I suppose it is natural for each new generation to sit back and roll their eyes when a parent or grandparent starts telling stories about the "good old days." I remember clearly having the same reaction when I was a youngster.

Now, my greatest desire would be to hear my grandfather tell one of his stories again. He often began his tales with the disclaimer, "Here's a good story. And it has the added benefit of being true."

I believe family stories are important and need retelling as a way of remembering. Children need to understand their family heritage, but, just as important, family stories retold bring back loved ones long gone.

I was born and raised in eastern North Carolina during the 1960s and '70s. Life was hard, and from the time I was 7 years old, my brother and I worked at our family's sawmill and on the family tobacco farm.

Working in a saw mill was dangerous, hot and physically demanding work. Saws, machinery and pieces of heavy equipment were constantly running. The air filled with sawdust, which caked in your mouth and nose.

My father, being a man who firmly believes in leading by example, saved the most challenging jobs for himself or his sons. One particularly difficult assignment was to clear out a pipe that ran from the saws to a structure that housed sawdust and wood chips until they were sold. As the smallest, I would shimmy up a 10-foot ladder, enter into the structure -- which was close to 120 degrees in temperature -- and crawl through the pipe until I reached the clog. As soon the pipe was clear, a huge blast of dust covered me up from head to toe.

Farming was just as hard.

For several years a man named Buck Jones tended my father's farm. For some reason (probably having to do with not wanting to work in the hot sun for 25 cents per hour) his regular farm hands walked off the job. If you know anything about farming, you know that when the crops are ready, harvesting cannot wait. And now was that time for that particular year's tobacco crop.

At end of each day, I would drag myself home and lie in a tub of water that quickly turned black with a mixture of grime, dirt and tobacco gum. I clearly remember two thoughts at this time: One, a sense of total physical exhaustion I have not experienced since; Second, I definitely didn't want to grow up to be a farmer.

My father was always on the lookout for a good tenant farmer. One year, there was a particular tenant my father wanted to tend his farm. However, the tenant would only agree on the condition that I work for him as part of the deal. To this day, I kid my Dad about selling me into a life of indentured servitude at age 7 and how it took more than 10 years to buy my freedom.

If you are looking for someone to wax poetic about the virtues of working the land, you've got the wrong guy. Raising tobacco back then was hot, dirty and exhausting. A typical day began at 6 a.m. After breakfast, our first chore was to "take out" the tobacco from the barn where the leaves had been curing for several days. What I remember most about this was the tons of sand that would rain down on you as you pulled each stick of tobacco from the barn. It was impossible to keep the sand from getting in your eyes, down your neck, everywhere. There is not one nook nor cranny on the human body that this sand could not find.

After "taking out" we would immediately head to the fields and begin harvesting, or "cropping." In the mornings we would freeze from the dew in the fields. In the afternoon the temperature routinely surpassed 90 degrees.

Manual tobacco cropping is unusually difficult. One has to stoop over all day, pulling the leaves from the tobacco stalk. Because of this constant bending some refer to this as "stoop labor." I believed it was called "stoop labor" because you had to be "stupid" to do it all day.

Green tobacco is nothing like the sweet smell of cured tobacco. The plant generates a thick, gooey tar-like substance that irritates the skin and requires scrubbing with an extremely pungent soap. By day's end -- around 7:30 p.m. or whenever it got dark -- you are covered in a toxic mixture of sweat, dirt and tobacco gum. My clothes and I smelled so bad, Mother used to make me take off my clothes in the garage and have me proceed directly to the shower.

There were, however, moments of relief and fun even in the midst of this physical toil. Once, on a particularly hot afternoon, my fellow workers and I decided to "borrow" a watermelon from my Uncle Jasper's watermelon patch. We smashed the watermelon open across the tongue of the tobacco wagon and literally buried our faces in the sweet juice. Pure nectar straight from Mount Olympus couldn't have been any better.

In all fairness, this hard work wasn't all bad. For one thing, I learned a lot of lessons: (1) I knew I never wanted to be a farmer; (2) I knew I never wanted to work in a saw mill; (3) I decided I really liked going back to school in the fall.

But more than that, I think the hard work ultimately was good for me. Today I don't take anything for granted; I know the value of a good day's work and I appreciate the lessons I've learned.

Having said all that, now it's time for me to get back to my desk job in an air-conditioned office.

GREG MERCER IS A SARATOGA CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE WHO NOW LIVES IN CHARLOTTE.

greg.mercer@redmoonmkt.com