Spittoons

While I was growing up and spending summers on my Grandfathers farm, in the late thirties and early forties, I overheard many a conversation in which older people engaged. In those days children were expected to "be seen and not heard." I vividly recall one extended discussion on a late Sunday afternoon in which many of my aunts expressed an opinion. (I had nine aunts just from my Father's side.) The topic was spittoons and they all had strong feelings about them. Many men chewed tobacco, my Grandfather even grew his own tobacco. All of my aunts detested cleaning those spittoons, work that devolved to the female in the family because the males went out to work in the fields, or otherwise out to earn a living for the family. Every farm house I had ever visited had a spittoon and most gleamed bright brass on the outside. The major thrust of the topic was that the world will be most improved if all the men smoked cigarettes. Cleaning an ash tray, they reasoned, was a very easy and more agreeable job to that of cleaning a spittoon. My Grandmother opined that if all men smoked all the barns in the area would be burned to the ground. (My uncle Eldege had recently converted to cigarettes and I was aware of the strict admonishment he had given to my cousins that they should never smoke in the barn.) Cigarettes were expensive relative to just using a chew and one of my aunts said they could not afford to supply her husband with such an extravagance. Buying the ingredients and rolling one's own was brought up, that was what Eldege was doing. One comment I recall was that if the men had to clean them the chewing would stop. This confused me because the men slopped pigs and cleaned out stables, much dirtier work, I reasoned, than cleaning spittoons. Of course, I was pleased that it had never occurred to them to have the children do it, I certainly didn't want to do it. Then again, I did help with the pigs and the stables. To those who may not know, a chew of tobacco required spitting from time-to-time. Swallowing tobacco juice makes the world spin around, not good. When outside, spitting was as prevalent as the actions we see from baseball players of today, who themselves are having a good chew. Wonder what do they do when they are indoors?