Share your barn's story

DUANE CROSS
Publisher•Editor

My grandparents’ farmstead was among the many that were torn asunder by the government to make way for Tims Ford. I’m not going to rail against decisions made two generations ago, but I will say – hindsight being 20/20 – that The Man made out better than we, the people. Alas, it is what it is.

In August 1967, the farmhouse, garage/woodshed, and tobacco barn were moved from “in the holler” to higher ground. Fifty years later, we remodeled the farmhouse, removed the garage/woodshed, and reskinned the tobacco barn.

Once upon a time, the barn housed a couple of mules – Joe and Luke – and Granddaddy’s tack room is pretty much as it was when he passed in 1974. Three other stalls off the main hallway house “stuff” – tobacco sticks, a single-wheel corn planter, and a lot of different manual labor farming equipment.

One stall is a birthing room for vultures. Mom-and-dad vultures have raised their babies in a stall for the past five years. (Weird, I know, but we get a kick out of watching the newbies hop, hop, hop across the barn lot as they learn to fly.)

The barn was necessary for the farm, but for us grandkids, it was a magical place for rippin’ and rompin’. Tobacco was hung four levels high on the left and right sides, and hay was stacked in the loft.

Bound with blonde twine that was rough as a cob, those square bales of hay were heavy – but as long as Uncle Jackie was slinging ’em from the wagon into the hay hole, we would not quit.

Truth is, after the hay was stacked, we enjoyed jumping from the loft onto the wagon, climbing the ladder into the loft and jumping again. Somehow, we never broke a bone, twisted an ankle, or were injured more than a scrape or splinter here and there.

When we began the farmhouse remodel, the barn was always in the back of my mind. It had the original white oak planks, and they were in bad shape. My dad could not wrap his head around why I wanted to save the barn. “Just take it down,” he said.

Aside from some whittlin’ items and a fedora, the barn is my most tangible connection to Granddaddy. When I grab the peg of the stall locking mechanism, I know he once touched that peg. Same thing for walking across the loft; I tread in his footsteps.

Sadly, too many barns in Moore County are losing to Father Time. Even the famed Motlow barns of Motlow Barn Road have fallen to the wayside. But there are many remaining – and I want to document them and their stories.

If you have an old barn, send me a picture and a few words about why it is special. We’ll compile these to feature in a future edition of the newspaper and online. You can mail them to P.O. Box 3, Lynchburg, or email them to editor@mcobserver.news.