The Washington Post, August 13, 2009

CAMDEN, Ala. -- Clarence "Sunnyman" Primm figures there are more than 70 people connected with
the lumber industry in these parts who know how to reach him on his two-way radio. He loves the
crackling sound of the thing. Because when a call comes in, when the buzzing pierces his blue shirt,
when that scratchy human voice reaches out to him, it's often a work order. And then Sunnyman
circles his beefy arm in the air -- as though he were twirling an invisible rodeo rope -- and says, "Let's
go." And he and his men are off, rolling through the thick woods of southwestern Alabama.
Sunnyman has known these woods since childhood, and he wants to keep clearing them.

"But the dang thing ain't been ringing," he says of his two-way, standing in the forest with his
assembled crew of five men at the beginning of a workweek.

There's gospel music humming from a radio. The morning sun has long been up. It's slicing through
the trees. Sausage links are frying on a nearby grill. Food and church harmonies to bracket this idle
time.

Here stand John Lee Benjamin, 55; Danny Holloway, 28; Johnny Neal, 43; Clarence Tait, 62; Paul
Davis, 46; and Sunnyman, 53.

Last year, Sunnyman's company, C & C Logging, grossed $1.6 million. That's millionaire status, and
Sunnyman felt mighty proud, even though, after paying wages, insurance, fuel costs and the debts on
his equipment loans, he ended up with only $35,000. That year, the year before the recession fully
arrived in these woods, was rough enough. "This year," he imagines, "I might make a third of that."

The recession continues to leave deep bruises on this part of Alabama, where the land is made up
mostly of forests and the trees are for cutting down and distributing across the rest of the country.

This is the wood that houses are built with, the wood in dining tables and chair legs. And even if
economists see a turnabout approaching, Sunnyman's equipment tells him otherwise. It may as well
be frozen in amber.

Here stand a crew of workmen reduced to Lilliputians in the woods. A crew with a boss with a quiet
radio tucked into his shirt pocket.

"This is my property," Sunnyman says about the piece of land where his lumber-cutting equipment
sits. "My uncle passed on, and I'm buying it from his wife." A second later, he's mumbling about the
widow, wondering if she'll be charitable in these hard times.

Sunnyman's work site is just a small enclosure, ringed by trees and open to the sky, back off
Kennedy Road on the outskirts of Camden. Just him and his men and his hulking machinery, existing
for now in silence. Not the contained, sweet silence of the woods, but larger, and stretching outward,
so silent it seems earsplitting.

"Started a fire this morning because it was pretty cool," says Davis, who was the first here at 5 a.m.
and is seated on an old can. The sit-down furniture in this outdoors hideaway is all makeshift: tree
stumps, big rusting cans, truck fenders.

Sunnyman, off to the side, has a habit of looking into his shirt pocket every few minutes or so to make

sure the two-way radio is still there.

"He ain't quit," Holloway says of his boss.

Everyone concedes that the days they've gone without work in May, June and July have been
difficult.

"I thought I was gonna starve to death," says Davis.

"I got a wife," says Holloway. "I got a brand-new truck. And when we have to stay off a week at a
time, I'm telling you, it hurts."

"I got four young kids," says Neal, digging his heels into the soft dirt.

"These last two to three weeks been rough," adds Davis.

"You mean months!" Neal pipes in.

"Shoot, go back to Christmas," says Benjamin. "Wouldn't have been for Sunnyman, we wouldn't have
had any Christmas."

"He put a turkey on the table and a couple dollars in our pockets," says Neal.

Sunnyman slouches off toward a big tractor, checking its wheels.

"Wasn't for Sunnyman," Neal goes on, "whew, I'm telling you. We didn't have but two days' work last
week and he still paid us." For the whole week.

That's what they say about Sunnyman, and this is what he says to them on the hard side of an
afternoon hours later: "Ya'll may as well go on home. Ain't gonna be no work today."

But they have a difficult time leaving, so they tinker with their prized equipment, cleaning, checking
the oil.

