Писатель воссоздал ностальгические воспоминания о старом сарае для табака и семейных традициях

I ventured into an old tobacco barn a few weeks back. I was on a mission — looking for a few tobacco sticks. As I stepped inside the old barn, I was met with an eerie stillness. There was a hallowedness about it. I stopped for a moment as I felt a strange sense of reverence for the old structure. We were no strangers to one another. Over the years we had spent many hours in each other’s presence. As I stood quietly, the old barn began to tell me stories stored up in its memory. My attention was drawn to the barn’s dirt floor. In the dust, tiny craters had been spun by some small insect. I’ve always suspected it was some kind of tiny wasp. Some say it is the doings of spiders. Whatever the case, those little symmetrical caters in the dust can mean only one thing – lack of use. There is no more coming and going in this old barn. Its usefulness has been lost to the past. Built in the 1960s, it was cornered and supported with long straight cedar posts snaked out of the Brim Hollow. It was tiered and framed with rough-cut 2 by 6’s and 2 x 4’s. As I looked up through the maze of irregular rectangles formed by the crisscrossing tiers, they stared back at me like the blank windows of a house where no one lived anymore. I thought of how many times my brothers and I had navigated those tiers over the years. In most years I hung tobacco in the top of the barn. My brothers pointed out on a regular basis that the top of the barn was the easiest place to hang tobacco because you handled fewer sticks. I always countered their argument by pointing out two problems. I was closest to the sweltering tin roof and farthest from the ground. On those tiers we hung green tobacco that was so heavy you could barely lift it, and we hung sticks of golden yellow tobacco that were almost light to touch. And we hung tobacco that had been stuck out in the rain for days. It was wet and muddy and stunk to high heaven. I guess we handled every kind of tobacco there was to handle in that old barn. I’ve walked through it when it was filled with tobacco, when the fall air was hot and arid and it smelled sweet and aromatic. And I’ve walked in the barn when the fall air was heavy with humidity and the smell of rotting tobacco burned my nose. My attention was next drawn to a splash of color that didn’t exactly fit in a barn. In the dust at the side of the middle hallway lay a faded green RC Cola bottle. That brought back a memory. It was always a relief to finish unloading the last of several loads of tobacco. That meant we could climb down out of the barn. Even on the hottest days a faint breeze managed to make its way through the barn at ground level. It was a welcome reprieve. On many of those afternoons as we scurried down out of the barn, my father would call out, “One of you boys run to the store and get us a “Co-cola.” He always called it a “Co-cola.” Then he would reach in the bib of his overalls, retrieve his billfold, pull out a dollar or two and announce with some degree of pride, “I’ve got the money.” Oftentimes he would say, “Get us a box of ‘Moon Pies’ too.” That to which he referred were not actually Moon Pies. They were imitation Moon Pies. They came twelve to a box and came in three flavors – chocolate, vanilla, and banana. That would send somebody off to John A. McCall’s Grocery in Watervale. The trip took less than twenty minutes. The errand runner would return with a six pack of “Co-colas” and a box of “Moon Pies.” Sitting in the barn hallway “dog tired,” taking in a cool breeze while sipping on a “Co-cola” - that was life at its best. As my gaze shifted to the barns upper hallway, I studied the feed trough and hay racks that ran the length of the barn. The hay racks seemed to cry out to be filled once more. But now they were filled with old, dusty spider webs and emptiness. That hallway was where my father fed newly weaned calves in the late fall. I pictured him with a five-gallon bucket on his arm as he waded through a wave of rambunctious calves. The calves would crash about him wildly, torn between avoiding his touch and being the first one to the trough. I have followed my father to that barn many times so he could show off his calf crop. I paused to take in the scene once more before I moved on. The old barn had other stories to tell me. But I had to be running along. I will go back and visit again soon. Copyright 2026 by Jack McCall