[00:01:20.880] 
[rooster crows]

[00:01:20.880] 
[singing]

[00:01:22.214] 
[explosion]

[00:01:25.986] 
[factory noises]

[00:02:18.086] 
[music]

[00:03:11.880] 
You hear about Old Johnathan?

[00:03:12.480] 
What he do this time? Came to church half lit.

[00:03:16.200] 
Said he wanted to get baptized again. 

[00:03:16.760] 
He done been baptized three times.

[00:03:22.720] 
[overlapping conversations]

[00:03:26.120] 
 How you doing, Mr. Coy?

[00:03:28.400] 
Mr. Jefferson, how you been? Just fine.

[00:03:30.800] 
Well, hello Eb. Well aren't you looking mighty fine.

[00:03:32.040] 
It's always good to see you.

[00:03:32.280] 
Oh, great.

[00:03:33.920] 
Coy, you know my son, Tommy.
Oh, yeah. 

[00:03:35.600] 
Tommy, you remember Mr. Matthews

[00:03:36.560] 
at the warehouse last year.

[00:03:39.200] 
He bought some of our tobacco.
Sure, he remembers me.

[00:03:40.640] 
How you doing, Tommy? [laughs]

[00:03:45.920] 
Hey Eb, where's your missus? You know I didn't think you let anybody out of barning.

[00:03:46.880] 
Well, she's at the other barn working.

[00:03:48.800] 
What are you doing around these parts? 
Well I got to come see the boss.

[00:03:52.040] 
I thought I'd just stop by and see if you
 had anything worth buying this year.

[00:03:56.240] 
Buying, huh? You mean you given up stealing?
Giving people money

[00:03:59.560] 
for what you get nowadays, huh?

[00:03:59.800] 
Well now that depends on what you got, Eb. 

[00:04:04.480] 
Well I might just have what you're looking for in this barn over here.

[00:04:04.880] 
Take a look. Come take a look at it.

[00:04:14.760] 
[background conversations]

[00:04:25.200] 
Tommy, get out that car, son.

[00:04:27.080] 
You know better than that.

[00:04:28.960] 
That's alright Eb. He can't hurt nothing.

[00:04:30.560] 
Maybe he'd like to take a ride with me. 
I'll have him back by supper.

[00:04:34.600] 
Well, I don't see any harm in that.

[00:04:37.840] 
You go up to the house and clean up a little
 before you go riding off.

[00:04:44.120] 
Well, I guess school will be starting pretty soon.

[00:04:48.120] 
Yeah and I ain't had no vacation. 

[00:04:50.043] 
Working tobacco, huh?

[00:04:51.000] 
 Yeah, I know what that's like.

[00:04:54.400] 
I don't get to work in the fields much
 anymore.

[00:04:56.560] 
I kind of miss it in a way.

[00:04:59.640] 
Miss it? Don't much see how anyone could miss staying out there all day,

[00:05:02.560] 
 getting all hot, getting that tobacco gum all over you.

[00:05:05.520] 
Sometimes I feel like I've turned into a
 darn tobacco stock.

[00:05:09.320] 
Yeah, I guess you got a point. Of course it's

[00:05:11.840] 
 better than being cooped up all time
 stuck in the same old building.

[00:05:15.160] 
Boy, I'm glad I don't have to do that kind
 of work.

[00:05:18.960] 
Whoops! Time for me to do some of my work.

[00:05:21.840] 
Excuse me while I do a little advertising.

[00:05:29.600] 
I guess you spend most of your time in
 the warehouses.

[00:05:32.520] 
Well, part of it, but I do a lot of traveling.

[00:05:35.200] 
Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and all
 places in between.

[00:05:39.520] 
What for?

[00:05:41.200] 
Well, they grow tobacco in a lot more places than

[00:05:41.400] 
North Carolina

[00:05:43.720] 
and I go there to buy.

[00:05:44.360] 
Brightleaf, Maryland, Burley. 

[00:05:46.720] 
Here. Hold this for me.

[00:05:47.920] 
I bet you never heard of Burley.

[00:05:50.000] 
What's that? That's the kind of tobacco
 that grew west of here.

[00:05:54.400] 
They don't fire it like you do your Bright Leaf. 