Sunnyman reaches for his two-way, shaking it, as if the shaking itself might elicit a call about work.
* * *

The next morning, they're back at the site. "Look at Paul," Sunnyman says to no one in particular. "He
eat like it ain't nobody's business and don't gain a pound."

Paul Davis lights a smoke. "Hope we get some work today, Sunnyman," he says, plumes curling
upward.

"I heard that," Holloway says.

Sunnyman checks the two-way. Not a buzz.

Hours roll into hours. Sunnyman makes a couple of calls, wondering if anyone's looking for him. No
one is.

He had to cut bonuses to his workers this year because they haven't been hauling as much lumber.

Sometimes, back here in the woods, the music turned off, its just the trees and the coolish air, and he
thinks that in this entire world he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Sometimes, the idleness gets to Sunnyman and he folds himself into his pickup, like he's doing just
now. It's the way the economy has set off these cascading ripples, washing over nearly every facet of
his life and of the lives of those who live around him. If only the recession were just six men in some
woods, waiting for a phone call. But it's not that, not here. It's ripples. And ripples of ripples. Out of the woods. Into the towns. Into the neighborhoods.

Sunnyman says the cost of food in the grocery stores has gotten higher.

Sunnyman says every week it seems that another small business has gone under.

Sunnyman says, while driving past the Antioch Baptist Church -- visited by the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr. in the 1960s and now in bad need of repairs: "We want to do some renovations, because it's
a historical church. But we ain't got the money."

He's on the outskirts of Camden, a small town of 2,500 or so residents, musing about the collapse of
the lumber industry.

Experts say the downturn in the industry is cyclical, that it will come back around. It has been
estimated that since the 1990s, this region has lost upward of 10,000 jobs in textiles and
manufacturing to cheaper sites in Mexico. Unemployment in this area hovers at 22.5 percent.

Alabama is the second-largest commercial wood-producing state in the nation, next to Georgia. The
mills typically employ foresters who find landowners who want timber cut from their woods. Then the
mill hires a logger such as Sunnyman, who is now saying, "I like being outdoors," the Alabama wind
on his face.

"I used to sell timber to six mills within a 100-mile radius of here," he says. "But in the past year, three
of those mills have closed. Harrigan Lumber, Browder Veneer and Weyerhaeuser. All those places
took wood from me. It's put the squeeze on me, I'm telling you."

His truck's rumbling down a two-lane road in the direction of Monroeville. "When fuel went high," he
goes on, "it about drowned all of us. We can't waste no money now. Why ain't we working today? The
mills shut down, and until the price of timber and logs come down, no one wants to sell it."

He keeps driving, away from Camden on Highway 41 South and into the small towns of Coy and
Hybart. His 2006 GMC truck has logged 158,000 miles -- and it looks it, but it has always gotten
Sunnyman out of thick mud and deep puddles back in the woods, so he loves his truck. It has some
Tootsie Rolls in a cup holder. Some empty coffee cups on the dash. A spare two-way radio, also on,
also silent. Sunnyman is pointing off into the woods on the outskirts of Hybart. "Somebody hires me  to go in there and thin those woods out. We come in here and take out every fifth row. When we take
this wood out here, its going for paper."

An hour later, he's in Monroeville. "The movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was filmed here. The lady who
wrote it lives somewhere near here," he says. "I've never knowed where."

Now he's standing at the gate of the Harrigan Lumber Co. There's just a lone guard watching over the
premises. "Hey, Sunnyman," the guard says. "How you doing?"

It seems as though there are no strangers in the land of Sunnyman.

There's a long row of open-faced sheds with lumber piled high inside them, all noticeable from the
gate area. "That wood stacked in there needs to be sold," Sunnyman says, while fiddling with the two way in his shirt pocket. "But nobody wants to buy it. You got a lot of warehouses full, just like that." He
goes on: "They were running three shifts. They got millions of dollars worth of lumber, just sitting."

