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By Grant Avis
On March 3, 2023, a storm tore off a barn roof in Grayson County, Kentucky. With it, the wind threatened to blow away a hundred years of history.
Many mornings, I find myself walking to class with earbuds in, listening to songs of my choice on YouTube, like the old man I am. The first song is always an easy choice, as I always have some melody that has planted itself in my head, and I arise in the morning with the tune on my lips. This earworm I release through my earbuds carries me just to the other side of Third Street, where I am faced with the daunting task of choosing the next song. As I continue on the concrete past the Speed Art Museum, briefly looking up to avoid the cars of late commuters zooming carelessly into the parking garage, I scroll through the songs that the all-knowing algorithm has deemed fit for my listening. One crisp morning brought the recommendation of a song from a band I liked, Old Crow Medicine Show, titled: “We Don’t Grow Tobacco."
My first impression upon reading this title was that the song detailed the story of some rebels who refused to conform to what was once the standard farming practice in much of the rural South, including Kentucky. That assumption was very wrong. Rather than a song celebrating the independence of not growing tobacco, the song instead mourns the loss of not having the opportunity to grow tobacco. The tune that planted itself in my head that morning, satisfying my ears and moving my soul, was about me. I have never heard a better encapsulation of the last century of my family’s experience, and I have not found a better vehicle to voice all my complicated feelings about my history, heritage, and existence. “We Don’t Grow Tobacco” literally details the collapse of tobacco farming. However, the message of the song goes further. By tracing the end of that agricultural practice, the song becomes a powerful lamentation of a way of life, mourning the decay and foreshadowing the death of rural America.
Grandpa told me this, I know
Change is coming, won't be slow
Knocking just like a thunder at the door
Fallow fields are all around
Empty barns just falling down
With iron weeds coming up through the floor
Once we growed it by the pound
Now the kids all moved to town
And all that's left are elderly and poor
I am named after my great-grandmother, born Leona Olga Grant in rural Grayson County. Her great-grandfather first settled the land on which she was born. The world she entered in 1906 had drastically changed by the time of her departure in 1995. By the end of the 20th century and my Mamaw White’s life, the land our family settled was worked more by tires than hands. The family owned country stores, once found at the intersection of every dirt and gravel road, were shuttered. Small towns had been mostly abandoned. The once-thriving Grayson Springs Hotel had boards on its windows and no trespassing signs stapled to the dying once-grand oak trees. The environment had been under attack, too, with streams poisoned and hills stripped barren of their trees. Farmers had been told to “get big or get out,” a policy that forced many rural Americans to uproot and leave their homes. Teenagers complained about the constraints of their one horse towns. The so-called lucky ones got out of Dodge as soon as they shook the principal’s hand. The unlucky ones, left with only welfare and pills, often chose the high that the too abundant drugs offered. This is what I was born into.
My grandparents were born as these devastating changes were beginning to flood the banks of rural America’s rivers. Baby Boomers, they were born immediately after the end of the Second World War. Unlike me, they can still remember before the environmental and cultural decay our rural areas have experienced. They grew up hearing the call of bobwhite quail at night, drinking from creeks, and buying luxurious cokes at Effy’s store. They also were raised farming tobacco. I grew up hearing these stories from a foreign land. Though they described places familiar to me, and spoke of many of the same people that helped raise me, the world they described was alien to me. It was through them that I had a connection to what rural life once was.
I tried to model my childhood off theirs. My Papaw grew up exploring the whole county on his bike, climbing hills, crossing hollers with little interference. When I was growing up, my bike could hardly make it past the driveway. Going further meant facing speeding pickup trucks with front blindspots larger than my eight year old self and a driver with eyes glued to Facebook rather than the road. The fields Papaw explored had been cleared for industrial scale farming, killing native plants and animals. I couldn’t carry my wildlife manual identifying wildflowers as he had done, for few farmers had let their fields grow naturally. Hollers were blocked by no trespassing signs, and drinking from the creeks that hallowed out the landscape meant drinking pesticides, too.
Though I was not able to explore Kentucky and the world as my grandfather had, I still count myself incredibly lucky for being born in a rural area. Despite being quite the strange little child, I was raised in a community of care that allowed me to be all of my nerdy self. Growing up, I always knew someone was looking out for me and someone was taking care of me. It truly takes a village to raise a child, and I was fortunate to be born in a town small enough to qualify as a village.