[00:05:55.600] 
They cure it in opened up air
 barns like [?].

[00:06:00.800] 
You just go around buying all the time?

[00:06:03.120] 
Well I wish I could but buying season 
don't last about half the year.

[00:06:08.520] 
The other half, times like today, I'm selling tobacco.

[00:06:13.560] 
Selling?

[00:06:16.280] 
Products, boy, products. 

[00:06:17.040] 
Snuff, cigarettes, chew. Sell about every store around.

[00:06:20.600] 
Matter of fact, I've got to stop by Mr. Patterson's.

[00:06:29.960] 
How are you? 
Howdy.

[00:06:31.680] 
You ladies come back to see us.

[00:06:34.880] 
Thank you Mr. Patterson. Let's go granny.

[00:06:35.720] 
Afternoon, Mr. Patterson. Well looky here.

[00:06:39.840] 
Howdy Coy. Who's your friend here?

[00:06:41.120] 
 This is Tommy, Eb Clemment's boy

[00:06:44.040] 
from over in [?]. I know Eb. 

[00:06:44.920] 
He let you out with a character like
this, Tommy?

[00:06:47.240] 
You keep talking like that

[00:06:48.640] 
and I'm not gonna give you your present.

[00:06:49.960] 
Now where in the world have I got room 
for another one of those?

[00:06:53.040] 
Right here. 

[00:06:54.080] 
Here you go, Tommy.

[00:06:57.560] 
Mr. Duke will never miss that one.

[00:06:58.280] 
Why don't you keep it? 
I guess you don't work for Mr. Duke.

[00:07:02.600] 
Not hardly, my friend.

[00:07:03.280] 
Well, you couldn't hardly have 
said that awhile back

[00:07:06.480] 
now could you?
No. 

[00:07:09.880] 
It wasn't so far back you wanted to work in tobacco

[00:07:10.360] 
You had to work for Mr. Duke.

[00:07:12.920] 
 Of course. I remember back before 
there was any "Mr. Duke."

[00:07:16.680] 
When old Wash himself didn't have no -- 

[00:07:20.160] 
Oh, Lim, you're not that old.

[00:07:21.400] 
That's back before the war between the
 states.

[00:07:23.960] 
I'm old enough to remember Bennett's Place

[00:07:26.920] 
 when Sherman and Johnston was there.

[00:07:33.200] 
Don't you boys know? Lim here is 
a hundred and thirty-four years old.

[00:07:33.800] 
Older than Moses. [laughter]

[00:07:39.440] 
Now boy, do you know about 
what happened at Bennett's place?

[00:07:39.086] 
Well, no sir.

[00:07:41.440] 
Well it's high time you was finding out

[00:07:43.480] 
and now is as good a time to start as any.

[00:07:46.120] 
Now let's get away from these here know-it-alls.

[00:07:49.520] 
How about a cigarette? 
Now that's the kind of present I like, free samples. 

[00:07:53.880] 
Mr. Patterson?

[00:07:54.120] 
No thank you.

[00:07:55.600] 
Bet I got the kind of story you like too.

[00:07:58.280] 
Say one time there was this traveling salesman.

[00:08:00.640] 
He's going down through tobacco country and

[00:08:01.920] 
he run up on a bunch of bull wheels.

[00:08:03.380] 
So while 
General Johnston and General Sherman

[00:08:06.560] 
 was talking over at Bennett's

[00:08:09.680] 
 their troops were stealing things right and left.

[00:08:12.560] 
Bunch of them got into some

[00:08:14.960] 
 Bright Leaf stored in a barn close by.

[00:08:18.560] 
Them boys had never had no tobacco like that.

[00:08:23.200] 
Well, anyway, when the war was over and
 they

[00:08:25.760] 
 went back home, they started writing

[00:08:28.600] 
 back down to Durham Station,

[00:08:30.960] 
there weren't no town here then, to see
 if they could get some more.

[00:08:34.960] 
And so Mr. Green and

[00:08:37.160] 
Mr. Blackwell started selling the stuff.

[00:08:39.480] 
That's how Bull Durham got started

[00:08:42.000] 
and so did some others, including Mr. Duke.

