As I drive around in my travels, I’ve noticed that farmers are beginning to wind down the harvesting of tobacco out of the fields. In years past, that would mean that the tobacco market would be starting to go strong. And for many towns in eastern North Carolina, the tobacco market was a big deal. It was where the farmers were finally paid for all the hard work of the previous months by selling their crop.

For my family, it wasn’t just getting our tobacco crop out of the barns and to the market. It was being a part of the market itself, since my father worked there for all of my childhood, and most of his adult life. And I also spent many of those days during my teenage and young adult years working with my father and Mr. Leland Lee, and the rest of the folks at Lee’s Planters Warehouse i

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