He says he felt changes in the industry beginning in the summer of 2008. "You kept hearing talk that
this or that mill might close. Then they'd put you on a quota. There was only so much lumber you
could bring to a mill. Now I have to haul wood 70 miles to get rid of it when I used to have to haul it
only 25-30 miles. "

He's now driving over to the Weyerhaeuser lumber yard. Another mill gone quiet. "We used to bring
logs right here," he says, pointing for emphasis. "But we don't bring them anymore."

Sometimes it seems as though the whole world of Sunnyman is akin to a series of laminated
postcards: The woods and the downed mills and his little home on Edgeview Place in Camden and
the pasture he sometimes visits outside of town where he keeps a couple of horses. A man could get
lost in the quiet.

Sunnyman checks the two-way: Nothing. "Sometimes this thing," he begins, shaking it, "doesn't work
quite right." Still, nothing.

"Before I and my family starve," he says, "I'll get down on my knees and pick up bottles and cut
grass."

Then, crackling, barely audible. And now a voice, buzzing the two-way.

But it's only Jordan Cole, another lumberman, calling to commiserate.

On his way back to Camden, Sunnyman passes a couple of unfinished houses. More ripples. He
passes some homes with "for sale" signs in the front yards. More. "You got plenty of houses for sale
that's already built -- that's due to all the foreclosures," he says. "So you can go out and buy that
foreclosed house easier than building a new one. The finance companies want to unload houses that
they already got. Don't make sense to them to keep piling them up."

Another crackle, another buzz. Sunnyman quickly reaches for the two-way, but it's Cliff, the other half
of C & C Logging. Sunnyman tells Cliff he'll ride over "because ain't nothing going on on this end."

Cliff Spencer lives in the tiny town of Beatrice. He has been down with some intestinal problems.
Sunnyman wonders whether it's from all the stress of the mills shutting down around them.

Spencer says he has started counseling their work crew about spending wisely. "I tell the fellas,
'When the sun's shining, don't buy things you don't need.' " It's the old rainy-day motto.
"He's been looking out for them," Sunnyman says as Spencer sorts through a stack of bills related to
their logging business. "None of them got new houses."

"And they got no small children," Spencer offers.

"Well," Sunnyman interjects, "Neal's got small children. But Neal knows how to hustle. And his wife,
well, if the government is giving something away -- food, clothing, whatever -- his wife knows how to
get down there and apply for it."

Spencer nods: Good for her.

"You reckon you'll get any work tomorrow?" Spencer asks his business partner.
Sunnyman shrugs. "Hope to," he says.
* * *
Three days without work.

Three days and not one of the dozens of people in this region of Alabama who have been
Sunnyman's lifeline in his logging business have called.

And now raindrops are falling, and a couple of Sunnyman's crew members are mentioning rent
money, and he can't tell if they're joking or not.

Sunnyman hates the rain.

Davis has got the grill going anyway, but they all know there'll probably be no work because of the
rain-soaked forest. "You get back in them woods and its wet, all your equipment gets stuck back
there," Sunnyman says.

He has three tractors, a cutter, four trucks and five log trailers spread around his storage site. "I
started out with $20,000 -- and that was for the down payment on $125,000 worth of equipment," he
explains.

Sunnyman checks the two-way. Nothing. Some of his men start talking about the rising theft of farm
machinery taking place in the county, including in his own enclosure. "Can't no crackhead get into
these woods and pull these tires off," Sunnyman says. "I got a $2,500 deductible off each piece of
equipment here. Still, I lost 25, 30,000 dollars. Whoever is doing it, they sure don't discriminate about
whose stuff they steal -- white or black. If I hire a security guard, then I'm taking away funds that I
need to use to try to stay in business."

Sunnyman the outdoorsman can't sit still. "I might as well run some errands," he says.
He rolls over to the Pine Flat Baptist Church. His grandfather John Primm is buried in the cemetery
on the side of the church. It was he who gave his young grandson his nickname. Old John Primm
chuckled at how the child couldn't stay out of the sun, how he played through heat; how the sun
seemed to intoxicate him with good cheer: the birth of Sunnyman.

