The Tobacco is Sleeping

The trip south to my mother’s birthplace began every year at 4 in the morning. My father wanted to

be clear of Manhattan before rush hour began, so I only ever saw the Empire State Building in a groggy state, and wouldn’t be alert and in full realization that I was headed south again until we were on the great barren expanse of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Then it was on to US Route 1/301 from which there was no escape until we veered off around Fayetteville and headed east into coastal North Carolina where Spanish moss hung from the trees like the night swamp level of a Crash Bandicoot game.

I would always know when we made the cross-over from North to South when we passed a tobacco

Current (2019) state of the Quiet the Tobacco is Sleeping Sign

warehouse in Richmond, Virginia, where a big sign told us to be quiet, “the tobacco is sleeping.” My father would point out this landmark every year in case we were too buried in misery in the backseat to notice.

This has been fresh in my memory lately because today, I work near that same warehouse on US Route 1/Jefferson Davis Highway, an unexpected turn of events. Except for Dr Pepper – which announced its approach with round 10-2-4 signs along the highway as we got closer to North Carolina -- there was nothing in the South for me.

Aside: (10, 2 and 4 were the recommended times to drink a Dr Pepper and receive the energy boost it promised. You could not get a Dr Pepper north of the Mason-Dixon line back then, just like you cannot get the king in the North drink – White Rock Cream Soda – down here. Not even now.)

The tobacco is sleeping sign has been gone for many decades. In fact, I don’t remember ever seeing it as an adult, and the abandoned warehouse has crumbled into itself like many of the buildings on the once vibrant U.S. Rt. 1 thoroughfare.

Between 1959 and 1963, I-95 opened along the Mid-Atlantic states, and all the through traffic took the exit. By 1984, tobacco ceased being king. The National Tobacco Council killed the National Tobacco Festival and its parade in Richmond, and its replacement, the Autumn Harvest Grand Illuminated Parade didn’t last very long. No one cared about waking up the tobacco anymore.

But now, as I leave work every day, I notice some activity in the acreage where the tobacco once napped. It’s going to become apartments, or condos, or some kind of great living experiment for Generation Z, the spawn of the millennials, a place where they can share kitchens and community space when they’re not staring at laptops in a group workspace near their dorm-like sleeping quarters. Many of the warehouses in  the surrounding area of Old Town and Manchester are transitioning. Route 1 may yet see a revival from the salvaged hubcap and recapped tire wasteland it became and become a village of craft beer and flavored coffees.