he just wouldn't think of it - he was "gonna fix that puppy up, ya know they ain't makin' any more  of  'em." Shit. The rest of the time he wanted more than it was worth.

You know what's the best revenge? Wait 'til the sucker dies and buy it for peanuts from his son that can't wait to move the hell away from this podunk town in the armpit of Missouri. Don't get me wrong, I love this place. But that's the way a lot of the kids here feel. Can't blame them. You know they grow up watching TV, and where does all the stuff happen on TV? I'll tell you, just about anywhere else but here in Weston.

So what was I saying? Yeah, about farming. No wait, wasn't I talking about tobacco? Heck, it's the same thing. I got corn, tomatoes and what not, but that's just my kitchen garden. Just about everybody grows that - what? Yeah, I guess I mean everybody around here. But what I farm is tobacco. My family's been here since they started growing tobacco in northwest Missouri. We always grew it. Might have brought it from Virginia, but that might just be stories. The family did come from there, though. I think it's true.

You don't just put it in the ground in the spring and chop it down in the fall though. You don't have to just weed it. You gotta go out there just about every day. And just look at it. Brush a bug off, pull some weeds. You only have to watch it - look at it every day and see what goes on, it'll start to tell you what needs to be done after a while.

I have to pay special care to my plants here. Back east they grow a hell of a lot more tobacco, but they're just gonna grind it up and stick it in a cigarette or tamp it down in a pipe. The leafs off the plants I grow, they wrap cigars with them. They have to look good. I gotta tell you though, for my own stock, I end up cutting'em up and rolling cigarettes with them anyway. I tried cigars - even a pipe! Rolling a cigarette, it's a little art on it's own. And you can make them big or small, depending on how you feel. I gotta tell ya though, sometimes I kinda feel like I'm pushing my luck. I hear little wheezes when I'm about to fall asleep, wonder where they're coming from and it turns out it's me...

Yeah - I said I don't kill people, not that tobacco's good for you. I'm not an idiot. Anyway, what was I talking about? I was talking about farming. I told you I'd still be doing it even if there were other jobs around here. My field has been in the hands of my family since we got here. Look out the front door - that's it, straight ahead. Yeah, I know it looks a little funny but I'll tell you about that.

So I go out there every day, hell sometimes I just wonder over there in my pajamas. A couple of times I got caught up in it and before you know it I've been there all day. I'd catch hell for that. Well, at least whiles there was someone to catch hell from, if you know what I mean? It doesn't seem like much now but it sure seemed like a real pain in the keister at the time.

No, I don't mean to say she was the pain, it was just the catching hell, if you know what I mean. And I was no walk in the park, right? You don't have to just take my word for that, you can ask just about anyone here. Haw! I know there's been a lot of fuss and bother, but there's one thing I'll swear on a stack of Bibles - I'm a better man now. It's funny. Just one thing, and and it can change your whole outlook on life.

When I first heard about the highway I thought it would be a good idea. you know, get some folks coming through here, spend a few dollars, how can that hurt?