I had to work Sunday morning. Time for 'true confessions'. I was so confused with the Federally mandated legislated time change, I got to my little jobette an hour early. Thankfully I did not have to stand there, by the time clock for sixty minutes and wait, but found a manager who would allow me to get started.
I had plans to go to south GA when I got finished with work, and was loaded up to hit the road. It was a pretty drive - lots of colorful foliage in the trees, still some wild flowers blooming along the right-of-way. And lots of cotton growing in the fields, ready for harvest. So naturally, being the daughter of the cotton-ginner, I did some remembering about the past.
In my travels of the past forty eight hours, I passed three different cotton gins operating in south Georgia. One north of Thomasville, one between Thomasville and Boston, and another between Sylvester and Tifton. I know there is also another gin in the north end of Brooks County. To process hundreds of acres of fields full of the snowy white cotton. From the volume of cotton I see across the little swath of the state that I regularly travel, it's obvious it has made a comeback to become a financially viable cash crop again.
They don't pick it like they used to: huge combines cover rows and rows at the time, sucking the fibers off the plants. And I notice farmers/contractors/ginners who provide the harvesting service, have changed the way they get it to the gin house. It's baled up like hay: in huge, round man-height bales that are covered with plastic to protect from elements. Where it can sit in the field until ready to go to the cotton gin.
I'd forgotten what a dirty, dusty, messy job the process is: unbelievable amounts of minute particles floating in the air for great distances. Even on a Sunday afternoon, you could see these huge dust clouds from a great distance, think: 'What is that?' Then get close enough to realize it is air pollution that is a result of a cotton gin busily digesting tons of fiber/seed/leaves/trash. (You need to be thankful that you don't live near a cotton gin, you'd never get finished with cleaning house - as soon as you get to one end, it's time to go back and start over where you began). I have to wonder if the Quitman Gin Co., was originally built in an area where there were no residences. I can't imagine how tired a person would get of constantly wiping off the lint, dirt, dust that settles on every surface. And how dirty a body would have to feel when you are doing the hot grimy work of operating a cotton gin, in a tin building in August, covered in sweat, and having that cotton lint settle on your person. The particulate matter floating in the air for blocks around, always suspended, gradually returning to earth, attaching to sweat, creating a crust-y surface on your skin. To say nothing of what goes in your nose when you breathe, your mouth, your ears and eyes. It likely creates breathing problems, like you read about people who work in mills, spinning facilities getting 'brown lung' disease from years of breathing in that polluted air.
Someone recently asked me what my dad did for a living in south GA. In the explanation, I included that the EPA and US Dept. of Labor ended the cotton ginning business. Between what government required for controlling air quality, and demands for a decent wage for season workers, he could not stay in business. I'm all for clean air, and fair pay, but there are two sides to that coin. My dad could not afford to meet all the requirements to provide filters for controlling the dust produced in the very dirty business of separating the cotton fiber from the seed. Or the expense of paying the men who worked those jobs a minimum wage, and still make a profit to provide for his own family. So he came to the conclusion he had to find another way to be the Provider. Not only for himself, but for his mother, who was a partner in the Quitman Cotton Gin business.
No comments:
Post a Comment