Homeplace Transcript
- America was once a nation of people who rose with the sun and worked out their lives in the fields, planting tending their crops and harvesting. Most were open, honest people. Their roots laced deep with loyalty to friends and neighbors. Their lives revolved around field, home and church. With the coming of the machine, the people were pushed off the land where the soil once furled under 100 plows, one gasoline engine now roars. The workers of the field have now become the workers of industry in America's cities. Their home places can be seen standing over the surface of rural America. Skeletal reminders of days past. The people, like their needs, were simple. The callous on their hands, the food on their table, the water in their cup were products of their own toil. The land provided basic needs: food, shelter, water. Everything else came from a town. Perhaps a day's ride away.
- Too long, way back before the Civil War was a big town had possibly 300 blocks squares right out to where see, is now. Oldest building was an old store, just a general store. Just like this one. Hasn't run, I'll say in 50 years, anyway. The other old store was a grist mill. People at that time when the time was, they'd sell all the corn in the wintertime because they had to have something to eat. And when spring come, they'd go to buying it back in meal. And that's, that's facts. And I'd go up there some, maybe a couple days during a week and grind corn possibly all day long. And sack it up in 25-pound sacks. Bring it back down here, sell it on Saturday.
- This general store providing necessity since the turn of the century has changed little. Hal Waldrop has worked here since the time of FDR.
- I think I could do more business now with a different type store. And I know I could do it easier. If I had it heated, air conditioned, where it wouldn't get so dusty and dirty, then I could put it all out on a table and let them wait on themselves and be up in front. I wouldn't have to do all the walking. Let them do the walking. I think we'd lose some of the old-timey atmosphere I reckon you'd call it. But I don't think we'd lose any money. I don't know. If I was changed it up like that then you just wouldn't beat you to home no more. We still carry most everything that we carried 40 years ago. Try to, such as drugs, groceries, hardware, saddles, bridles, a few notions, [Indistinct], hammers. I don't have any regular handsaws though. Fishing supplies, horse feed, cow feed, hog feed, chicken feed, dog feed, all kind of feed. Little bit. Plow handles, but we don't sell them anymore. That's about a thing of the past. 'Cause tractors have taken over. Dry goods and shoes.
- Roy, what can I do for you?
- I guess I want a piece of , I guess.
- And what do you want to drink?
- I think I better drink a Pepsi, Frank.
- Where you been all week, I haven't seen you in lately.
- Been out there bailin' hay.
- Well I hope you enjoy that.
- Hope so myself.
- People still want a place to hang out. In wintertime when the hunting season comes up, sometime you'll have 20-30 in here eating dinner. Cut them off a piece of loin and give 'em nicolo crackers. Or cut 'em a can of sardines, whatever they might want. Just cold cut is only thing. Don't cook anything. Been hunting, you know, come in hot, tired and hungry. And they eat those slab of cheese. because I can keep cheese better in this wintertime. Just don't melt down, you know? In other words, we have a big potbellied stove, black potbelly stove they call it, for heat in the winter. Burn coal in it. Well, there's been more rabbits and squirrels and partridges killed around that thing than there ever has been out on the field. You know, people get around and talking about how many there's been more crops made by that stove.
- Now that's a fact.
- Each year, there are fewer who talk of their crops but that is the pattern of rural America. Few remain who farm primarily to feed themselves. Doc James has grown his sorghum in a bottom near the Tallahatchie. He has hired AG Newsom to come in and make his molasses. AG is the last molasses cook in the area and will take part of the crop as his pay. The rest is Doc's to sell at the store in Chulahoma. Doc's mules pull all day, but their human drivers must take shifts at feeding the ever hungry mill. The crushed cane is spread to keep the mules from wearing a rut in the earth. The sweet juice draws countless bees as though it were honey. They light on men and mules alike. Rest and leave without stinging. They are a part of the scheme of things.
- It is boiling, but I'm boiling too. But it's hot. Ain't too much right, it just hot standing over it. Put that wood in. You gotta look up there in time and see where to put it, that's what's rough.