Yet, I don’t want to sugarcoat where I grew up. The stories my grandparents told never included people of color. That’s because they grew up in a sundown town. The love extended to me growing up would have been withheld by some if I had come out as gay. This endemic prejudice is part of the reason why my grandfather always warned against unrestrained nostalgia. The world he grew up in wasn’t perfect. But I maintain there are some aspects of Papaw’s childhood world that we want back. We want a rural America where opportunity exists, where its people and land aren’t exploited, where its environment isn’t destroyed by the unrelenting, unending greed, consumerism, and materialism that plagues this country. We must decide, as Jason Isbell said in his “Speed Trap Town,” what can and can’t be left behind. God’s creation, His Earth and all its children, shouldn’t be left behind.
Again, I find my relationship with my home complicated. Because, rather than starting my mornings by listening to robins as I walk along a stream and sycamore trees, I find myself listening to my earbuds as I cross busy streets and descend into the concrete jungle. The kids that moved to town include me, at least for now. When I graduate, the temptation to leave it all behind will be high. More money, opportunity, comfort, entertainment, all the aspects of what modern society tells me defines a good life is offered to me by the city lights rather than the quiet countryside. In its place, the country offers me a community of care for my kids to be safe in and a village to help raise them. The country offers me peace, as I have found that I can’t feel serenity so far away from where the treesfrogs raise their voices to clear skies full of stars. The country offers me family, and a tradition dating back to even further back than eighteen hundred and ten. The country offers me a way of life I haven’t found anywhere else.
Yes, I sure am sad to say
This way of life has gone away
Now that we don't grow tobacco around here no more
When that barn roof came off, my grandma implored us, “Tear the old thing down!” But my grandpa stayed quiet. The silence was a clear “no” to everyone present, but I don’t think Papaw could articulate why he couldn’t part with the barn. His decision can be understood through the mourning of a way of life murdered, with the ashes left remaining in the dwindling number of falling down barns across rural America. Some would prefer to sweep the ashes away, and fashion something prettier, neater, and more pleasing in their place, something that would produce more money and pleasure. But there are others, like Papaw and me, who would rather strive to rekindle and preserve the warm heart of tradition. That fire may not be coming back, but the struggle for the preservation of a gentler, slower, and more whole way of life is one I feel must be carried on. I hope Papaw and I will try our best.
Grant Avis is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2026. He is studying history and political science at the University of Louisville
On March 3, 2023, a storm tore off a barn roof in Grayson County, Kentucky. With it, the wind threatened to blow away a hundred years of history.
My first impression upon reading this title was that the song detailed the story of some rebels who refused to conform to what was once the standard farming practice in much of the rural South, including Kentucky. That assumption was very wrong. Rather than a song celebrating the independence of not growing tobacco, the song instead mourns the loss of not having the opportunity to grow tobacco. The tune that planted itself in my head that morning, satisfying my ears and moving my soul, was about me. I have never heard a better encapsulation of the last century of my family’s experience, and I have not found a better vehicle to voice all my complicated feelings about my history, heritage, and existence. “We Don’t Grow Tobacco” literally details the collapse of tobacco farming. However, the message of the song goes further. By tracing the end of that agricultural practice, the song becomes a powerful lamentation of a way of life, mourning the decay and foreshadowing the death of rural America.
We been farming on this land
Since eighteen hundred ten
Through flood, drought, pestilence, and war
This section from the second verse was my first indication that this song could have been written about my family. It was around 1810 that my family first found its way to the wilderness of Grayson County, Kentucky. My pioneer ancestors claimed hundreds of acres of land (which had been violently cleared of its Native inhabitants) and, like most Americans at the time, they began farming. Over two hundred years later, my grandparents still toil Grayson County soil, just a few miles from the original homestead. The article could end here on a nice, wholesome note, with every the hearts of every reader warmed by the sweet simplicity of us old country people. But things aren’t so simple.
Since eighteen hundred ten
Through flood, drought, pestilence, and war
This section from the second verse was my first indication that this song could have been written about my family. It was around 1810 that my family first found its way to the wilderness of Grayson County, Kentucky. My pioneer ancestors claimed hundreds of acres of land (which had been violently cleared of its Native inhabitants) and, like most Americans at the time, they began farming. Over two hundred years later, my grandparents still toil Grayson County soil, just a few miles from the original homestead. The article could end here on a nice, wholesome note, with every the hearts of every reader warmed by the sweet simplicity of us old country people. But things aren’t so simple.
