Cotton was my father’s whole life. On his Mississippi Delta farm, he grew it for fifty-two years, and from the time he plowed with mules until the day he shipped his last bale from his own gin, he devoted every waking minute to his crops, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why I was interested in other things.
One day he remarked to my lifelong friend and mentor Jaybird, “If my son paid as much attention to managing this farm as he does to his honeybees, garden, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, and chickens, he might amount to something — especially those chickens.”