sweet kentucky

On a beautiful autumn drive through Kentucky this fall, I noticed a strange sight. I was driving through the fabled Muhlenberg County when I saw a barn that appeared to be on fire, spewing white smoke through all its cracks. When I looked over the hill to the next farm, its barn was smoking, too. I rolled down my window, took a deep breath, and realized that I was witnessng for the first time the scent of tobacco curing. The sights of white smoke reaching for the sky and workers piling the sticky leaves into little stacks reached on for miles. I am fully aware of the dangers of tobacco smoke and the harm it has caused millions, but for that one afternoon I was transfixed by the sweet smoky scent, travelling on the breeze. I remember thinking that if I had grown up in Kentucky, I would be homesick for that smell the way landlocked former seashore dwellers miss the ocean.

This meadow was across the road from one of the smoking barns. I paused to photograph there, drawn by the edge of the grasses meeting the soybean fields beyond. The workers barely took notice of me stopping there as they tended the barn and gathered tobacco leaves.