Martin Luther King and Me

On this Martin Luther King Day I remember that Martin and I had a similar experience during our lifetimes. Martin Luther King worked one Summer in Simsbury, Connecticut and I also worked a couple Summers for the same company. Martin Luther King worked in 1944 for the Cullman Brothers (Culbro)tobacco company to earn money for college. I worked the summers of 1968 and 1969 picking and dragging tobacco.

Later in life Dr. King became famous for his civil rights activities and speeches particularly the "I have a dream..." speech. After working in the tobacco fields those two Summers I also had many dreams. My dreams at the age of 14 and 15 were not about equality and racial harmony. My dreams were about picking tobacco. Yes, I would get up in the morning and pick the broad leaf cigar tobacco leaves and then go to sleep at night and dream of picking tobacco. I didn't necessarily want to dream about picking tobacco each night but sometimes I guess when you have dreams you can't pick beforehand what you are going to dream about.