The corn has been harvested. The hay has been baled. The dried up corn stalks are tied to lamp posts downtown on Main Street and the square hay bales line the sides of a trailer for a hayride. Scarecrows and Jack-o-lanterns greet the shoppers as they stroll along the brick sidewalks.

But the cotton hasn’t been harvested. Not all of it anyway. It’s snowy white in the fields on my country roads. Before it’s harvested I pull to the side of the road, walk into the field and get a stalk of cotton to place in an old milk jar for a fall decoration in my living room. But I’d better hurry.

The plants are bursting with the fluffy white stuff so the big machines are getting ready to do their work. After the machines roll over the fields all that will be left will be acres and acres of flattened brown stalks which will fade into the landscape. The cotton will be baled into huge rectangles and sit there until trucks pick them up.

I drive past these fields every ordinary day unaware of all that happens there. A family’s livelihood and hard work. Not thinking about what comes from those fields will be made into tee shirts and blankets and warm cozy socks.

We were walkin’ in high cotton,

Old times there are not forgotten,

Those fertile fields are never far away.

    From High Cotton by Alabama

In response to the Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge Nostalgia.

 

Rube