Michael Meissner illustration
Blow the Tannery Whistle
When I was a child growing up in western North Carolina, I awoke each morning to the mournful wail of our tannery whistle. It was a long WOOOOOOOOO that lingered in the coves and hollers of Jackson County for several moments. I would hear my grandmother’s feet hit the floor, and shortly afterwards, the kitchen would be filled with the sounds and smells of breakfast.
The whistle was our clock, and it regulated our lives throughout the day. When it blew at noon, my grandmother would drop her hoe out in the garden and come in to put our dinner on the table. My grandfather, who drove an Esso truck, would hear the summons in Cullowhee or Barker’s Creek, and he would come home to find his dinner waiting for him. At 7 o’clock each evening, he would walk home, often passing members of the tannery’s nightshift on their way to work.
Over the years, the town of Sylva became accustomed to waking, working, eating and sleeping in accordance to the dictates of our tannery. We didn’t all work there, but we moved in harmony to its tune. There is an old story that the mayor of Sylva became an ardent fan of the whistle and repeatedly asked the tannery’s manager to blow the whistle to celebrate civic events—football games, July 4th celebrations, and New Year’s Day. The manager steadfastly refused, sensibly observing that if the whistle blew at unspecified times, the workers would not know if they should come to work or go home. The mayor persisted. Finally, the manager agreed to blow the whistle, provided that some noteworthy event had occurred. He was the sole judge of the event’s significance, of course.
The whistle blew after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. It blew again on Victory in Japan Day in 1945; and finally, to everyone’s embarrassment, it blew one October evening in 1947 to announce the End of the World. In actual fact, there was an aurora borealis, a northern lights display that badly frightened the people of western North Carolina. The tannery manager, convinced that Judgment Day was at hand, told the workers to go home “to be with their loved ones at this dread hour,” and he blew the whistle.
No one seems to remember this event. Perhaps it was embarrassing to admit that we had all been hoodwinked by an eerie spectacle that had been nothing more that the reflection of light from the polar caps. Regardless, this series of events gave rise to an expression that is unique to Jackson County—an expression that only makes sense if you live here, or if you know the history of our whistle.
The expression, “Blow the Tannery Whistle” became a means of (a) expressing amazement or astonishment and (b) acknowledging the significance that is both rare and remarkable. In other words, something that would justify blowing our tannery whistle.
I remember my grandfather saying “Blow the tannery whistle,” when his old-maid sister married an 18-year-old boy. My neighbors said it when my worthless uncle Ardell vanished and then returned several years later driving a Cadillac. My Uncle Albert said it when I tied myself up, locked myself in our outhouse and burned it down. (I was attempting to simulate Gene Autry’s escape from a burning miner’s shack in a Saturday Western.) It was an expression that was always uttered with reverence and awe.
The whistle is gone now, as are most of the people who used to rise, eat, work and sleep when it called them. Sometimes, I wake in the night thinking I hear that mournful WOOOOOOOOOO echoing through my holler.
For a moment, I am back in a world filled with laughter, childish innocence and hope.
(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva, North Carolina. He has been the recipient of the Appalachian Writers Association's Best Book Award for his collection of short stories, Mason Jars in the Flood. A DVD of one of his plays, Nance Dude, is available at his blog site, hollernotes.blogspot.com. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com.)