"My grandfather used to pull logs with a mule," Sunnyman says. "I'd drive a bicycle to the woods to
drive mules through the woods with him pulling those logs. Everything I got out here is self
experience. I haven't had any teaching on it."

He rolls home to say hello to the family. He has 10 children -- three of his own and seven
stepchildren. He and his wife, Rose, have no children together. "I claims them all," he says.
Sunnyman and Rose live in a red brick ranch house. The rooms seem almost too small for the big
Sunnyman.

He met Rose at a local park. "He just seen me," she says. "He'd been noticing me before I noticed
him. I just gave in when he asked for my phone number."

They've been married 11 years. When it comes to Sunnyman's travails, Rose well understands.
"One mill in Monroe shut down. The warehouse in Pine Hill shut down. Three hundred-something
workers out of work," she says. "I have a brother who worked over there for 17 years. Now he's got to look for more work."

Rose drives a school bus. Not long ago, she took a second job, cleaning houses. She is not a woman who asks for a lot, but one day she asked Sunnyman for new kitchen cabinets because the old ones were falling apart. Sunnyman hemmed and hawed but finally hired a two-man work crew.

"Like I told my wife," Sunnyman will say later about the cabinets, away from Rose, "it wasn't a good
time to do it, but she kept wanting it done. So I broke down to do it."

At least someone around here is contributing to the lumber business, even if it's Sunnyman himself.
Late afternoon, Sunnyman's two-way goes off. Buzz. Crackle.

There's a pause.
He's listening.
But in seconds his face goes slack.
It was just a car shop, letting Sunnyman know one of his vehicles was ready for pickup.
So he takes off toward town.

Riding past the library that has had to cut back its hours and past Uncle Redd's -- where he stops for
some collard greens and smothered chicken and jawboning -- and then past the edge of town itself.

"That's Greer's grocery store," Sunnyman says, pointing. "Done closed. It was pretty big."
He ends his day by visiting his work site in the woods. The quiet is lovely. But the machines haven't
moved an inch in three days. "I wanted to be a logger since I was a little boy," he says. "Ain't no other
jobs around here."

The birds are chirping.
And the leaves are rustling.
And the two-way is quiet.
* * *
Four days in the life of Sunnyman. Four days in the life of a man with a job -- but not working.

He jokes that all he has been doing these past four days -- its already beyond noon -- is waiting and
eating.

He gets aggressive and calls a couple of contacts, but nothing comes of it. His crew members make
themselves busy by checking on the machines. He wonders if he will have to return to the business of
collecting junk cars and having them smashed up for profit like he used to do before he turned to
logging.

"We didn't go on vacation last year, and we haven't made plans to go on one this year," Sunnyman
says.

He's sucking on a toothpick. The mosquitoes are out and the light in the woods is like something out
of a Vermeer.

He misses the noise of his machinery.

Sunnyman could use a glass of iced tea, so he rumbles off into town.
He's joined at a local spot by Greg Nettles, 48, and Waymond Nettles, 50, brothers who are also in
the logging business. They work in adjacent Monroe County.

"We had to downsize last year," says Waymond. "Got nine employees now. Had to cut three people."
"One of 'em, the secretary, was our cousin, so that was especially hard," Greg says.
"We're basically going day to day now," adds Waymond.

"There are several times we woke up and said, 'What the hell are we gonna do now?' We ain't even
making enough to make our notes on our equipment," offers Greg.

Sunnyman shakes his head, working the toothpick in his mouth. "Farmers used to get bailouts," he
says, checking his two-way, tucking it back into his breast pocket. "I ain't never knowed a logger to
get nothing."

"We had two crews this time last year," says Greg. "Now we got one. We grossed $1.5 million last
year. Won't be nowhere near that this year."

