I was born and raised in a small town of about 10,000 people in southeast Arkansas.  My Dad was born and raised in the town.  My Mom grew up in a cotton field outside of a town of approximately 3000 people that is fifty miles away from my Dad’s hometown.  My Dad traveled for work and for what I can only guess was my Mom’s own sanity, she would drive me and my brother to my grandma’s house on the weekends.

In the middle of all of these cotton fields lived my Grandma, our first cousin once removed Joe and his family which included cousins close to my age, my great Aunt who was 15 years older than my grandma, and my first cousin once removed Martha and his family which also included cousins.  So going down to grandma’s house meant adventures with my cousins. ‘

The reason they lived in the middle of the cotton field was that the family owned all of the cotton fields surrounding the houses.  Both my grandma’s yard and my great Aunt’s yard had big bells in the front yard that we would ring for our own amusement.  On many occasions, we would discover that there was a hornet or wasp’s nest inside the bell and then we would run screaming bloody murder because obviously, we were going to be stung to death.  Mom would tell us tales of all the people who used to live in houses that no longer existed in the fields and the days that people used to pick the cotton and put it in these big burlap sacks.

One day when I was around 7, my cousins and I got to tromp cotton.  I’ll explain it. By the time I was seven, cotton was no longer picked by humans and instead was picked by these big tractors called “cotton pickers.”  The cotton picker was big and green with a cage in the back that would hold the cotton.  The driver would drove over the rows of cotton. The cotton picker would pick the cotton and put it in the back cage.  When the cage was full, the cotton picker would drive to a big metal trailer. (rectangle cage similar to what an 18 wheeler pulls but it was tight mesh-like a fence).  Then people would tromp the cotton.  Tromping cotton is a fancy term for stating that people would jump up on and down on the cotton in an attempt o make it more compact so that more cotton would fit in the trailer.

We got to jump up and down in a  trailer full of cotton.  There was a ladder on the outside of the trailer near the hitch.  We would climb up the ladder and the trailer would already be around 3/4 the way full and then we would jump.  It felt like landing on 10,000 cotton balls because that’s exactly what it was.  It was a feeling, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.  We would climb up the side of the trailer and fall straight back like a trust exercise with the 10,000 cotton balls. We would climb back up and fall stomach first. Well, my cousin did that.  I was scared.  We would pick up fistfuls of cotton and throw them at each other and play chase in the cotton with our footing forever sinking in the mass of cotton.

Later when the trailer was full, we would climb in the cotton picker basket and we would get let poured back out into the cotton.  Little bits of cotton would stick on our sweat covered bodies.  Arkansas is incredibly humid in the summer and a light layer of sweat is de rigueur during this time.

It was so much fun but we only did it a couple of times and then cotton season was over.  There was an African American woman who would tromp with us and watch us.   I would find out later that helping with the field was her job.   Of course, my seven year old self didn’t realize that at the time. I just thought she was baby sitting us.

I think about that place quite a bit.  The whole tromping cotton and the little square houses that are now covered in ivy.  I think about the people who are no longer there. The people who would pick up the cotton and put it in sacks. The people who tromped the cotton. The people who listened for the bell to be run in the front yard.

It’s a surreal feeling to realize that your family is on a potentially problematic part of history.  I’ve never asked my grandma how much the people who picked the cotton were paid or how much the people who weren’t me and my cousins were paid to tromp the cotton.  I know the houses are gone and the people moved away and the town that was approximately four thousand or so when I was a kid is now maybe 2,000.

One Christmas, I had visited a friend from college and his Dad owned the cotton gin– the place where the cotton is taken when you’re done picking it.  They process it and then it goes to the factory.  I told him the tale of how we used to tromp cotton as kids.  “Oh, they have a machine that does that now.” he responded.

Poof.

A machine does that now.

Like that, it’s over.

Now there are big cotton fields and a handful of people who operate the machines that perform all the functions.  That is farming now.