03709_0113: I Don't Do No Votin'

Another version of "I Don't Do No Votin'," entitled "Rick and Lula Gray," can be found on pages 1125A-1133

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FL-16 970 Carter's Florida (Near Lakeland) South Florida Turpentine Corporation Rich and Lula Gray (Negro) Paul Diggs, writer (Negro) Veronica E. Huss, reviser

I DON'T DO NO VOTIN'

A small Coca-cola sign, tacked to a shack at Carters, Florida, and bearing the name of Lula Gray, led me to the quarter house of the Negro camp foreman, Rich Gray. Rich works for the South Florida Turpentine Corporation. Lula is his wife. Their small home once served as a home and store combined. It is reached from the main highway by planks over a ditch.

Rich was not at home, but Lula invited me to come up on the little vine covered porch and wait for him. She told me that he came in from the wood ever day for his noon meal, and as it was near that time, I accepted the invitation. I sat in the swing and shoved the one rocker on the porch with the toe of my shoe. Lula was busy in the kitchen cooking, so I didn't have much time to talk with her, but I managed to ask her where she was from.

"I'se from Manna, South Carolina," she said, "and I'm 37 years old But of course this yere age what I just give you haint what my insurance age is!"

I asked her to explain

"Well, the reason is that hit doan cost us so much if we's younger."

The shack housing the Gray's is one of 40 dilapidated quarter houses furnished turpentine laborers. Situated on old highway 17, seven miles from Lakeland, the camp is one of the oldest in the vicinity.

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Weather-beaten and almost black, the majority of these pine-board shacks ar enot even equipped with shutters and porches. They are built on the low flat lands beneath tall pines, and the spacious yards are flooded during the rainy season. The sand streets of the settlement are deeply graduated on either side, to aid in drainage during we weather.

Lula showed me thier three room house. The interior was not ceiled but it was clean and neatly kept. Pretty curtains hung at the few windows and the cheap furniture was well arranged. The kitchen was also clean and I noticed a bright oil cloth on the table.

In the backyard there were a few chickens running about. The outhouse, about thirty feet back of the house, was crudely built of old lumber. Next to it was a chicken coop built of rough pine boards. There was no fence around the place.

Rich Gray, astride a ligth-brown, high-stepping horse, came toward the house through the pines. A tall, lean man in his early fifties, he was warmly dressed in heavy work clothes, with hickory striped trousers tucked into high-top boots. His slouch sombrero shaded his stern features. He spied me immediately, as I came down off the porch, and spurred his horse on to meet me.

"Who are you?" he snapped, as he brough his mount to a standstill before the cabin door, and swung to the ground.

I told him my name, but before I could make further explanations, he questioned: "And what's your business: We have rules and regulations in this yere camp, and bein as how I'se foreman, I have to know

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all the business what comes around here!"

After this sudden outburst I explained my presence as best I could and asked his cooperation. For the time being he seemed appeased. Lula had come to the door by this time and was watching interestedly. I noticed then that she was much younger than her husband, and had a rich ginger-cake color and straight black hair.

"So you're another of them government fellers?" continued Rich. "One come here jest last week about that Social Security business. He was a government inspector checking, and asked all kinds of question; now you come along and want to know about my life. I had to answer enough questions last week."

He went in the house, after tying his horse to a nearby post. But he came right out again, dragging a chair behind him. He told me to sit down on it, while Lula sat in the rocker and he made himself comfortable on the steps.

In an effort to break the tension I ask Rich where he obtained the fine looking horse he was riding. He said: "Joe? He belong to the company, but I'se been riding him fer the whole five hears I'se been yers. He's one good hoss."

Joe, on hearing his name, pawed the earth with one forefoot and whinnied.

"That's a good lookin saddle he's got on too!"

"Yep, it ain't bad. Hit's called a 12 inch saddle."

"About how much territory do you cover each day?"

"I kivers from 20 to 30 acres a day," he said "I watch out fer fires, and see thet the cup dosn run ova. I also checks locations fer

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supplies of turpentine what's ready fer dippin.

"We works aroun 40 people on this still. Some is chippers, and they work in the woods. We only use trees what's nine inches in diameter. The life of a tree is from four to five years, in this business.

"Clay cups isused on the trees, and they hold anywhar from one quart to one-half gallon. We tried to empty them nigh-on to ever three week, when the sap is runnin. There ain't vera much to do in winter, but work picks up in spring and summa."

Amazed at his own sudden willingness to discuss his every-day life, he stopped as quickly as he had started. His former attitude returned, and again he questioned me on the reasons for my visit. But I soon reassured him and he continued: "I see thet the men chip and dip properly in the woods. Some of them receives anywhar from $1.25 to $1.50 a day; it's all accordin to price received for the turpentine on the market. Some of my mens, dip by the thousand, they get 90¢ a thousand. The good ones averages 1500 a day.

"The turpentine is brought from the woods in barrels. After it reaches the still, it's loaded on the platform you sees over yonder, and dumped into the still under heat. Do ya see thet pipe runnin into the vat? Well, this is run off into the barrels; we don't waste nothin. After hit run into the barrel, it gits hard. The barrels holds 5-15 and 5-20."

I asked him what he meant by 5-15 and 5-20 and he told me: "Green barrels weigh from 40 to 50 pounds, and after this weight has been deducted from full barrels, then they will run from 450 to 500 pounds of

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