Standing in Tall Cotton

The hub, freshly back from England and China and driving by the local cotton fields blurts out "Standing tall in cotton." What? I had never heard such a remark. I kind of giggled and had to ask the meaning. Supposedly it goes back to cotton growers. When the cotton was tall, it was good for picking. Tall cotton is good cotton. I think it's my favorite new phrase now. I am definitely standing in tall cotton; and I thank my lucky stars.

All summer, so many of us city folk were wondering what all these crops were. Was it soy? Or alfalfa? Nope. Now we know. Cotton. Truthfully, I've never been close to a cotton crop before. Not even a plant. With the hub in the cotton biz and my mother picking it as a young girl, I figured it was high time I stopped and smelled the cotton, so to speak. What an amazing plant. I now see why my mom says it was such hard work picking the stuff. Ouch. If you didn't know, you'd think it was all dead (like the kid thought). The hub taught us a little in cotton growing as we passed each field bursting with white.


Mom says her entire family had to pick cotton just to get by. She remembered when she was still too young to pick being in the fields watching her sisters and brothers pick. When she was old enough, one of her brothers made a special bag, just her size, that she would wear on her chest to put the cotton in. The other bags were way too big for a child her age. Her brothers called her "Smut" because she was so dark from working in the sun as she refused to wear a hat to cover her face. She says she would come home with her fingers numb and bleeding from a day's work. I borrowed the above picture from Wikepedia. It looks like a picture right out of one of her albums, handwriting and all. I can't even imagine what hard work that was for a child in the heat of a Georgia summer.

I was so tempted to pick a boll. Just to feel it, to feel how sticky the plant around the soft cotton is. To imagine how hard it would have been to pick with little fingers as my mom once did. But I didn't. Instead, I picked up a small plant that had fallen over. I brought it home for the kid to see. I put it out on display. An ode to the hub and to my mom. Standing in tall cotton.

We later found it mauled by Bella all over the kitchen. Guess she thinks differently of the stuff.