HADLEY — There are television shows with “Friends” in the title and we all have enough Facebook friends to fill the Mullins Center, but the kind of companions who help you bring in the harvest on a hot August weekend are the ones you always want to have with you.
The operation uses six tractors, one of which has been in use for 75 years, but the 20 or so people on site – it appears to be a family and they work hard – clearly enjoy each other’s company as they collect huge, freshly chopped tobacco leaves.
In a conveyor belt that rivals Motor City, they haul the leaves to the “horse,” where they are “skewered” by former Hopkins Academy superstars like Andrew Ciaglo and Braeden Tudryn. Then the “porters” haul them to the tractor, where “loader” extraordinaire Eileen Kelley loads each bundle onto the rack.
“It keeps you young, or so we tell ourselves,” laughed Kelley, who admonishes the team below like a third-base coach.
And with shirtless Eddie Kelley at the wheel, the huffing machine rattles off to the big barn over there, where the leaves are hung from the rafters. Another tractor pulls up like an airport taxi, and Eileen Kelley jumps from one tractor to the other, the heavy loading never letting up for a second.
Two of these collectors, Tracy Kelley and Chris Sadlowski, along with their husbands Paul and Jeff, are long-time partners in the company.
“We do this for fun!” says Sadlowski. “Every day is a family reunion for us. We all love being out here and working together. It’s a lot of fun!”
“At the same time every year,” agrees Tracy Kelley. “Plant in the greenhouses starting in April, transplant to the fields around June, harvest in August.”
The axe-chopping started early this morning. “We like to let it wilt in the sun for a while,” Kelley said. “It’s starting to get damp, which helps too. But let me get rid of these bundles.”
Then she surveys the scene. She can’t often stop long enough to appreciate this labor-intensive undertaking. “There’s a sister-in-law, another sister-in-law, nephews, cousins and some older kids that we employ. That couple over there are volunteers working with us. It’s quite a production,” she marvels. “My sons are hanging out there in the barn.”
Uh, did you say volunteer work?
“Oh yes. We are so grateful to our friends and family for just coming and helping us without expecting anything. Everyone is helpful and wonderful. And we all have full-time jobs!” said Kelley, program manager at Optum Health.
The farm makes up for it all by bringing the whole gang to the Whately Inn at the end of the season, but for some, the hard work itself is reward enough.
“It’s my last week of freedom,” laughed carrier Beth Antes, who grew up on a farm in Conway and teaches fourth grade in Sunderland.
The Sadlowskis, Chris and Jeff, always plan a two-week vacation during harvest time.
“Holiday!” someone shouted and everyone laughed.
The constant hum of the tractors is only drowned out by a passing Harley or the howling of small airplanes in the sky.
Here, practically anyone can drive a tractor, some learn at the age of 9 or 10. “You just had to keep it in line,” laughed Chris Sadlowski. “As you got older, you had more responsibility. We all worked while we were studying. We did it together, we just loved being out in the fields.”
“It’s an honor,” she added, “it’s something very special.”
The tobacco grown here is used as a wrapper for high-quality cigars. The crop has recovered in recent years after a gap caused by the use of (scrunched up) paper wrappers by cigar makers.
“They homogenized it!” shouts Eddie Kelley, taking a short break from his tractor.
He points out that Hadley’s rich soil and the humidity in the region contribute much to the plant’s success.
“We’re just behind Cuba, the only other place you can get tobacco of this quality,” said Eddie Kelley. “The Carolinas are known for cigarette tobacco, but this – this is a first-class wrapper!”
Everyone is moving, chatting and laughing, but my goodness, what a workout. Is there any truth to the old cliché that farm children are stronger and more agile when they do sports?
“There’s no doubt about it,” Eileen Kelley said as she fed the rack. “You have no choice!”
“It means you don’t have to lift as much weight. I think that definitely gives you an advantage,” says Andrew Ciaglo, 21, a 1,000-point thrower at Hopkins and an excellent javelin thrower who seems to really enjoy the work.
“It’s the people,” said Ciaglo, not letting the spear bother him. “Everyone is close to each other, everyone talks about everything. You have to TRY to make it boring.”
On his skills as a station crew: “You take the plant, try to find the optimal spot and skewer it. Four or five of them make a slat, then we give it to the porters and it goes on the rack.”
He will play basketball at Elms College and pitch for the baseball team. He says he learned a pretty good curve from his father, Hadley legend Fred Ciaglo.
Is he as good as the old man? “Some would say yes,” he grins. “But I don’t know, I’ve never seen him pitch.”
He’s not the old country pitcher who throws fastballs against the barn door for practice. “I don’t have a barn door to throw against,” he laughed. “But I threw it against the house,” he said in a much quieter voice.
Terri Earle’s four children were all stars at Hopkins, and her youngest son, Owen, just left for soccer practice in Amherst after spending half the day up in the barn hanging tobacco.
“The balance you need when you’re standing in the rafters – you can’t teach that,” Earle said. “When you train that kind of balance and strength in your brain and use different muscles, it’s a special kind of training. After that kind of training, I think he’s ready for boot camp,” she laughed.
The mother herself played basketball and softball in Western New England. “I moved away and came back,” she smiles. “A small town like this is simply unbeatable.”
“We all grew up together,” said the patriarch of the company, 60-year-old Jeff Sadlowski, wearing a big orange shirt and suspenders.
Sadlowski’s grandfather, Anthony Sadlowski, who lived to be 101, bought the farm in 1947. “He worked with horses and bought his first tractor in 1949, the John Deere B, which, as you can see, is still running.”
He describes his relationship with his grandfather as “like two peas in a pod. He had a sixth-grade education, but was extremely intelligent. Frugal, never took a vacation. He made himself a beautiful home here.”
Harvesting tobacco involves a never-ending series of processes. It’s not exactly picking strawberries and eating them in the car on the way home. Hanging the leaves in the barn to dry is just the beginning.
The patriarch takes the columnist into the barn (uh oh) and describes a process that begins on a damp October day when the leaves are taken down, stripped from the stems, sorted, stacked, pressed, folded, bundled in manila paper and trucked to Connecticut, from where they are shipped to Pennsylvania to a company called Lancaster Leaf.
As for cigars, Sadlowski often has one between his teeth while he’s working, but his free time is the time to enjoy a good cigar, he says, a Nicaraguan perhaps, or a Charter Oak, or one soaked in Kentucky bourbon.
“If you’re ever in Tampa with your wife, go to JC Newman’s,” he advises. “They do a Black Diamond. All hand-rolled. You can sit right outside the door and smoke your cigar. Get one for your wife, too.”
Bob Flaherty, a longtime author, radio host and former Gazette writer and columnist, writes a monthly column called “Chance Encounters” in which he writes about the daily lives of our neighbors.
