Royalty

Robert Web stood as a king among men. If you grew up black around Albemarle Sound you probably worked for him. A leader in the Baptist church and successful businessman with two lovely daughters who adorned themselves with the grace of beautiful spirit.
When I met Mr. Web I knew he meant “bidness.” Please understand that my respect for Mr. Web and his family is unflinching.
I don’t remember any real exchanges with Mr. Web, only his firm hand shake from his secure, dominate, unmistakably powerful yet kind demeanor where his person sat behind those eyes looking out saying he meant “bidness.” Robert was the type of Christ-like man, who gave hope to many around the sound like Sharon, her family and members of the Baptist church in which he was an elder.

Hooking Up

I had hooked up with Gary Grab and the South Eastern Work crew shortly after a crushing rebuke from the leadership of the Savannah house. It was a rebuke that came out of their arrogance. I took quiet satisfaction the elders showed up after I left and rebuked the entire leadership for a perfectionist doctrine what ever that meant. There was a shake up in Savannah after I left and I was glad to be gone.
Planting in the South east was a different kind of sport. In the west we planted with hodads and a thousand trees a day was considered good.
“Did you notch today?”
“Yea, I planted one thousand fifty. We planted out about two o’clock.
Shiloh Forestry introduced hodads to Georgia Pacific in the South and in the plowed and furrowed level fields some guys planted up to thirty five hundred trees a day.
Jump seven feet, land with a tree in hand held like a pencil by the tiny trunk above the root. The hodad sinks effortlessly into the lose soil as you land and pry open an eighteen inch deep four inch wide hole with the right hand. With a flip of the left wrist the roots snap straight down. Hodad comes out of the hole and packs the loose dirt with one push of the blade. The right foot comes up and stomps the loose ground as it lands beside the freshly planted seedling launching the planter with another jump stride tree in hand hodad coming down seven feet from the last and four feet from the row of seedlings to the left. Do that thirty five hundred times a day and be a Shiloh mighty man of valor.

Dibble

There was no hodad plating in NC. It was a team affair where one guy carried the trees and a long pair of tweezers and the other carried a dibble. The dibble made a square hole into which the tweezers after having firmly grasped the tap root by the very end thrust the root. This kept the root from being curled up at the end in the shape of a j which will eventually kill the tree.
The van trip north took us past the Ogeechee river swamps and forests we had worked in. The Georgia Pacific trees we had marked with blue paint signifying a boundary to GP property.
Soon the topography began to change to dryer farm land. Forests of wispy Loblolly pines became denser, more orderly, planted like rows of corn sixty feet high.

Chitterlins

We met Robert Web or Robert met us outside our little rented farm house several miles from Plymouth NC. The house was a single story clapboard rambler thirties vintage that had been added onto over the years. The floor plan was in the shape of a J. The kitchen main entrance mail living area would be at the top of the J with a hall leading past a bedroom across from the bathroom. At the end of the hall was a living room we converted into a large bedroom. To the right of the living room was another door that led to an added on bedroom through which another bedroom and bath was located.
I bunked in the bedroom off the living room. The only one with air-conditioning.
We eventually got a cook who prided himself on southern cuisine.
Well we were trying everything southern. They say that in the south people eat every part of the pig but the squeal. Fancy restaurants in Atlanta serve pig ear sandwiches. Fried pig tails and pickled pigs feet are all fair game. We hadn’t tried chitterlings yet and our new cook was talking them up big.
“Fried up crispy with eggs over easy on grits with salt and pepper,mmmm. Only Northerners eat grits with milk and sugar or syrup, even Karo syrup.
One of the boys picked up a shrink wrapped pan of chitterlings and it was time for the cook to stand and deliver.
Usually cookie started breakfast around three thirty AM so we could be up dressed fed and at the unit by daylight and finish the bulk of our work as early in the hot humid day as possible.
Now the work we did was hard work and the sleep of a laboring man is sweet for sure. It took a major event to wake these guys early and cookie was about to deliver. Around four AM he started cooking up the chitterlings and the smell woke the guys in the living room. They it turns out weren’t to hot on the idea of chitterlings to begin with. After all the reason the pig parts smelled like pig crap when cooked was because they were partly pig crap. Pig intestines will always be pig intestines boiled, baked or fried.
My fellow connoisseurs of southern comfort slept soundly in the air-conditioned room awoke rested and ready to try a new treat. The evil smell had abated we cleaned up, dressed and chowed down on the tasty strangely lean and different chopped bacon sort of chitterlings. As a matter of fact we copped extra rations from the guys who had smelled them cooking and had spoiled their appittite.
We started working for Robert Webb because the details of our insurance and private contractor’s info hadn’t been processed yet. Robert stopped by the day before and introduced himself. He said he would like to have us over to his house sometime and that he would see us the next day out on the unit.

Together 2

We worked for Robert for a few weeks then left to work as our own entity for Contenental Can. Their boundaries by the way were marked with silver paint but we continued tree planting our entire time in NC.
Weeks passed. I yielded to my obsessive compulsive need to run. Each morning when the crew got up to eat, I would dress and begin running long before daylight toward the next unit. The crew would eventually catch up. The van pulling over, door swings open and I jump in. A buddy would have a plate of food and I’d eat on my way to work.
Gary the pastor told us to clean up special good one day after work. We were invited to Robert Webb’s house for dinner.
I remember the Portland Trailblazers were winning the play offs. We drove up to his large and beautiful home with a four car garage. In the garage all the cars had been cleared out and half a dozen of those folding church tables were set up covered with every southern delicacy imaginable. Fresh caught fried shrimp by the heap, every kind of chicken imaginable and dozens of desserts. Didn’t notice any chitterlings.
It seems Roberts’s church had turned out in force to serve and visit with us. The choir would sing their songs and we’d sing some songs of Shiloh. We had put together a skit familiar to most Shilohites called The Light and preformed for Roberts fellow parishioners.
At the end of the night we all took hands in a circle and prayed amazed, Black and white just miles from five points. One Black lady praised God for as much. That here we stood together Black and white and black and white holding hands together worshiping and praying just a few miles from five points where it would not be safe for them to go after dark. Don’t know for sure but her name may have been Sharon.