A Visit to the Tobacco Market - A Disappearing Market

Growing up I would head to the [http://buy-electroniccigarette.org/ market with Granddaddy every chance I got. There I was never bored, well maybe a small bored even if it meant paying hours, but it was always enjoyed by me. I can still recall the odors and sounds of the marketplace in my mind.The track of the auctioneer walking down the lines of tobacco with the customers following him is hard to forget. There was row after row of cured tobacco with each band of programs introduced by a different character wanting to get the most effective value of the afternoon for his sale.Several years back when I was working as an account manager for a professional maintenance service agency I visited a smoke plant near Macon, Georgia. I had to park my vehicle near the raw material receiving docks at the back of the center. As soon as I stepped out of my car I could smell the dry, cured tobacco and a sense of nostalgia washed over me in a flood of thoughts of the tobacco market and Granddaddy. As quite a long time ex-smoker who dislikes the smell of cigarette smoke smoke I truly enjoy the smell of relieved tobacco.Most years being the first to the market was essential. Never as a point of pride but since the greatest money was paid for the first plants and by that time of year money was small and the revenue was had a need to keep going. The first markets to open were the South Georgia markets and usually Granddaddy and handful of the other local small producers might get together and place a lot of their tobacco on a big vehicle and drive from Vermont to the Georgia markets to get in on the first income. I never got to get on these trips.There were plenty of local tobacco areas in Eastern Vermont and when they opened Granddaddy would listen intently during lunch break to the market studies on the radio and study them in the magazine looking for which market was spending the best price. I could recall him saying after the survey, "We are likely to the marketplace in Greenville tomorrow with a load. Do you want to come?" My answer was usually "Yes." We'd get the following morning up before sunrise and fill the truck with cured, categorized tobacco and down we would go. You had to get there early because you wanted to get yourself a area near the beginning of the market point, not at the beginning but near it. Granddaddy knew most of the little hints to greatly help get a better value for his crop.When you came and checked in they'd give a great deal number to you for your sale. The buyers from the different tobacco companies would commit the first part of the day travelling and considering the different lots and making records for the auction. Once the auction started the auctioneer might start moving down the lines of tobacco and hesitating, perhaps not stopping, at each lot and never missing a of his bidding song. The consumers would follow behind him indicating their estimates with a jerk, a hand wave or several other specific way. There were other people next to the sale would be written up by the auctioneer who just it was advised and would keep a few of copies of the sale paper together with the lot. One was for the company buying the lot and another was for the farmer to cash out with. Granddaddy would take his copy to the cashier window and they'd pay him on the spot.The tobacco areas were always a thrilling place to go and back in those times it played an important part in the local economy and history. Dreams might be made are broken by what occurred at the marketplace on any given day. A years work would be counted by the outcome of a couple of days at the market.Tobacco is not any longer the golden leaf harvest that drove the economy of a few southern states and similar to the scents and sounds of the New York tobacco areas are fading in my thoughts, they are also fading in our history.