Growing Perique Tobacco Is In Dudley LeBlanc’s Blood

By Pam Folse

 

I expected to see a farmer wearing a long-sleeve shirt to protect his skin from the sun. I expected him to have muddy boots. I waited for him to drive up on a tractor pulling a cart. I looked for his slightly-frayed wide-brim straw hat with a sweat-stained band. Well, my vision was all wrong. He rode up on a four-wheeler wearing jeans and a sleeveless red tee. He left his mud-laden boots in the field and was barefooted, except for the caked up earth embedded beneath his toenails.