"My wife says, 'You need a better job,' " says Sunnyman.
There are chuckles all around.

"Ain't no such thing as a nest egg now," says Greg. "That's virtually impossible now."
"You see a truck go by full of wood," says Sunnyman, "and you go, 'Ohh, man.' "
"And that's a bad feeling," says Greg. "I'd rather be at home where I can't see it."

They walk out to the parking lot. "Tell Obama to open these mills back up," Greg says.
In his car, Sunnyman muses about loans due on his equipment. He pays $120,000 a year to cover
the debt on his wood-cutting equipment and $21,000 a year to insure it. "They only give you four
years to pay for a piece of equipment," he explains.

His gas and fuel bills come to about $8,000 a week.
Money. He needs money. They all need money here, this quiet place where money doesn't grow on
trees.

Toward the end of a week that has already taken up four days without work, Sunnyman walks into his
home. Rose has some deer meat in the fridge. Sunnyman and his family sit down to dinner.

The Alabama dark has deepened. Fireflies are buzzing outside Sunnyman's windows.
* * *
Day five. Clear and warm.
Sunnyman is leaning on his pickup.
The sky is a beautiful blue.
Sunnyman's two-way goes off.
His workers can hear the scratchy voice on the other end.
"Okay. I got it. Oh yeah. I know just where you're talking about," Sunnyman says into his radio.
There are grins all around.
The crew knows: The drought is over; they've got work to do.
"Well, let's go!" Sunnyman says, his arm motioning in the air.
They break just as quick as athletes from a football huddle.
The work order has come from Wilco Timber here in Camden. It's dispatching Sunnyman and his
crew to nearby Beatrice to clear some acres. A few of his workers slap their gloves against their
jeans.
And just like that, the silence is gone.
A logging site deep in the Alabama woods erupts into motion.
"We alive for another day!" Sunnyman bellows.
In a blink they're loaded up, having tied down equipment with long, thick chains and started engines.
John Lee Benjamin hops on a tractor. Danny Holloway glides into his flatbed in one fluid motion.
Johnny Neal gets on his flatbed, his hat set at a rakish angle. Clarence Tait is on his tractor. Paul
Davis is atop his 18-wheeler, pulling a smoke from his shirt pocket, checking the dial on his two-way.
"Yeah, I hear you, Sunnyman. Can you hear me? Good. I'm leaving."
"This feels good, to be moving. I tell you, it's been rough. Been rough!" Davis says. "I know some
guys been off a whole month. Now what little I had saved is gone. But what you gonna do? Sleep in
the dark? Drink your water from a creek? Go cut a cow up and eat it?"
When they reach the entry to the woods out in Beatrice 25 minutes later, they turn the hulking trucks
onto a bumpy road. Then it's 20 more minutes to their destination.
Johnny Neal and Danny Holloway position their flat trucks to load the wood.
John Lee Benjamin rolls off deeper into the woods to begin cutting.
Clarence Tait roars off in another direction.
This is what Sunnyman has been waiting for: the cut timber coming across his eye view while sitting
up high. His machine rips the leaves and branches, making the logs smoother.
Sunnyman pretties up each log, then directs the grabbing fork of his machine to lift it and put it on a
flatbed for Holloway. Once Holloway has a load, he drives off.
"Be careful going up the hill," Sunnyman calls out.
Sunnyman and his defiant loggers.
Six men. Six sets of ripples.
Lilliputians in the woods growing larger by the minute now.
The work assignment may stretch four weeks, maybe more. "What we're doing out here is holding
on," Sunnyman says.
He's dripping sweat. They're all covered in wood chips and dust.
Neighborhoods to towns to woods: Someone, somewhere, decided he could afford a house or a table
or a chair, and because of it Sunnyman's world is once again filled with noise.
Atop the red dirt of Alabama and deep in the sunshine, the child who went into the woods all those
years ago and emerged as Sunnyman has found a temporary reprieve. There's a beatific smile upon
his face.