Hired Hand

At age six, I was so impressed with this man that worked with my dad in the sawmill. Why, he could do everything with his total of six fingers as anyone else could with their ten fingers.
When he needed to adjust a machine, he did just fine. Tying his boots up, no problem. scratching his . . . oops, forget that one. Driving a car, just as good as anyone. But the thing that he did with those six fingers, thumb and index on one hand and all but pinky on the other, is awe inspiring to this very day. Why, he could roll a cigarette as smooth as store bought.
I would often walk down to the mill site when the mill was idle. Teddy would be sitting in his "shack". Everything that was not a house or barn seemed to be called shack. There was the saw shack, tool shack and Teddy's Shack. He was always glad to see someone. He would offer me a pull of tobacco. Needless to say, I could never have gotten that smelly stuff past my nose. I believe he would have withdrew the offer if I acted like I wanted some. He had a lot of respect for my family and our tobacco free upbringing.
Like I said, Teddy would be sitting there when I came in after he called out to come in. We did the ritual of me refusing the plug and we would talk about a lot of stuff. Where he had worked before coming to work for my dad, for one. Eventually, I had to ask him to show me how to roll a cigarette. Man did he make it look easy.
After he rolled several, he would shove the makin's my way. I would make a trough out of the paper with my right hand. Opps, I forgot to open the tobacco pouch before I got started. Start over. Pouch open. Paper in right hand again. Now, using only the left hand I needed to get the tobacco loosened up and moved near the open end of the pouch. Carefully, I would jiggle the tobacco over the trough in the paper.
It seemed that the tobacco wanted to come out in one big plop. When this happened, the paper would collapse and all the makin's would end up in my lap. Or, if I really concentrated on getting it out without a clump, I would have forgotten to keep the trough the right shape. Either it would be too narrow and I would miss with the tobacco, or I would be too wide and it would collapse under the tobacco.
Eventually, Teddy would say it looked okay. Can you spell patronizing? So, the next step is to distribute the tobacco and roll it into a cylinder. Mind you, Teddy wanted it very compact. I guess if the tobacco is not tight enough the whole thing burns up too easily. The idea is to roll the paper back and forth a few times to get it compact. Again, Teddy would say when it was good enough. Now for the good part. Moisten the seam of the paper. Teddy did not want his cigarette slobbered over. Nor did he want it to fall apart because it was too dry. When I finnished it, Teddy would give me a nice compliment. He would say how much better this cigarette was than my last try.
I would suggest he smoke the darn thing, but he would always have a reason why not to. He would say he would save it until he was ready for a smoke a little later. To this very day, I suspect that he unrolled the sorry thing and rolled one for himself with a fresh paper. I can't say that I blame him.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'