Rural North Carolina

Have you ever been driving and all the sudden you see a yellow sign that has a tractor one it? That sign means watch for crossing tractors or tractors on the roadway. I have a friend who had never seen one of these until he moved to a little rural town about 45 minutes outside of Charlotte, NC. No, he wasn't a yankee... he had just always lived in large cities and had no idea how "country life" could be. "Oh, their just a bunch of hicks who wear overalls and straw hats and chew on grass. They have no culture and they sit on the porch at night and listen to old timers playing banjos. They ride those tractors cause they don't know any better." "Oh really?" was the response I gave him. "Well, aren't they?" I told him that he would have to come visit one summer and let us "country" folk show him how we lived and made our livings. He asked why he had to wait until the summer, I told him it was too cold to ride our tractors in the winter!

He came to see us a few summers ago, he awed and oohhed over how beautiful it was out here and how quiet and peaceful it could be... until the next morning when the cows and dogs woke him up. "What the heck was that?" "Country life, now get dressed, we're already an hour late!" He shot me this horrible look as if to say, LATE! (It was only 7:30am).

The farm is comprised of almost 150 acres between 3 generations that actually live on the land. The elders of the family all go to their "day" jobs and the next generation split the duties between watching kids and farm tasks. My friend had the luck to pull farm duty today. We dug potatoes, picked beans, cut okra, pulled corn, did a little raking and hoeing and took a break around 2 pm. Us country folks grinning as the city boy wiped his brow and swore under his breath. "You just wait son, we've just got started, hay's ready to be cut now!" The eldest matriarch patted him on the shoulder and grinned. His eyes darkened and his face fell.

Thirty minutes later and my friend finally knew why those signs were on the side of the roads... Bill, Ronnie and Robbie all came from the tractor shed on tractors, pulling all types of machinery for cutting, tethering and bailing hay. The laughter rose as the look on his face revealed his confusion, dismay and finally realization at what was about to happen. We gathered the kids, grabbed our gloves and piled into trucks and onto tractors. We traveled in a caravan of tractors, machinery, and trucks for over 2 miles, at a whole 15 mph, to the fields where the hay was. We cut, tethered and bailed the different fields as he looked on in amazement, his face shining with sweat. From that day forward, he swore he would never curse at country life again. He had realized that they weren't "just hicks that sat on the porch listening to banjos". He had learned that we were hard working, fun loving, "cultured" folks who lived off the land that had been passed down to us from generation to generation and that the yellow signs with tractors on them were really sings that said tradition and heritage in use on these roads!

So don't curse us for our heritage and shake your fist at us for living up to our traditions. We are what our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents taught us... and we provide you with a reason to slow down and look out your window!