Hard Work and Hot Fun in the Summer

 The summers of 1969 and 1970 were fantastic and unforgettable.  The spring of 1969 our football coach arranged a meeting with a man name Dollis Ray.  Mr. Ray was recruiting athletic young men to work for Hiwassee Lang Company for the summer.

In the meeting Mr. Ray asked if any of us had ever loaded hale bales or pulpwood.  Most of us had hay experience but only a couple of us had both hay and pulpwood experience.  He talked of the difficulty of the two jobs and stated to us that the job he was recruiting us to do was harder than both the hay and pulpwood.  Our task was injecting hardwood trees with a chemical poison using five feet by two-inch steel pipe filled the chemical using a hand pumped apparatus on the end of the pipe.

Mr. Ray said he was like the Marine Corps.  He needed a few good men.  So began the work of killing hardwood timber to allow the pines to grow.  Areas where the hardwood was dominate; Hiwassee used helicopters to spray (mist blow) the chemical converting lush forest into dead wasteland.  Hiwassee did not mist blow long because the government outlawed the practice.  We were told that the chemical was weed poison.  I believe it was Round Up in its infancy. 

The summer of ’69 we started injecting hardwood along US Highway 31 north of Jemison, Alabama.  Hiwassee had a ninety-nine-year lease of hundreds of acres.  We heard that it was ten thousand acres.

Our foreman was a young man named Benny Lee.  Good old southern boys have a double name.  Benny Lee was an outdoorsman with a unique Southern Drawl.  He instructed us on the injecting technique.

Most of the hardwood we would jab the blade on the end of the pump about two inches apart around the tree.  Hickory trees we girdled making sure to place plenty of chemical.  Benny Lee had us gather around a large hickory in a low area near a branch.  It was about two feet in diameter.  We girdled it and Benny Lee who always carried an axe on his shoulder removed the bark of the hickory about three feet above the girdle.  Then we all went to dinner.

After dinner, Benny Lee carried us back to the tree.  The leaves on this giant hickory had already wilted.   The beautiful white meat of the tree had black streaks rising like a thermometer up the tree.

A little later he called us together to watch a moccasin snake trying to kill a king snake.  The larger moccasin had the smaller king snake in its mouth.  Benny Lee told us that the king snake would kill the moccasin.  We all watched in wonder and awe as the king snake slowly wove its body around the moccasin. 

Slowly, the king began to tighten its body around the moccasin.  We heard bone popping and the moccasin opened it mouth and released the king snake.  Benny Lee said, “The king snake will eat the moccasin.  The jaws of the king snake unhinged, and the king snake devoured the moccasin.

Working for Hiwassee was not as hard a loading and unloading hay.  It was not as tiring as shoulder loading pulpwood.  Working for Hiwassee was fun, exciting, full of surprises, and educational.  We worked hard for Benny Lee.  We worked ourselves out of a job.  What was supposed to last most of the summer we completed in two weeks.  Benny Lee gave us time off to watch the moon landing in “69.  

One day Benny Lee handed me a root and told me to chew it.  I had chewed sassafras roots it taste like root beer.  I chewed it and he asked me how it tasted.  I said, “It tastes like Vicks Salve.”  He said that was what the old timers used before the chemical companies started making it.

Another time he handed me a small railroad spike.  He asked, “What to you see on the side of the hill?”  I told him that it looks like an old road.  He said that it was a railroad bed where there had been a spur when the built Lay Dam on the Coosa River.  All that was visible was spikes along the way.

We had so many adventures that summer.  We pushed down dead trees, found bee gums, played king of the mountain on old sawdust piles from sawmills long forgotten, and run from yellow jacket wasps and hornets.  After work we would drag race our old jalopies. 

It was hard work! It prepared us for two-a-days football practice.  It taught us that it’s not work if you enjoy it.  It was a rite of passage for young boys becoming men.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men - Colossians 3:23

The King

I don’t know about you, but I find myself standing long lines at funerals, Wal Mart, ball games, restaurants, and theme parks.  Long lines can be boring for most folks, but I have learned to have a little fun.

It all started years ago at Six Flags Over Georgia waiting to ride the Great American Scream Machine roller coaster.  Lines were so long that people had to have their hands stamped with a time to return to get in line.  The wait in line was so long that television sets were at each end the lines to watch programs if the person in front of you, behind you or on either side of you did not want to talk.  It was fun meeting people from different cities, states, and countries.

Of course, with the introduction of a new ride, the Scream Machine was easy to ride.  We would ride it, get off it, get back on it, and ride it again.  In fact, I rode the Scream Machine 22 times with no hands.  Now, that was fun.

Another thing that was fun when things got a little slow was to get an accompanist and point into the sky.  Now, there would not be anything in the sky.  We would point, nod our heads, whisper, and back away to watch how people would gaze into the sky.  You heard, “I see it.”  “There it is.”  “How many are there?” “What did they see?”  Yea, I know that is just wrong to do that, but it sure was fun to watch people watching the sky.  The line did not move any faster, but it sure seemed as though it did.

Gazing is something we all do, especially when trying to “figure” out something.  “Figure” is a good old Chilton County term for reasoning, contemplation, meditation, consideration, deliberation, reflection, or observation.  You have probably heard the expression, “Don’t look at me like a new born calf staring at an open gate.”   Nowadays I caught myself staring because I am losing my eyesight, not trying to figure it out.

I remember working for Hiwassee Land Company during the summers between by sophomore-junior year of school.  Our foreman, Benny, gathered us together to see something that most of had never seen before.  We worked two summers in the woods killing hardwood where pine could grow, and we saw very few snakes.  On this particular afternoon, we saw two, a small king snake and a large water moccasin.  Benny made us be real quiet as we approached the two snakes, which were in mortal combat on a small branch.

The moccasin had its mouth around the neck of the king snake.  Benny whispered, “The king snake is going to kill the moccasin.”  We stood there in disbelief.  The poor king snake’s head was lifeless, but its tail was just a twixing.  Slowly, but surely, the king snake wrapped itself around the moccasin.  Then, little by little, the king snake squeezed the moccasin.  In the silence of our gazing/staring at the snakes, we could hear the cracking of the moccasin as the king snake crushed him a little bit at a time.

Benny said that the king snake, the smaller, would eat the moccasin, the larger.  We did not believe it, but the longer we watched, the limper, the moccasin became.  Finally, the moccasin opened its mouth releasing the king snake.  Like a calf staring at a new gate, we watched the king snake eat the moccasin.  The mouth of the king snake unhinged and open wide as the king snake slowly swallowed the moccasin.

The Great American Scream Machine gazing at the sky and the king snake incident remind me of what Ty Pardon, pastor of FBC Thomasville, said at a Quarterly Men’s Meeting.  He reminded us that the problem of the church is we stand gazing into the sky when Jesus said to be witnesses.  Could it be that we are wanting and looking for the Lord to come back because Satan, the moccasin, has the paralyzed most of our ministries?  Remember the King is not finished and one day he will crush Satan.  Until He comes, we are to be witnesses not gazing or pointing into the sky.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.  And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.  And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven (Acts 1:8-11 KJV) .