Growing up in the south during the 50’s many parents worked in town and farmed nights and weekends. Children had plenty of chores. Picking cotton was not a favorite chore, your hands got so cut up…but oh the cotton bales.

Since mechanical cotton pickers, the fields still look white after picking. Not picked “clean” as my Pappy would say. The huge pods of cotton don’t look nearly as pretty as our cotton bales did with the burlap and metal straps around them. And the smell…how I love the smell of cotton.

When Pappy would haul the bales fack form the cotton gin, unload them in the yard, there was a small window of time for us to play on them. They were mountains and fortresses. You felt so tall on top of those bales.

Pappy never complained about us climbing on the bales. He never fussed one single time. He just took great joy in a bountiful crop and children in his yard.

When I look back on it, that was his “cash crop”. It was his savings account, his IRA, his 401K. It was worth a lot of money. Seeing us play on the cotton didn’t diminish its worth. In just a short time, the bales would go into a building to be stored.

While my Pappy’s cash crop was important for the well being of the family, he never made us feel like the cotton was more valuable than we were. The cotton was valuable, but we were his treasure.

Where is your treasure? Where is my treasure?