Grandpa told me this, I know
Change is coming, won't be slow
Knocking just like a thunder at the door
Fallow fields are all around
Empty barns just falling down
With iron weeds coming up through the floor
Once we growed it by the pound
Now the kids all moved to town
And all that's left are elderly and poor
I am named after my great-grandmother, born Leona Olga Grant in rural Grayson County. Her great-grandfather first settled the land on which she was born. The world she entered in 1906 had drastically changed by the time of her departure in 1995. By the end of the 20th century and my Mamaw White’s life, the land our family settled was worked more by tires than hands. The family owned country stores, once found at the intersection of every dirt and gravel road, were shuttered. Small towns had been mostly abandoned. The once-thriving Grayson Springs Hotel had boards on its windows and no trespassing signs stapled to the dying once-grand oak trees. The environment had been under attack, too, with streams poisoned and hills stripped barren of their trees. Farmers had been told to “get big or get out,” a policy that forced many rural Americans to uproot and leave their homes. Teenagers complained about the constraints of their one horse towns. The so-called lucky ones got out of Dodge as soon as they shook the principal’s hand. The unlucky ones, left with only welfare and pills, often chose the high that the too abundant drugs offered. This is what I was born into.
My grandparents were born as these devastating changes were beginning to flood the banks of rural America’s rivers. Baby Boomers, they were born immediately after the end of the Second World War. Unlike me, they can still remember before the environmental and cultural decay our rural areas have experienced. They grew up hearing the call of bobwhite quail at night, drinking from creeks, and buying luxurious cokes at Effy’s store. They also were raised farming tobacco. I grew up hearing these stories from a foreign land. Though they described places familiar to me, and spoke of many of the same people that helped raise me, the world they described was alien to me. It was through them that I had a connection to what rural life once was.
I tried to model my childhood off theirs. My Papaw grew up exploring the whole county on his bike, climbing hills, crossing hollers with little interference. When I was growing up, my bike could hardly make it past the driveway. Going further meant facing speeding pickup trucks with front blindspots larger than my eight year old self and a driver with eyes glued to Facebook rather than the road. The fields Papaw explored had been cleared for industrial scale farming, killing native plants and animals. I couldn’t carry my wildlife manual identifying wildflowers as he had done, for few farmers had let their fields grow naturally. Hollers were blocked by no trespassing signs, and drinking from the creeks that hallowed out the landscape meant drinking pesticides, too.
Though I was not able to explore Kentucky and the world as my grandfather had, I still count myself incredibly lucky for being born in a rural area. Despite being quite the strange little child, I was raised in a community of care that allowed me to be all of my nerdy self. Growing up, I always knew someone was looking out for me and someone was taking care of me. It truly takes a village to raise a child, and I was fortunate to be born in a town small enough to qualify as a village.
Yet, I don’t want to sugarcoat where I grew up. The stories my grandparents told never included people of color. That’s because they grew up in a sundown town. The love extended to me growing up would have been withheld by some if I had come out as gay. This endemic prejudice is part of the reason why my grandfather always warned against unrestrained nostalgia. The world he grew up in wasn’t perfect. But I maintain there are some aspects of Papaw’s childhood world that we want back. We want a rural America where opportunity exists, where its people and land aren’t exploited, where its environment isn’t destroyed by the unrelenting, unending greed, consumerism, and materialism that plagues this country. We must decide, as Jason Isbell said in his “Speed Trap Town,” what can and can’t be left behind. God’s creation, His Earth and all its children, shouldn’t be left behind.
Again, I find my relationship with my home complicated. Because, rather than starting my mornings by listening to robins as I walk along a stream and sycamore trees, I find myself listening to my earbuds as I cross busy streets and descend into the concrete jungle. The kids that moved to town include me, at least for now. When I graduate, the temptation to leave it all behind will be high. More money, opportunity, comfort, entertainment, all the aspects of what modern society tells me defines a good life is offered to me by the city lights rather than the quiet countryside. In its place, the country offers me a community of care for my kids to be safe in and a village to help raise them. The country offers me peace, as I have found that I can’t feel serenity so far away from where the treesfrogs raise their voices to clear skies full of stars. The country offers me family, and a tradition dating back to even further back than eighteen hundred and ten. The country offers me a way of life I haven’t found anywhere else.
Yes, I sure am sad to say
This way of life has gone away
Now that we don't grow tobacco around here no more
When that barn roof came off, my grandma implored us, “Tear the old thing down!” But my grandpa stayed quiet. The silence was a clear “no” to everyone present, but I don’t think Papaw could articulate why he couldn’t part with the barn. His decision can be understood through the mourning of a way of life murdered, with the ashes left remaining in the dwindling number of falling down barns across rural America. Some would prefer to sweep the ashes away, and fashion something prettier, neater, and more pleasing in their place, something that would produce more money and pleasure. But there are others, like Papaw and me, who would rather strive to rekindle and preserve the warm heart of tradition. That fire may not be coming back, but the struggle for the preservation of a gentler, slower, and more whole way of life is one I feel must be carried on. I hope Papaw and I will try our best.
Grant Avis is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2026. He is studying history and political science at the University of Louisville