Source: NEWS & OBSERVER, 1/25/18


In the age of cigarettes, when every Waffle House table had an ashtray and every employee lounge held a smoke cloud, tobacco so dominated North Carolina’s culture that the men who auctioned it became national celebrities.
If they were good, they stalked through warehouses from here to Florida, hawking bales of golden leaf in a voice that was part game-show host and part accountant, spitting out a mantra of dollars and cents faster than a machine gun.

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