Hiwassee, Apollo, an Eagle Landing, and Walking on the Moon

One night I met a couple at Three Amigos Restaurant in Clanton to plan a wedding.  Waiting for their arrival, I noticed a familiar face sitting behind me.  It had been at least forty years since I saw Benny Lee.  He was our crew leader for a summer job I had with Hiwassee Land Company.   For the next few minutes, we caught up on Hiwassee memories.

Hiwassee Land Company had a ninety-nine-year lease from Traveler Insurance for thousands of acres in Chilton and Shelby counties for the express purpose of growing pine timber.

The local representative for Hiwassee, Dollis Ray, talked with our high school football coach to fine some conditioned young men who might be used to initiate a new process to help pine timber grow.  Coach sent several of us to interview for this summer job.

I will never forget the interview.  Mr. Ray said that he needed some good young men who knew how to work and were in great physical shape.  He said the work would be hard.  I asked how hard the work is.  Mr. Ray asked, “Have you ever helped load hay or paper wood?”  I said that I had done both.  Mr. Ray said it was harder than throwing hay or paper wood.

That takes us back to Benny Lee.  Benny Lee was a good crew leader.  He explained the process of what we would be doing.  Our objective was to inject hardwood timber with weed killer.  I think back and it was like Roundup weed poison.  It was powerful.  The poison did not affect maple, and for hickory and dogwood, we had to girdle the bark and pump in the poison.  The rest of the hardwood we had to penetrate the bark every two inches around the tree.  The poison would kill the trees without disturbing the pines. 

On the first day before dinner break, Benny Lee had us girdle a huge hickory.  About three feet above the girdle, he removed a large part of the bark.  Hickory wood is white behind the bark.  After dinner, he took us back to the tree.  It was a hot June day and Benny said the tree would be absorbing a lot of water.  When we got to the tree, there were black streaks running up the tree in the place where the bark was missing.  Benny Lee said that was the poison going up the tree.  In thirty minutes, the leaves of the giant hickory were wilted.

Injecting hardwood was hard work.  Benny Lee bragged that the two summers that we worked killed more trees than any other crew of boys he ever worked did.  We did such a wonderful job that we ran out of work and Benny Lee let us off to watch "Moon Day." It was 1969 and we watched Neil Armstrong Walk on the moon. Benny was easy going and was a very good teacher.

One time he asked me to chew on a root.  I was a little hesitant, but after he chewed on one, I did.  He asked, “What does it taste like?”  I told him that it tastes like Vick’s salve.

Another time, he asked me, “What do you see different about the hillside?”  I said it looked like a road was once here.  He handed me a railroad spike and said that it was a railroad spur from the L&N Railroad to Lay Dam on the Coosa River when building the dam.

Benny Lee was a skinny version of Paul Bunyan.  I can still picture him with a double bitted ax tossed across his shoulder blazing the trees where we to inject.  He allowed a bunch of rough neck boys the opportunity to be boys.

We laughed about the time I brought a pair of boxing gloves to work where we could box during dinner break.  It was fun beating one another up at dinner, swinging out hickory trees, and throwing crab apples, plums, green pinecones, and buckeye balls at one another.  We got to push over dead trees, watch snakes fight, find baby buzzards, and play in creeks.

Every now and then, we would fine abandoned sawdust piles from long gone sawmills.  Benny would let us play king of the mountain.  Benny Lee would laugh at us trying to work the rest of the day with sawdust in our underwear.

Benny Lee said looking back that Hiwassee had destroyed billions of dollars' worth of hardwood timber.  I am not a tree hugger, but I did have a problem destroying so much timber.  When I think of all the beautiful timber we killed, I think what a waste.  Benny Lee told us that it was not cost efficient to try to harvest the hardwood because it would hurt the pines.  In areas dominated by hardwood, helicopters spayed the timber with poison.  Little did anyone know back then that hardwood makes a better computer paper than pine.

The sad thing is history is full of dumb ideas thought to be doing good, only to find out later that it was a mistake or foolish.

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:  But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn (Matthew 13:24-30 KJV).