[00:08:46.040] 
You don't mean to tell me you got that
 story finished already Lim.

[00:08:49.880] 
That's not much like you.

[00:08:50.240] 
Oh, what are you talking about? 
Well, me and Tommy here,

[00:08:53.040] 
 we're just getting started real good.

[00:08:55.120] 
Well, how about finishing up later? 
Tommy, we got to be going.

[00:08:58.640] 
Well, all right.

[00:08:59.840] 
Now you be sure and come back 
and see me again, you hear?

[00:09:02.600] 
Yes, sir.

[00:09:07.360] 
Is that Mr. Duke they're talking about 
the one from over in Durham?

[00:09:08.040] 
Well, depends. Sometimes they're talking 
about that Mr. Duke's daddy. 

[00:09:12.160] 
Old man Washington Duke. 

[00:09:14.600] 
Back just after the war between the states,
 Washington Duke

[00:09:17.240] 
 started making smoking tobacco up on his
 farm.

[00:09:20.920] 
He loaded it on his wagon and peddled it
 throughout the eastern part of the
 state.

[00:09:25.200] 
Sold it right off the back of the wagon.

[00:09:30.120] 
Did right good, too. Him and [?]. 

[00:09:29.414] 
Mr. Buck Duke, the old man's son, 

[00:09:31.880] 
now he was a real go getter.

[00:09:34.360] 
Time he got into business, though,
 they'd moved it into Durham to be near
 the railroad.

[00:09:38.200] 
Mr. Buck,

[00:09:39.400] 
he was the one that really got the Duke's
in the cigarette business.

[00:09:42.400] 
Well, my daddy makes cigarettes. 
I've seen him do it.

[00:09:45.014] 
Well, sure he does,

[00:09:46.400] 
but I bet he rolls them one at a time, huh?

[00:09:50.120] 
Well, yeah.

[00:09:51.680] 
Well, they all use to be made by hand,

[00:09:53.360] 
but the Dukes, they were the first to
 figure out how to make cigarettes

[00:09:56.280] 
 by machine in a big way.

[00:10:06.400] 
So with cigarettes and all the other tobacco
 business

[00:10:08.960] 
 it wasn't long before the Dukes wound up
 with so much money

[00:10:11.680] 
 that they ended up in control of just
 about all the tobacco in the whole
 world.

[00:10:15.160] 
The whole world?!

[00:10:16.320] 
Yep.

[00:10:17.600] 
And they called the business the American
 Tobacco Company.

[00:10:20.400] 
And, boy, let me tell you, that was big
 business.

[00:10:24.080] 
Too big it turned out. About fifteen years ago

[00:10:26.600] 
the government busted it up. 

[00:10:28.200] 
Busted it up? What's that mean?

[00:10:30.920] 
Well they turned it back into

[00:10:31.920] 
 a lot of smaller companies like the one I work for.

[00:10:34.720] 
Mr. Reynolds has one,

[00:10:35.760] 
and there's Philip Morris and Ligget Myers and P. Lorillard.

[00:10:40.120] 
You mean there ain't no more American Tobacco Company?

[00:10:42.760] 
Sure there's American Tobacco Company,

[00:10:44.880] 
but it's just lot smaller than it used
 to be.

[00:10:49.320] 
Old Buck Duke found other things to spend his money on.

[00:10:50.160] 
 He's got a company that makes electricity 
and the family is

[00:10:53.000] 
putting a lot of money into a college 
here in Durham.

[00:10:55.614] 
[music]

[00:11:33.400] 
Well, got to go in and see the boss.

[00:11:35.286] 
Shouldn't take but just a few minutes.

[00:11:36.800] 
I hope you don't mind waiting out here.

[00:11:38.743] 
Okay.

[00:11:43.320] 
Hello.

[00:11:44.880] 
Hello.

[00:11:46.200] 
Who are you? 

[00:11:48.920] 
I came with Mr. Matthews. 

[00:11:49.120] 
He's in the house there talking to his boss.

[00:11:51.440] 
Oh, my daddy.

[00:11:53.120] 
My name's Grace Philips. What's yours?

[00:11:55.600] 
Tommy Clemments.

