I love an educational field trip, especially with my amazing friends, the Pirate Witches. By the middle of July, I’m usually wishing and thinking about fall weather and everything that goes with the season, so it made my day to find out about the Tom Jones Broom Shop out at the Sadie Ford Farm located within the Cedars of Lebanon State Park in Lebanon, Tennessee.
We arrived on time for the demonstration scheduled at 10 a.m., and I could see Mr. Jones was still setting up shop. His small workshop sits just across the gravel driveway from the historic Sadie Ford farmhouse. We walked up the short walkway to the entrance, and I, of course, came to the conversation a little strong in my dad voice saying, “Well hey there, Mr. Jones, are you gettin’ ready to make a broooom?”
Mr. Jones is a tall, good looking middle-aged man with very kind eyes. He wore faded overalls with a short-sleeved denim button down shirt. His hands and arms were big and tan and hairy, and he had the sweetest crooked smile. I could tell he was happy to see us.
We got the whole backstory on how this was his pappy’s shop. He told numerous endearing stories about his grandparents. His pappy worked from sunup until sundown plowing the broom corn crop. His grandmother would bring a supper plate all the way out to the tractor and ride along feeding her husband one bite at a time so he’d stay on schedule. When I say we got the whole backstory – we actually got the whole family tree’s “official” backstory sprinkled with some extra stories and gossip on top.
We got every name of every face in every picture and how they were related to this long line of broom makers. I admittedly checked my watch after about 30 minutes of his storytelling, took a few sips from my water bottle, and had already looked around the entire little shop when he walked over to the door and pulled it shut. All the Pirate Witches made eye contact in that moment and silently concurred that we were in for the long haul of this experience. We were his captive audience for the next however long it was going take to make this broom.
The process was truly fascinating. In the olden days, broom making was a good off-season gig for farmers. Mr. Jones uses all antique machinery and takes a lot of pride in his work. It takes a lot of focus to make a single broom, and one careless move could cost him a finger. We talked a good bit about all the ways one might lose a finger, but Mr. Jones still has all ten of his digits intact. He compared his work to his mentor’s broom and his broom making colleague down at Fiddler’s Grove, another historic site located just a few miles down the road from Sadie Ford Farm. Apparently, the fellow down at Fiddler’s Grove uses different methods than Mr. Jones, but he was real diplomatic about communicating that information and encouraged us to go check out that shop so we could see for ourselves just who is shining the brightest light on the righteous broom making tonight.
There’s lots of layers to this broom making process, and if he had put on a leopard print smock and some bright lipstick, I’d have sworn we were at the hair salon. He had the most natural hairstylist ability and maneuvers I think I’d ever seen. That broom was basically in the same position as the ladies waiting to get their shampoo and blowout somewhere in downtown Lebanon, Tennessee. He made a makeshift “brush” to smooth out all the tangles, and I couldn’t help but pull my ponytail down and shake it all out.
The brooms are indeed for sale inside his little shop, and he gets real creative with the color schemes just in time for all the glorious fall weather holidays. He makes big brooms, small brooms, Tennessee Vols brooms, and I do believe he’ll even do custom brooms. Mr. Jones donates 100 percent of his proceeds to Cedars of Lebanon State Park. I mean, if this guy isn’t Kris Kringle, then who is he? The Pirate Witches got the full rundown on how to make a broom, and now I just have to figure out how to make the damn thing fly. We laughed about how each of us said we needed to buy at least four or five brooms before the holidays. Happy Holidays, Mom, here’s a broom.
That whole day was fantastic. We ended up going all over town running errands, buying spices, tasting fancy cheeses, and talking about everything and everybody. I’ll tell you one thing, knowing what I know now, I’ll never look at a broom the same way again. And I’ll also be sure to store my broom with the bristles pointing towards the heavens instead of letting those delicate stalks sit and sag on the floor, which is a broom maker’s worst nightmare.
I highly recommend going to see Mr. Tom Jones’s broom making skills in action. He’s wonderfully talented and passionate about his roots as a broom maker. There’s so much good material here that the Pirate Witches believe it warrants a full-length mockumentary complete with broom maker drama. I’ll be going back this fall to purchase a broom that I believe will stand the test of time.
From the Outside,
Margie
