Fishing in the Morning, Gardening by the Moon
William Richardson
William Richardson
William Richardson: If you were able-bodied you worked, and if you didn't, it just . . . it was a social stigma not to work. Nobody respected anybody who didn't work, doing something. My grandfather would say, "We're going fishing in the morning." That meant he'd pick me up at four and we were going to fish until six-thirty and then we'd be at work by seven.
Jen Cramer: I got to ask this, was anyone gardening by the moon by any chance?
Richardson: The Farmer's Almanac is one of best predictors of the weather there is. Been accurate more than weather forecasters are in the last couple of years. Yeah, people look at that. And you had the old things, too. The African Americans would like to fish along the creeks, and when the ground was warm enough to plant cotton, they would be able to sit on the ground. And that was the old wives tale: if the African Americans were sitting on the ground, then the ground is warm enough to plant cotton.