Chapter 1: Buzz

REPURPOSE!

Something of great value, like a gold coin, can be repurposed for a more lowly function, say, a leveling shim for a too short table leg? Most likely that would be described as a misuse of, or wasted on, rather than repurposed for.

Normally, repurpose implies or carries an elevating quality to it. Something of little value or a castoff, is given an ennobling new unexpected role. The mighty fallen low isn’t repurpose, it’s degradation. Lifting oneself from the gutter to become an honest taxpaper, is a repurposed life. Catch my drift?

I repurpose things. It’s my inheritance. My parents raised us to be repurposeful. They set excellent examples.

Words have power to hurt, to inspire, to lead, to flatter, to tear down or build up. Everybody knows this, you know it viscerally, in your guts and when I mention this seldom considered power of words, you’re going to think, yeah, you knew that too. The power I’m referring to is buzz. It’s haunting, conjuring, and causes Déjà vu. Power to illicit forgotten memories, lost moods, buried emotions, and repressed passions. Tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. Do you accept that? Governments and politicians use that bit of psychology all the time. Governments and politicians don’t lie? Raspberries! How do you detect when they’re lying to you? Their lips are moving. They lie all the time. And they use buzz words, frequently.

Because words have flavors, an ambiance that moves you, some words are more appealing but not everyone reacts the same. Here is an example.

Liver.

What’s your immediate response? Depends a great deal upon if you like to eat liver or not, or have health issues with your own.

How does the following words affect you?

Icing

If you live in the snowbelt, probably conjures up for you the spectre of hazardous driving conditions. To me, a Southerner, it’s a butter crème cake topping.

Industrious

Good word? Reflects working hard? Well to me, it’s dusty. Someone spinning their wheels, going nowhere fast, churning up a dust cloud.

My parents were industrious. Both worked but not at hourly wage jobs. At piece work. Mom, in addition to running a household raising a family, all the labor that entails, also hemmed pants and did alterations in a large downtown department store. Paid by the garment piece. She did the house chores before and after work.

Dad ran crab pots, a crab fisherman, or crabber. He was paid per crab caught. Piece work. He, we, also farmed. We didn’t own or rent the farm, we sharecropped. Free rent? Hardly. You’ve heard of sweat equity? The hours of labor devoted to raising a crop we only reaped half the profit on, is expensive sweat rent if you only count the roof over our heads. Farms offer much more in benefits than a house to live in. A garden, chickens, ducks, milk goats, and a milk cow.

Raised our own hogs and beef for slaughter, and don’t forget the wild game a farm attracts. We harvested deer, rabbits, and game birds for the table. There was also a tributary that connected to the river. Provided fishing and a dock for dad’s crabbing skiff ... Another benefit of country living, is self reliant, industrious, considerate folks for neighbors instead of ne’er-do-well punks. Now let’s consider the most important rural resource. Farm girls. Their reputation is no lie.

Dad farmed mornings before leaving for his day on the water hauling pots, and again late afternoon and evening hours after returning from selling his catch. Was the entire weekend devoted to farmwork? Negative. Dad crabbed weekends the same as weekdays, and farmed before and after. Crab pots need tending daily or the crabs die and rot.

My parents were industrious, extremely hard working, and yet they never got ahead. They only managed to avoid going under or into debt. And they repurposed things religiously. Waste not, want not!

The equipment barns were on our section, and under my dad’s supervision. Our house was originally the owners old house. The best house on the entire farm. Five other families tenanted rundowm ramshackle houses, and were also working on shares. Why were we fortunate? Simple. My daddy inherited a tobacco allotment from his daddy. He owned it. Any allotments originally belonging to this farm, were traded, sold, or inherited away from the land, long ago. The current owner owned no allotments and none are for sale. He’s happy to share in daddy’s tobacco harvest, and we’re treated special only because of that. Peanuts earn about two hundred dollars an acre back then. Corn, maybe a hundred. Tobacco? Two thousand dollars an acre, and dad plants twenty five acres to tobacco each year. Our rent is covered.