[00:11:57.760] 
What you got there? 
Not much.

[00:11:59.880] 
Just an old poster.

[00:12:01.560] 
Let me see.

[00:12:04.120] 
Do you think she's pretty?

[00:12:06.640] 
 My mother's a lot prettier than that.

[00:12:08.880] 
She is?

[00:12:10.800] 
Well if you could see her you'd know it too.

[00:12:13.080] 
But she's not here.

[00:12:14.560] 
She's over in Greensboro spending the
 weekend with Aunt Lucille.

[00:12:21.040] 
I know. Come on!

[00:12:27.320] 
I know mama's pictures are in here
 somewhere.

[00:12:29.560] 
Well what's this? 

[00:12:32.000] 
Oh, that's one of those cigarette places 
over in town.

[00:12:36.320] 
Well how about this?

[00:12:37.343] 
That one?

[00:12:39.960] 
 Proximity Mill.

[00:12:41.840] 
Something to do with cotton.

[00:12:44.200] 
You got all kinds of pictures of mills
 and things here.

[00:12:48.080] 
Yes. Daddy is thinking of 
putting some of his money into cotton.

[00:12:51.280] 
But I thought he was a tobacco man?

[00:12:53.314] 
Sure he is,

[00:12:54.400] 
but lots of tobacco people run cotton mills.

[00:12:57.240] 
Mr. Carr from over here in Durham sort of
 started things

[00:13:00.040] 
through the Cotton Manufacturing Company.

[00:13:02.160] 
Then there was Ben Duke.

[00:13:03.560] 
You've heard of him, haven't you? 

[00:13:05.029] 
 I thought Mr. Buck Duke --

[00:13:07.240] 
No, no.

[00:13:08.320] 
Ben Duke is the one who took some of that
 tobacco money

[00:13:10.840] 
 and used it for cotton.

[00:13:12.200] 
He helped the Erwin's and Mr. Cone from
 Greensboro.

[00:13:16.200] 
Aren't those little bags smoking tobacco
 comes in made of cloth?

[00:13:20.120] 
Right. [?] bags. That's what those mills started with.

[00:13:23.080] 
But now they make other things like cloth,
 and those overalls that you're wearing.

[00:13:26.800] 
So all those mills are run by tobacco men?

[00:13:29.880] 
Well, no, not exactly

[00:13:32.000] 
but a lot of them got started from tobacco like

[00:13:34.400] 
Mr. Hanes in Winston. My daddy says the Duke's

[00:13:37.120] 
bought up his tobacco business and he took
 some money and started a mill.

[00:13:40.640] 
My daddy says he's making all kinds of money.

[00:13:45.680] 
Sure are lot of pictures of you in here.

[00:13:47.680] 
Oh, Daddy had those made to give away to family.

[00:13:51.160] 
You want one?

[00:13:56.680] 
 Tommy, we've got to be going.

[00:13:58.640] 
It's gonna be dark as it is time we get home.

[00:14:09.080] 
Tommy, that you?

[00:14:15.360] 
Well, howdy Mrs. Clemments.

[00:14:16.920] 
Told Eb I'd have him back on time.

[00:14:18.480] 
Well, thank you.

[00:14:20.680] 
Won't you stay for supper?

[00:14:21.200] 
We've got fresh peach pie.

[00:14:24.080] 
Sounds mighty good, but no, ma'am.

[00:14:25.640] 
I've got to get on down the road.

[00:14:28.400] 
Tommy, you take care now.

[00:14:30.600] 
What do you say, son? 

[00:14:32.720] 
Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr.  Matthews.

[00:14:34.640] 
That's Coy. 

[00:14:35.560] 
Yes, sir.

[00:14:37.400] 
Don't forget your poster.

[00:14:43.240] 
Now Mr. Matthews, you come by for some of that pie when you've got more time to visit. 

[00:14:47.320] 
Yes, ma'am, I surely will.
Goodnight.

[00:14:49.800] 
Goodnight.

[00:14:53.480] 
What have you got there, son?

[00:14:55.280] 
Just an old poster.

[00:14:56.120] 
Well run down to the barn and see 
when your daddy will be ready to eat.

