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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.16 61 last few decades, a diferent set of jobs has moved into Shelby County. Morry told me that the strongest industry in Shelby County now is automotive-based — Johnson Controls manufactures car seats, Martinrea supplies trunks and hoods for General Motors. Roll Forming specializes in products for NASA and Boeing. Years ago, stores like Carriss's dotted Shelby County — Smith and Jackson General Merchandise, Mount Eden General Store, Buckman's Store, Ellis' Grocery, McDowell's, Riester's, Sewell's. Most are gone now, but June and Vivian still fnd farmers waiting for breakfast on Carriss's porch at 6 a.m. I asked Simpsonville farmer Robert Mackey what he likes about the place. "How much history is in them foors — know what I'm saying? When all this old stuf is gone, it's never coming back," he said. "Shelbyville's changed. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad," Morry said. "We know tobacco's harmful for you, but so is drinking alcohol and so is eating too many Big Macs. But it's part of our culture out here. And it sure did pay for a whole lot of farmland and a whole lot of buildings in this community, and it made it a whole lot easier for people." Later that day, I was sitting in Matt's truck, outside the produce store where he worked. We were parked with a hilltop view of the town below us. "You know, when they bloom, the tobacco fower's shaped like a horn, and the base of the horn is white and the tip is pink, and hummingbirds love them. I'll tell you something else is pretty — the damn tobacco worms. Tey're lime-green, and they got a stripe down them. As far as worms go, they're absolutely beautiful." His voice trailed of. He looked out towards the town. "Boy, I'll tell you what, though — they'll eat the shit outta that tobacco, them bastards." A few weeks after I talked with Morry, I woke at 5 a.m. and drove out to Southville. (Te Wesleyan Baptist Church sign had changed: "Te Bread Of Life Never Gets Stale.") I was meeting with Ralph Tindle, who raised tobacco for decades until he quit in 2007. He'd ofered to show me around his farm — after we had breakfast at Carriss's. When I opened the door, June's head bobbed above the aisles from back in the kitchen, and I remembered something that Morry had told me: "Te frst time you meet country people, they're friendly. Second time, they're interested. Tird time, you're their friend." Tis was the third time that I'd been to Carriss's, and June called, "Hey, there, boy! What you want to chew on this morning?" Te potbelly stove pulsed with heat, and around the tables sat Ralph and a few other men I recognized. I ordered what they were having — biscuits and gravy, three strips of bacon, and cofee — and sat next to Ralph. One of the men was walking around with the cofee pot, and when he flled my cup, he said, "Tere you go, new guy." A man at the next table said, "Tat cofee'll get up and walk away from you, it's so damn strong." Ralph introduced me to everyone at our table. Across from me sat a farmer named Charlie Gaines. He had fnished his breakfast and was smoking a cigarette. Ten Ralph found Vivian's Pictorial History book. "Everyone around here's got a picture in here," he said, fipping through it, pointing out June and Vivian not long after they were married; Ralph Pulliam in 1967, his face tanned and smooth under his hat; Bessie holding a tobacco-leaf quilt. Another picture showed Charlie Gaines at the Grower's Warehouse in 1994. He was smoking a cigarette. After everyone had eaten, Vivian asked, "Anybody need anything?" "I do," Charlie said. "A new body." Vivian laughed. "Me, too. Mine's wore out." "Well, c'mon," Ralph said to me, motioning to the windows. "It's daylight." I followed Ralph's truck up the road, pulling onto his farm and rumbling over to the barn. Rain smacked my windshield. Metal rods propped the barn doors shut, and we kicked them loose and went in and closed the doors behind us. Beyond the halo of the light that Ralph switched on, machinery hulked in the dusty dimness like dark statuary. Ralph showed me a plank table on which he had arranged a line of tree roots that looked whittled into stakes and a white plastic "cell tray" divided into a grid of squares. Each tray usually contained 253 square cells, and in each cell a farmer would press in a dollop of dirt and a tobacco seed, which Ralph pinched between his fngers and lifted for me to see. I squinted — it was neon- green and about the size of a sesame seed. "Te tobacco seed may be the smallest seed known," Ralph said. "It's a 13-month crop. You never fnish — start another crop before you fnish the frst one." We opened the barn doors and propped the metal bars against them again and got in Ralph's truck. He wanted to show me Charlie's land, which was still an operational tobacco farm. He looked through his windshield at the Kentucky land that, when overcast, always reminded me of an El Greco painting — a palette of dark trees and amber felds swirling under a cirrocumulus sky. Ralph pointed to a house. "Tat's my property we were on, but this is where I live. I live among the deer and the turkeys and the c'yotes," he said. He eased to a stop, watching the wet felds with his keen, gentle eyes. "It's good hay ground," he said. "My cattle numbers are down. I may get out of it completely." When we pulled up one of the gravel drives that led into Charlie's farm, I saw a truck with a bumper sticker that read: "I Farm — You Eat." We parked and went in a barn, much larger than the one on Ralph's land, with a tobacco stripping bench that looked as long as two or three bleachers in a high school gym. Tractors and hayforks and 700-pound balers loomed around us like drowsing mastodons. Ralph chuckled. "Charlie don't want for equipment." "You know, when they bloom, the tobacco fower's shaped like a horn, and the base of the horn is white and the tip is pink, and hum- mingbirds love them," Matt said. "I'll tell you something else is pretty — the damn tobacco worms. They're lime-green, and they got a stripe down them. As far as worms go, they're absolutely beautiful." Continued on page 99