A hard row to hoe

I used to work with Mike Cox when he was a police reporter years ago, before he became semi-famous as the state police spokesman during the Branch Davidians’ standoff in the 1990s. He’s written a bunch of Texana books since then, and he’s still a good writer. This column of his on Texas cotton farming is a reminder of that, and of a life that once defined the youth of many but, blessedly, is now pretty much gone. As they used to say: "Kids that don’t learn to pick cotton never amount to anything."