The glimpses of October, fall football Thursdays at Central Delta are some of my earliest memories. Even traveling to Isola before the school opened in Inverness.
And the days and nights filled with the sights and sounds of the three gins in town running non-stop as farmers brought in their harvest from every corner of Sunflower County. Even without a sense of smell, the gin smoke was eerily comforting as were the sounds. They were home, they were security. All was right in the world. The bright lights were on, with just a bit of gin smoke haze but the scoreboard shone bright with a big W on our side.
But these days the gins have gone silent as the days of King Cotton’s reign came to an end in the Delta. The high cost of inputs and the low commodity price and the promise of more profit from catfish, soybeans and corn drove farmers to surrender acreage to them. Cotton pickers were sold and gins were shuttered. Those with land more suited for cotton in the northern parts of the state kept King Cotton alive and well but soybeans kept the bottom line functioning and help make private school, college and fraternity dues more manageable for most.
I never got to drive a cotton picker or a combine for that matter. My thumbs weren’t green and the farm didn’t tie me down or call my name. The days of living in the boondocks as a kid weren’t appealing but now they seem like an unattainable heaven as an adult. There were days of “trompin’ trailers.” Before the invention of those huge round bales when cotton pickers dumped their loads into trailers that had to be tromped down in each corner and all across so it wouldn’t blow out on the way into town. It was serious work for those getting paid. For kids, it was one big fun jump into billowy softness and some cotton stems and trash and somehow you climbed out of and then the “help” would tromp down what you messed up.
The trailers would wind their way from the farm to sit in line and under sheds at the gin to await their turn to be emptied and then returned to the field for another run. I miss helping hook up trailers though, again, as a kid, I’m sure I caused more of a delay in the process than a help. But the memories remain. Cotton is still King in my mind even though the air is clearer and the gins are silent. I’m sure there are still gardens that are producing due to the gin trash mixed in decades ago. The treasures of harvest and football season. A profitable smokey haze and a blue and gold winning team on a Thursday night.