[00:14:59.000] 
Yes ma'am.

[00:15:02.440] 
That ought to hold it a couple hours.

[00:15:05.640] 
How's it look to you?

[00:15:07.160] 
Yes, sir.

[00:15:08.960] 
It looks just fine.

[00:15:12.520] 
Fine enough to turn that tobacco 
nice and bright. 

[00:15:17.440] 
Want me to keep an eye on it for a while?

[00:15:19.120] 
No. Why don't you just run on up to the house 
and get something to eat.

[00:15:22.000] 
Okay, but I'll be right back.

[00:15:24.800] 
I'll be here.

[00:15:28.120] 
Well now, look who finally found his way home.

[00:15:31.957] 
Hello Jefferson.

[00:15:33.080] 
How you doing, Tommy?

[00:15:36.240] 
That little ride to town for quite a while.

[00:15:40.120] 
Durham still there?

[00:15:42.680] 
Yes.

[00:15:41.729] 
Daddy.

[00:15:50.200] 
Well now, that's a right

[00:15:50.240] 
pretty little girl.

[00:15:51.640] 
Her name's Grace Phillips.

[00:15:52.957] 
I met her when Mr. Matthews,

[00:15:54.840] 
Coy, went to see his boss.

[00:15:58.280] 
Yep, right pretty.

[00:15:58.757] 
And daddy, she

[00:16:01.280] 
 lives in a great big house

[00:16:03.160] 
and they have a new car

[00:16:06.000] 
bigger than that one that Coy drives.

[00:16:08.080] 
And Daddy, I just got to get me a job.

[00:16:11.040] 
A job?

[00:16:13.000] 
What do you mean a job son? 
You've got a job already.

[00:16:15.840] 
Ain't you been working with me all summer?

[00:16:18.080] 
No, I mean a real job. A job,

[00:16:21.040] 
where I can make me some money.
A job maybe.

[00:16:23.440] 
A job maybe like that one Grace's daddy has.

[00:16:25.514] 
Mm-hm.

[00:16:28.840] 
Well son, 

[00:16:31.160] 
there's a lot of things you got to 
learn about this job first.

[00:16:33.880] 
About how to work with tobacco and
 how to get the money out of it.

[00:16:38.840] 
And your mother and I, we were thinking
 maybe

[00:16:41.400] 
we could send you to college later on,
 help you get that job you want so bad.

[00:16:47.840] 
Course someday if you want to come right back here

[00:16:53.560] 
the farm will be yours if you want it.

[00:16:55.640] 
Daddy, if you was me, what would you do?

[00:16:59.840] 
Hard to say, son.

[00:17:01.960] 
I guess,

[00:17:03.960] 
guess I'd go right on doing what I've been
 doing ever

[00:17:05.740] 
since I started working in these fields with my daddy.

[00:17:10.080] 
You know they say tobacco is a thirteen
 month crop and they're right.

[00:17:15.320] 
There's just something about it.

[00:17:18.680] 
Say isn't it about time for supper?
Oh, yeah.

[00:17:20.880] 
Oh, yeah. Mama sent me down to 
find out when you want to eat.

[00:17:24.560] 
You run along. Tell her I'll be up there shortly.

[00:17:28.400] 
Hey, what else you got there?

[00:17:28.629] 
Oh, just an old poster Mr. Patterson gave me. 

[00:17:31.557] 
Uh-hu.

[00:17:33.400] 
Well, you go on up.

[00:17:35.000] 
I'll keep this.

[00:17:36.086] 
[music]

[00:17:50.760] 
I guess I pretty much made up my mind
 that night that

[00:17:53.320] 
I'd be a tobacco farmer like my father.

[00:17:57.160] 
However, I went on to college and got a
 degree in agriculture.

[00:18:01.840] 
I really needed that education, too.

[00:18:05.000] 
Things have changed a lot since I was a
 boy.

[00:18:08.320] 
Mules were replaced by tractors long ago.

[00:18:13.960] 
But even the tractors are always
 changing,

[00:18:16.560] 
 getting larger, doing more of the
 work.

[00:18:21.320] 
We fertilize the land while we're
 plowing, use

[00:18:24.080] 
 insecticides and herbicides to get large crops

[00:18:27.440] 
never dreamed of by my father.

