What's a Tobacco Basket, anyway?

I love the Christmas Season....to me, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year, second only to the spring when my yard slowly comes alive with spots of color that surprise as various and asundry bulbs push their way through the thawing ground and tiny buds on flowering bushes and trees create the most lovely smell when the wind blows.  Yes, Christmas is second only to spring in my opinion.... I am so grateful to live in a place where I can enjoy the changes that each new season brings.

The memories and the traditions that serve to make Christmas so special , though, are also what make it so hard.  By definition, traditions remain the same, and yet life forces change.  Neighbors move away, kids grow up, and loved ones die.  Unlike the changes of nature's seasons, these are not changes that I savor. 

I miss my mom more than usual at Christmas, in part because she loved this season so and always made this time of year very special for my family.  Since moving ten years ago to her former hometown, four years after she passed away, I have been blessed with sweet surprises that I have not anticipated.  Because I now live where she grew up,  I often "run into people" who knew her and who are eager to share about their interactions with her.  One such encounter took place this fall in an unexpected way.

I was attending an auction at a large farm just a mile from our home early one Saturday morning.  There was a large crowd already present when I arrived so I parked along the electric fence on the side of the road and walked through the pasture to join my fellow bargain shoppers in the gravel drive.  I quickly was greeted by several friends whom I had seen at the high school's Friday night football game the evening before, and the conversation centered around the big win.

The cool morning and friendly conversation were just the start of a divine day.  I was pleased that the auctioneer started the bidding in a politically incorrect way with a prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance (there was a large flag on a tall pole in the front yard of the home),  and I enjoyed purchasing  a few unique items that you just can't find at the mall or Walmart.  I brought my first load of treasures home at lunch time to make sandwiches for myself and my kids, and then headed back to the auction, planning to bid on a really cool old English bicycle that I never planned to ride but really wanted.  I thought that simply leaning it up against our white fence as if a friend had just ridden up on it would make me smile each time I  approached our home after a long day at work.

Well, while waiting for the old bicycle to come up for bidding, I noticed a small stack of really large baskets on the ground by the bike.  I didn't know what they were, but realized that one of them was stamped "Roxboro, NC" which is a neighboring community where my grandmother grew up.  I began asking questions, and the nice old farmer in overalls beside me explained that they were tobacco baskets, used for taking the tobacco leaves to market for sell in the early to mid 1900's.  Because my own granddad and great- granddad were both tobacco farmers, I was immediately interested in acquiring one of the treasures, though not exactly sure what I would do with it.

Well, after a fellow auction-goer accidentally purchased 4 of the baskets for $20 each (he had thought he was bidding on only one), he quickly agreed to sell me the one of my choice for $15 in order to re-acquire some of the money he had just inadvertently spent.  Of course, I chose the only one that was emblazoned with "Roxboro, NC" even though it's condition wasn't as good as that of the other baskets.  As I smiled to myself, I considered the possibility that one of my farmer relatives from the past had actually hauled his tobacco leaves in the basket I was now toteing around myself.

When I got my basket treasure home and researched  the history of tobacco baskets in North Carolina,  a post from a woman in Pennsylvania (where apparently tobacco wasn't grown and therefore tobacco market baskets weren't needed) immediately caused me to feel quite fortunate to live in "Tobacco Alley".  Apparently, she had been searching for three years for such a basket, and had finally purchased one for over a hundred dollars, feeling quite lucky with her acquisition.  She'd be sick if she knew there are probably farms all over  North Carolina where folks are tripping over the baskets piled high in their barns collecting dust and being knawed apart by barnmice.

The best surprise of the day was yet to come however.  As I was carrying my basket to the car, a gentleman I didn't know approached me and tapped me on the shoulder.  I thought he was going to ask me if I wanted to sell my tobacco basket to him for a profit, but instead he asked quietly, "Are you Carol Ray's daughter?"  (Ray was my mother's middle name, acquired from her father who was at war when she was born.  Hillsborough is the only place she's known as Carol Ray instead of  by her maiden name McKee or her married name Knight.)  Feeling a bit surprised, I responded that I was indeed her daughter, a bit taken aback because my mom has been dead for almost 15 years and the way this man spoke of her made it seem as if he'd just talked to her the previous day.  He then smiled shyly and said, "She was my first girlfriend....a real sweet girl.  I am sorry she passed away."

He shared his name, I shook his hand, and then he helped me load my truck as I prepared to return home to stay this time.  When I later spoke to my dad, he responded, "Well, I never knew about him.....I thought I was her first boyfriend."  My grandmother later told us both that this first boyfriend was from Caldwell Elementary School, no longer in existence, and that the clandestine love affair had taken place when my mother was all of six years old and in the first grade.  We laughed , and I only wished my mom had been there to laugh with us.

I did find the perfect place to hang the basket.  After cleaning it well with the garden hose, and then spraying it with clear lacquer to give it a slight glow and to warm up the tones in the wood a bit, I hung it like a large piece of artwork on a bare wall in our stairwell.  Because it's Christmas, there is now also a cedar wreath at its center, but even when the Christmas decorations come down , the basket will remain. 

Cheap tobacco baskets at auction.....just another unsung benefit of being a North Carolina country gal....that and the decorated Christmas tractors that folks park in their large front yards decked out in Christmas lights.   There are three such tractors within 500 yards of each other about a mile from our home.  I love passing them on a dark night as I am driving home in December....makes hanging lights from the eaves or bushes just seem passe! 

Merry, merry Christmas!  Hope you enjoy your own unique sights, sounds, and smells of the season wherever you live.