- The molasses maker must skim the juice for bits of pulp and cane. He keeps the fire burning evenly to not scorch the syrup. He draws off the molasses and tallies the gallons. His skill determines the value of the crop. There is only one chair at the molasses pan and only he is allowed to sit there.
- I tell you what, you got to grow up again. 10 gallons of juice makes one gallon molasses. And that's how much you got to boil. And there that barrel will hold 60 gallons. Now you know, it could take a whole lot to boil it.
♪ Hello Vina ♪
♪ Sunday night. ♪
♪ Keep me company. ♪
♪ Hang around. ♪
♪ All right. ♪
- Man. Whew.
- I need it hot.
- I have a bee. Pretty good. That's pretty good.
- Better than nothing. There's plenty of people wouldn't stand over this hot pan. They'd rather give you the money for it and go own about their business. You ain't got time to fool with this. Too nasty. Get sticky. Plenty of 'em could cook, but they don't know how. It ain't the age, you can be five years old and learn how to cook.
- Yeah.
- You take that like you might say, plenty of old people can't drive a car, now's a 10 and 15 year old boy been driving me here. So that's way it is with this. People done got lazy. That stuff is hard to make up.
- As the machine take over the skills. The craftsman disappeared. In 1910, Marian Randolph Hall opened the doors of his shop to the public. In a few years, he had six strikers apprentice to him working the hot iron. Alone now at 83, he still lights his forge at daybreak and plies his craft 'til dark. Six days a week, he's two days off a year: Christmas and the 4th of July. He sharpens plows, makes knives, repairs, hose and wagons. Of course, not so much as in 1910 but enough to keep him busy. To eyes accustomed to the surface perfection of factory made items, hand wrought tools and utensils may have accrued rough hune look. But the designs reflect the Smith's concern with function rather than appearance.
- The techniques of working iron by hand are rather simple. To sharpen the plow or a bush hog blade, you must heat it straw yellow, draw out the battered edge to the right shape and thickness, temper and grind it, sharp as a knife blade. It's deceptively easy to describe but the skills take years to develop.
- You take it 50 years ago and did mostly then was horseshoeing and plow sharpening. Then if you had to to make something you could make anything chisels and punches and try square. You can make just as good as they can. It just takes longer. And you make anything, accurate and hoes and knives and forks and plows and well, in fact, anything that's made out of a piece of iron, a blacksmith can do it. Well, I never did want to do a thing but blacksmith. That's all I wanted to do. I taught myself, you might say. We had a preacher live on the place and he was the blacksmith. Well, he couldn't drop my plow and I was little then, I was, you hold your plow handles up here, you're supposed to look over that round, the cross round goes across that hole. But I was so little, I had to look under it and I'd have to hold to the cross round to look under it at my plow. The preacher, he'd sharpened plows for everybody there. Of course, he sharpened mine. Me and my brother. Brother, a little older than I was. We were just both little boys, you know? But still, we went on down in the field. We went to plowing one morning. Well, my plow go in the ground and out. Couldn't hold it in the ground. I couldn't, I just couldn't hold it. I said, I'm going and take my plow and go back up to the shop and sharpen it myself. And my brother says, you better not, you better get the preacher to sharpen that plow. I said, he done sharpened it and I can't plow with it. I said, I'm going to sharpen it myself. And I went back to there and sharpened that plow and I went back and it just sat there and run as smooth. And my brother just went on about it. He says, let me plow with your plow and you take mine and sharpen it. And from that day on, I'd sharpen plows.
- To the medieval man. The smith was in endowed with mystical qualities. He took the four basic elements, air, earth, fire and water, and created what was needed. No town or village was complete without its glowing forge. It was a gathering place for farmers, loafers and children. To protect these innocents from the dangers of leaping sparks and molten metal, the smith learned to give subtle but effective warnings.
