Tag: tobacco

Coffee Log, Day 184

garethlivesay1 Comment

Hi.

Coffee: Cafe Pajaro, Extra Dark Roast, Trader Joe’s Brand

There goes August: running fast enough to trip itself.

I read an article about the ‘A-Team’ on NPR. Not the TV series, but rather the short-lived 1970’s experiment dreamed up to answer widespread migrant worker protests. It happened in California, mostly, and involved granting crop-picking jobs to white high schoolers for the summer. The act passed Congress on the heels of ‘They’re taking our jobs!’ It singled out the best and brightest, the most active white boys for the honor. Within three days of the first year, 200 kids had quit. Those who stuck out the six-day weeks at minimum wage talked about it like an earthbound Hell.

The privilege to walk away.

Not much has changed. Farm labor is still largely migrant labor; or, if you’re in Eastern NC tobacco farms, it’s seven or eight year-olds who pick all day and sometimes miss school. Regardless, it’s hard, unloved work given to people who are most desperate. Five centimeters past slavery, in other words. No wonder our country can’t stomach loading it on well-to-do white boys.

I sit in the shade. Cold tea, new book. September mentions herself in a nice breeze, we exchange calendars and contacts. Autumn ease, there’s not a cloud in sight. Somewhere west of here, another 28-yr-old man bakes until his skin comes off, blood on knuckles, only knowing the sadistic love of burrs and melon seed.

Currently Reading: LaRose, Louise Erdrich; FINISHED!! Will have a review soon

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.” – Cesar Chavez
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Coffee Log, Day 149

garethlivesay1 Comment

Hi.

Coffee: India Extra Bold Roast, Cafe Crema

I fished this DVD out of our dry creekbed, ‘8 count abs.’ I threw it in the trash because a fish with a six-pack just ain’t right.

The things we throw away… I’ve wasted lots of things. Some of it was junk, some precious. I’ve got this vivid memory of a high school romance who used to fall asleep on my leg. The show would end, sun came down, she’d still be sleeping and I’d get so antsy – like, if I didn’t move, I’d be watching roots grow out of me – that I’d squirm until she woke up. What a simple moment. The older I get, the more I miss the clean, simple moments.

I met a guy today I’ve heard bad stories about. They call him rough, loud, arrogant, mean, difficult. He was all those things but I think he was mostly trying hard to make up for something. He drove a brand new Acura and was trying to buy a house. He told me his parents had only ever rented.

I had a list of discounts when I got hired that I could opt in to. One was a sizeable credit off my insurance if I declared I wouldn’t be smoking. I didn’t check the box. I’ve only smoked four things in my life, all one-dollar cigarillos, and haven’t had one since winter. I don’t have any plans to smoke again. Still, checking away the freedom to burn something up inside me wasn’t worth the money. I need my lungs to remember what it’s like to tingle.

That last time I smoked, I’d just broken the handle off my favorite blue mug. We sat in the cold, arms on legs on arms, passing the cigarillo, dipping pink ash into the empty, broken blue.

Currently Reading: LaRose, Louise Erdrich

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

“we
sat there
smoking
cigarettes
at
5
in the morning.” – Charles Bukowski, from when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the screen like a burglar to take your life away

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Coffee Log, Day 97

garethlivesayLeave a comment

Hi.

Coffee: Cafe Pajaro Extra Dark Roast, Trader Joe’s brand

I stood on the bridge in the rain and thought about smoking something (I didn’t) then I thought about drinking something (I didn’t) then I thought about writing something (I did).

I’ve only smoked four cigars. Tobacco has been in my blood since birth. Well, probably before birth. I’m a North Carolina boy. The pride and prejudice of tobacco leaf grew my home. Pride in the gaunt Southern swagger of smoking something strong on a hot summer porch; prejudice in the bloody hands my ancestors forced to pick it.

Fire’s in my blood.

I think that being Southern means being the most proud, arrogant bastard standing below the sun; I think that being white Southern means an unreachable sin, a wretching guilt, and the knowledge that the day you’re born your heart is already six-feet deep below black-brown soil.

And we smoke that fear away.

Currently Reading:
Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson

“I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”- Flannery O’Connor

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