Well, first, I was born and raised in Smithfield, North Carolina,
Johnston County. My daddy was a tobacco farmer, tenant farmer. Raised on
the farm, just a little country boy. And uh, he would go to sell
tobacco, probably I was ten years old. When he went to sell tobacco, I
went with him. It just fascinated me: the auctioneer would go down the
row selling tobacco. It just — at the age of ten! A lot of people [they
may say] that couldn't have happened. Yes, they did happen. I, uh, my
Dad was a friend of a tobacco auctioneer that was doing the auction that
day. And uh, everywhere this auctioneer was
Page 2 at, my
Dad would sell tobacco. He liked him. They were good friends, and uh, I
came back home that day and well, I guess it was about the first time I
visited a tobacco sale— I'd say pretty near close, anyway. I told my
Dad, riding back home—. He let me stay at the warehouse until the sale
was over. I followed right behind him, looking. I told my Dad, I said,
"Dad, I believe I'll be a tobacco auctioneer." He said, "Oh, son, now
that's a whole lot now to learn and how can you do that?" I said, "I'll
try." I began to try to make a chant, do the chant, at that age. I'd go
home and I'd practice and do everything else. This guy that was
auctioneering, we'll say he was a friend of my Daddy, he'd come by our
house and visit. My Daddy told him, "That boy of mine went to see you
sell tobacco and he just got it in him. He's trying to auctioneer
everything around. He sold everything that's around here." He told me,
though, he chanted off, you know. Well, I didn't know what I was doing
but I was making the fuss he was making, but, oh, it went on and uh I
kept right on continuing to do it, going to tobacco sales. I was about
fourteen. I was fourteen years old. This man started a tobacco
auctioneering school. He came to my house and I was the first one signed
up. He said, "I'm going to sign that kid up in that school." He said,
"I'm going to make a tobacco auctioneer out of him." His name was C.E.
Stevenson. They called him Snoxic Stevenson. He would come out and he
would mess with me. So he started a school! I went to school! I think it
was six or seven weeks, something like that. We put baskets on the floor
and practiced. I think there was thirty-two of us in that school. I was
the youngest one in it. There was someone about forty years old there.
Some of them seemed to think, you know, later on, said like, "Well,
he'll probably be the auctioneer. He's so young. He's determined." I
became fifteen years old before the tobacco market opened. I went with
my Daddy to sell tobacco again. Snoxic came by and he said, "Look son,
when we get to your Daddy's tobacco I'm going to let you sell it." He
said, "You can do it." I said, "Well, look—." He said, "You come on over
and you get right behind me and you watch everything I do. When we get
there, I'm going to let you sell it." Now imagine a fifteen-year-old kid
getting into a tobacco sale. [I don't know what I thought of everything
he did?]. So we got to the pile. He stopped and he told the tobacco
buyers, "I'm going to let this kid sell tobacco. I've had him at
auctioning school and this is his Daddy's tobacco." He said, "Y'all help
him." They didn't probably want me to sell someone else's tobacco,
Page 3 but Daddy said, "All right you can sell this." So I
got in there and I was scared to death. Really, I was shaking. But
something happened that day. Back those days, tobacco buyers, everybody
wore cuffs in their pants, you know, and one of these tobacco buyers had
an artificial leg. And he hopped. I was just shaking so bad, and scared
at trying to sell it. He was trying to help me, but something happened.
His britches leg caught on fire, while I was selling tobacco. And
[unclear] and said he called the fire truck.
Said Johnny Map's peg wooden leg is on fire. He said he had a wooden leg
and it was on fire and he was going to burn up. And so, they stopped and
he put it out. Everything was ok. It took the fright off of me.
Everybody got to laughing at him and I went on and done a pretty good
job. [I] sold [my first tobacco] that afternoon.