- A fellow wanted a job and he asked him what he could do. He said most anything in the blacksmiths shop. The old blacksmith, they told him, he says, why? He says, I've got a 10 year old boy cutting more, knowing more about a blacksmith shop than you do. Oh, no, no. He was cutting some iron. He cut off a piece of iron. He said, would you hand me that piece of iron? And the man reached down there and picked it up. And when he did, it just burned his hand. He throwed it down. He says, Lord, that's hot. And he said, uh huh. And so the little boy was, come, come around. He says, son, hand me that piece of iron in there. He said, okay, Daddy. Oh no, Daddy, I can't hand you that. That's hot.
- If you want to be a blacksmith well you gotta leave everything else off but that and have that on your mind. It's all pretty hard. But if you like it, it is still all right.
- The farmer with his sweat endurance and a team of mules was the basis of the agrarian way of life. Arthur Turner may be among the last walk behind a plow and carry to market, not only a product but a part of himself.
- I like farming. I did it all on my days. I was taught that. I raised up that way. My father, grandfather farmed, my mother farmed. That was my calling for me and I liked it. Plowin' and mule grinding, hitch up my mule and plow 'em. I did just like walking down the streets, more easier to me in a way. And I get just as much out that, man. I said, for the perfect job, I got cows, horses, hogs. I raise my living. I plow that you mule, make that crop, raise corn, raise cotton, watermelon, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pea, popcorn. I raised all that there and hardly for my family, for my own living. But I'm gonna be out there, finding me all day, walking down, looking down on the ground. Woo, come on back. Woo. Folks don't know I'm down in the field. Look like I'm, I'm in prison to them. By myself, nobody talk to, they ain't singing. They ain't saying nothing. Just plowing. I seem to be in prison.
- I thought singing them blues. That's my company. , I like it. In the blues, that's my corner. I get out there in the field, man, I plow the mule just as long as I can sing. But you tell me, Oh you can't sing out there. Well I say, then you don't want me.
♪ My baby ♪
♪ I know she love me ♪
♪ My baby ♪
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ I know she love me ♪
♪ My baby ♪
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ I know she love me ♪
♪ She don't do nothing but kiss and hug me ♪
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Julie ♪
♪ Baby ♪
♪ My babe ♪
- Whoa, whoop.
- Ah.
- Whoa.
- Yeah!
- Woop. Whoa Get out there.
♪ My babe ♪
♪ I know she love me ♪
♪ My babe ♪
- Whoa. Whoa.
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ I know she love me ♪
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Oh yes ♪
♪ I know she love me ♪
♪ She don't do nothing but kiss and hug me ♪
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Kiss me baby ♪
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Julie baby ♪
♪ My babe ♪
- Whoa Whoa. Ahh. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
- Get down here.
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Don't I know that she's my babe ♪
♪ Oh no she don't done know she's my babe ♪
♪ Oh no she don't done know she's everything to do ♪
♪ She don't stop being my babe ♪
♪ God knows I love her ♪
♪ Baby ♪
♪ Oh yes I know she love me ♪
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Oh yes I know she love me ♪
♪ My babe ♪
♪ Oh yes, I know she loves me ♪
♪ She don't do nothing but kiss and hug me ♪
♪ My babe. ♪
- Whoa. Ahh! Whoa. Whoop. Whoa me. Ahh!
- Hey, whoa! Geez Man! We like it tight you know.
- I get through plowin', came in, feed my mules, feed my horse, and milk my cows. Get in my tub and take me a bath and I sits down. And wait and look till the time it's time to go back. That's every eight days or nine days I go back to my farm and plow and wait 'til color ate my ground. When August gets you then I sit back and knock my head back and sit in the shade and look, relaxing. And that's my rest there. I done worked hard for it. It don't cost me anything.
- The sun slowly finishes the job, started by man. Then the waiting begins, waiting for the harvest and preparing for the winter months. Rural Americans are a hardy breed. They are forced to endure hard work and hard times. The key to their survival is their neighbor. In early fall, the food is cooked and the people come together in a celebration of the cool weather and the coming harvest. The ties, neighbor to neighbor, are strengthened once a year. As the people are drawn by the sound of the music. They come down the long dusty road to renew the friendships that give meaning to their vanishing culture.
