The quest continues to shorten my stack of scribbled notes. I started at the top with aspirations of hitting bottom.  

After he read “Round Tuit” Jim Hamrick sent me a real one, plus its cousin the stick tuit. Jim suggested it might be fodder for another column, noting, “It’s not every day you get a chance to use the word fodder.” That sounds like something his father, Mr. Harry Hamrick, would have said in his weekly feature Whatcha Callit.

Earl Nightingale was referenced on scribblings from 2023. I was reminded of him that day by an article at Denison’s Forum. Mr. Nightingale’s syndicated radio program of decades ago encouraged high moral and ethical standards. Maybe it’s time for reruns.    

A memo from March 2023 was about a chance meeting with Dooly County farmer Ronnie Bledsoe. During our short visit he reminisced about playing basketball barefooted on a dirt court at Sandy Mount School. At a Vienna game the country boys learned shoes were required on the wooden floor. Ronnie and a teammate shared a pair as they rotated hoops play.

Ronnie also talked about the role Hispanics played in cotton harvesting before mechanical pickers came along. His father and Mr. Ed Chancy went to Mexico in 1952 in a big truck with benches and brought back 70 workers. I didn’t pick much cotton, but it was enough to help me appreciate the people who did. Hand picking on our farm ended when Daddy bought a tractor-mounted rig. My elation has been kept secret until now.

I used to help Daddy weigh hand-picked cotton in the field. Burlap sheets, tied at their corners, were hooked to a scale attached to a seven-foot sapling pole. Two people would lift the cotton off the ground.  Daddy would write the weight and the name of who picked it so he could settle up. The cotton was then hauled on a four-wheel wagon to Mr. Earnest Taylor’s gin. If nobody was ahead of us we’d unload it under the suck pipe.

Only a few farmers from Ronnie’s generation are still active in local agriculture. They are the ones who experienced the full evolution from hard manual labor to six-row machines. Harvesting technology may have peaked, but there’s no telling. As Bobby Bare said in a song, “Things change.”

We’ll close with a mention of Luther Story. I crossed the Flint River for decades without knowing why a bridge was named after him. In April of 2023 I saw an Associated Press release with some history and a new development. Nearly 73 years after the young soldier went missing in the Korean War, his remains had been identified. A memorial service was scheduled that May for Andersonville National Cemetery, not far from his Americus home.  

Story was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 1951. With personal injuries that would have hindered his fellow soldiers’ escape, the wounded corporal sent them on as he stayed behind to fight. I’d love to know how his selfless courage impacted the lives of those he helped save. I hope they had a chance to thank his family. Crossing Luther Story Bridge feels differently now than it did before. He was 19 years old. 

My stack of scribbled notes didn’t go down enough today to measure, but I’m confident one day I’ll hit bottom. I don’t know how to wrap up such a rambling column, so I’ll borrow a clever line from JIm Hamrick’s letter. “It’s not every day you get a chance to use the word fodder.”