[00:18:30.280] 
We still transfer the young plants from
 seed beds to the fields

[00:18:36.080] 
but machines have replaced the 
slow, backbreaking

[00:18:38.720] 
 labor of placing each plant in its position

[00:18:41.920] 
row after row, field after field.

[00:18:44.960] 
And the machine even waters and fertilizes
 the plant as it goes along.

[00:18:50.080] 
With a lot of care, a lot of work, and a
 little luck,

[00:18:53.800] 
the plants mature to thick, beautiful 
rows of tall green tobacco

[00:18:58.040] 
soon to be turned into real fine Carolina
 Bright Leaf.

[00:19:03.000] 
I even harvest my crop a lot different
 now.

[00:19:06.240] 
These types of machines have all but done
 away with

[00:19:08.800] 
the menial labor of hand priming in
 larger fields.

[00:19:12.760] 
Dad would find it hard to believe a
 machine could do this kind of work.

[00:19:17.880] 
He also wouldn't believe how we cure the
 tobacco now.

[00:19:21.440] 
We use what we call bulk barns

[00:19:23.320] 
that hold three times as much tobacco as
 log barns

[00:19:26.120] 
and can be packed a whole lot faster

[00:19:28.760] 
than the old barns.

[00:19:30.560] 
The critical curing temperatures 
are carefully regulated

[00:19:33.360] 
and timed automatically

[00:19:35.920] 
to produce a barn of beautiful, bright tobacco.

[00:19:39.600] 
The one thing that hasn't changed a whole
 lot, at least

[00:19:42.200] 
outwardly, is the auction of the loose
 leaf tobacco.

[00:19:45.680] 
It still has all the [?] and excitement
 as when

[00:19:48.200] 
my father took me to the opening of the
 market,

[00:19:51.040] 
but its pace has gotten a lot faster.

[00:19:54.560] 
And talk about getting faster.

[00:19:56.880] 
These cigarette machines can make up to
 five thousand cigarettes a minute.

[00:20:01.520] 
Cigarettes and other tobacco products
 made in the United States

[00:20:04.320] 
are shipped all over the world.

[00:20:06.800] 
Tobacco is big business, not just

[00:20:09.440] 
in the South, but the whole United
 States.

[00:20:12.200] 
It accounts for nearly three percent of
 the gross national product.

[00:20:15.760] 
Now that's over fifty billion dollars

[00:20:18.360] 
of the nation's economy.

[00:20:20.160] 
Tobacco taxes amount to more than twenty
 billion dollars

[00:20:23.920] 
for federal, state and local governments.

[00:20:26.400] 
And it provides jobs, lots of jobs.

[00:20:30.080] 
Two million sixty-seven thousand people

[00:20:32.880] 
work in one way or another with tobacco

[00:20:35.520] 
in the United States.

[00:20:37.440] 
And to stay this big requires a lot of
 innovation

[00:20:40.840] 
and research, such as the kind that is
 done up at the tobacco

[00:20:43.840] 
 research station at Oxford, North Carolina.

[00:20:46.760] 
The scientists are developing tobacco with
 lower tar levels,

[00:20:49.320] 
but with just as much flavor and
 taste.

[00:20:53.040] 
They are constantly developing new
 strains

[00:20:55.680] 
of tobacco here. Types that are more

[00:20:58.200] 
resistant to the many diseases and
 parasites that affect the plant.

[00:21:02.480] 
Yes, times have changed.

[00:21:05.080] 
Everything changes to some degree,

[00:21:07.920] 
but I still love tobacco farming.

[00:21:10.360] 
Wouldn't trade it for anything.

[00:21:12.800] 
Two of my sons helped me run the farm.

[00:21:15.200] 
Someday it'll be theirs.

[00:21:18.680] 
The old barn,

[00:21:21.200] 
I just keep it around for sentimental
 reasons, I guess.

[00:21:25.120] 
Reminds me of the old days.

[00:21:28.680] 
You know, I wonder whatever happened to
 Coy.

[00:21:31.600] 
[music]

[00:21:41.986] 
[truck starts]

[00:21:44.400] 
[music]