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jazz and William Faulkner and everything else about it.
And so it grows. And grows. Grows up to three feet a day. Grows a 100 feet a year in Georgia and Alabama. It grows over the tracks between trains. It is considered wise to close your windows at night so the kudzu won’t creep in and strangle someone.
These days Kudzu has taken on mythic proportions, with dozens of web sites extolling its virtues. But back in 1962, on that siding in South Carolina, I was determined to put a stop to it.
It had defied every attempt of us weed killing railroad boys to contain it, to control it, to destroy it. In fact, it seemed to have taken nourishment from the chemical killers we had poured on it throughout the South.
And now, in this place, it was all I could see in any direction.
The old brakeman seemed wise. He would know. “Hey Skeeter,” I said. “What do y’all do about this old Kudzu around here?” He let loose a cud of chewing tobacco out the caboose window. He seemed to ponder the question with deep philosophical scrutiny.
“The best thing to do,” he said, “is to move away and leave it.”
We heard the first faint calls of the local freight’s whistle a few miles off. When it passed with much waving and the hollering of friendly insults, we pulled back onto the branch line and headed for Yemassee.
“When we get to Monk’s Corner, we’ll stop for dinner,” said Skeeter. “There’s a place there that cooks for the railroad men. Got the best fried chicken this side of heaven.”
Old Skeeter was right about that. Yes, indeed.
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