alafarmnews

In Clay County

Selling melons & swapping yarns

One afternoon last summer this reporter was sitting in one of those old cane bottom, ladder back chairs at Clay County Farmers Exchange in Lineville, swapping stories with James Horne, a customer. He had been there since mid-morning or so because, to hear him tell it, “I do more work before breakfast than most people do in a lifetime.”

Horne pretty much had the floor to himself that day because most of the fellows who frequent the Co-op to talk politics and swap yarns were at the cattle sale. Horne didn’t have any to sell and he didn’t need any so he didn’t go.

Right, Chris Smith, manager of Clay County Exchange in Lineville, sells a few of James Short's home grown watermelons each summer.

Horne had just told about the time the he had steered his tractor with a pair of vice-grip [type] pliers after the steering wheel had broken off, when a pick-up swung up in front of the store and James Short piled out. Store manager Chris Smith hurried out of the store to help Short unload some of the prettiest watermelons you would ever expect to lay eyes on.

They brought in three or four and set them on the floor in front of the counter. Unable to contain himself, this reporter immediately asked Short what he wanted for his melons. He asked the unheard of price of fifty cents for the small striped ones and a whole dollar for larger dark green ones.

Brothers Gerald, left, and James Short have about 100 mixed commercial brood cows and about 65-75 calves and heifers.

After some very serious deliberation, this reporter dug down deep into his pants pocket and fished out a hard-earned dollar. The transaction, witnessed by Smith, for one of the sweetest and juiciest melons ever to melt in this reporter’s mouth was completed on the spot.

Short explained that he had been growing watermelons for 57 years and that his father, the late Herbert Short, had taught him to grow them. He confesses, “Dad was a good watermelon grower and I learned from him all I know about growing them.”

Last year he had about three-fourths an acre of watermelons. And he states, “I grow them mostly to eat. But Chris lets me sell a few down here at the Exchange.”

Short was an electrician by trade, engaged in construction work, before he retired nearly two years ago. He worked for TVA at several locations at different times. Among his assignments were Raccoon Mountain and the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant on the Tennessee River near Athens.

At Browns Ferry, he worked on units two and three. When they had shut downs, he would work seven days a week. But he was able to come home every couple of months.

Short never married in spite of the fact that a couple or so gals had their eyes on him from time to time. But he somehow managed to successfully elude them.

His brother, Gerald, was a lineman for Alabama Power Company. But he was able to stay home most of the time. This was good because, unlike James, he has a wife and family. But Gerald’s family is sort of James’s family as well because they live in shouting distance of each other.

When James and Gerald were growing up, their family operated what would be called in modern terminology a “vertically integrated” dairy. In other words, they milked the cows, bottled the milk, and sold it retail on the streets of Lineville.

James says, “Dad would drive. I would ride on the runningboard of the car and Gerald would hand me the ice-cold glass quarts of milk. Then I would hop off and put the milk on the door-step, often long before breakfast.”

James and Gerald have about 100 brood cows and about 65 to 75 calves and heifers at a time. This is a commercial herd which is rotated among three pastures. James states, “When Daddy was alive, he worked the cattle.”

Like the watermelons, Gerald and James sell their cattle locally. But James laments, “When you got cows, it seems that they always pick the weekends to get sick. This makes it hard to get hold of a vet or even get medicine for them.”

In addition to watermelons, James grows sweet corn as well as field corn, peas, and beans. He states, “There are not as many people growing home gardens around here.

So there is more demand for home grown vegetables produced by others like me.”

James recalls, “Before we got cultivators, me and my brothers and sisters would often work from four in the morning to eight or nine at night. The girls worked like boys. But me, being the oldest, did the most work.”

Thus James Short might very well have done as much work before breakfast as James Horne claims he did.