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While traveling across state (Wisconsin) last Saturday, I noticed a decaying barn. Not unusual now days but this barn was different than the ones that dot the countryside. It was an old tobacco barn. I was passing through an area were, not too many years ago, it was normal to see small fields of tobacco growing and bright red, long, tall barns loaded with sheathes of tobacco hanging inside. Now, thanks to our health consciousness, these fields have shifted to the production of more acceptable crops like corn and soy beans. I guess without those extra acres pumping out those evil leafs we'll all be better off (except maybe the farmer). But, as I look back on my last post, (see how much better my memory is since the arrival of my memory foam pad) I realize how the demise of tobacco will effect more than just barns. Pipe Dreams? Where will they come from? Will more people resort to smoking other things in their pipes to induce dreams? Never mind, that would never happen. I guess one could equip those barns with gro-lights and cultivate "medicinal" herbs. A
nother thought, that kind of falls into this whole tobacco/pipe thing, pertains to the corn crop. One of the more enjoyable pastimes out on the farm was smoking behind the barn. This covers a whole bunch of things all at once. Usually the fuel that was smoked was corn silk (the surgeon general never said anything about that). The main smoking implement was usually a corn cob pipe. Corn cob pipes were popularized by the likes of General Douglas MacArther, Mark Twain (as well as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn) and hillbillies. Fortunately other uses have been found for the corn that's not being used for pipes and smoking silk. Now we can use fuel made from that corn to drive out into the country and see the skeletons of those wonderful buildings of yesteryear.
The barn that got thoughts rolling.
General MacArther with his signature corn cob."Old Soldiers Never Die They Just Puff Away!"
I didn't know that tobacco plants bloomed. Who knew?
Forerunner of Super Bowl" ads!
