Last week I posted a story on this site about Thanksgiving, conveying gratitude for all the opportunities represented by the rebuilding of the American Tobacco Historic District.

Earlier, I posted a story about Isiah Parrish who worked as a teenager for the American Tobacco Company in the late forties - of the last century - and how he was now having the opportunity to work in the reconstruction effort.

This week I discovered Joe Barnes who is working to restore the planking on the roof of the Washington Building. Joe volunteered to me, "My grandfather worked at this factory and sent two of his daughters to college, my mother and her sister."

He said, "Times were tough then. When they blew that bull horn, if you were not at your work place, they hired another man right then to take your place. But my grandfather made it through that and got his daughters through college."

He added, "Durham was something in the fall of the year back in those days. Farmers would come in to sell their tobacco, bought by this company and the one in Winston-Salem; the jazz musicians would come to town and there would be barn dances in the warehouses. Since people had more money in the fall of the year, that's when people bought their new cars."

He added, "I just can't believe this company left, but it did. When I got out of high school, I worked for a little at Liggett & Meyers before I was drafted in 1971. After the army, I worked in construction and at my daddy's funeral home in Johnston County, but I came back to construction."

Now Joe Barnes is taking advantage of opportunities provided by this massive project like so many others are and so many more will when the job is done.

He's thankful for this opportunity. I know this to be so. When Joe walked away from me to go back to his work on the roof of Washington, his foreman approached me and said, "That's one fine man there. I hope you can write a little story about him."