Cotton Gin
My friend Rob has worked in a cotton gin. His dad owned cotton gins. His grandfather owned cotton gins. I’m not sure how the subject came up in our conversation, but it did. Then he asked if I wanted to see a cotton gin and I said I did and he said he knew a guy who ran one, and surprise, surprise, he was a musician who attended shows I’ve attended along with Rob and I’ll see him, the cotton gin manager, again in Red River this February. So, off we went yesterday to see a cotton gin in Mereta, Texas.
It was a nice drive through familiar country and when we got into the cotton fields, I started getting a lesson on cotton from Rob, which I thought was cool, because it’s always nice to know where your underwear comes from, although the odds of cotton from Tom Green county ending up at a plant that made my Fruit of the Loom underwear is pretty astronomical, still it was fun to think about it, and maybe it was in my tee-shirt. Who knows?
Anyway, the cotton gin manager showed me around, Rob took pictures, and I got an up close and personal look at how cotton gets from a plant to a bale courtesy of some booming machinery. There’s a lot to do and the hardest being removing the seeds from the cotton boll because the seed is buried in there and does not want to come out. If you don’t believe me, come by. I’ve got some cotton. I’ll show you. That’s where Eli Whitney comes in with his first cotton gin and everything after that is just playing variations on his theme, and it’s impressive and I’m sorry I waited this long to see how it’s done. But now I have. Thanks, Rob.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale