When I gave a day-long demonstration of pottery making in Hermann, I set the wet pots on a bench behind me as each one was finished. I was out in front of John Wilding’s antique shop and his 5-year-old boy came by often to watch and ask questions. Finally, about 4 p.m. the boy asked, “When are we going to throw the pots?” He was disappointed when I told him that the process is called throwing because the wheel sometimes slings clay and water on the potter and boys who stood close, but we didn’t toss the pots anywhere.

Two years ago, when this column was just getting started, a woman called the Tribune and asked, “Who is this Sue Gerard, anyhow?” The employee who took the call said, “She’s a pot thrower.” The caller became angry because she thought I was a “pot grower.”

At the Heritage Festival at Nifong Park, a curious fellow asked Nancy Russell, “Who is that old man who’s making pottery on the wheel?” She replied, “That old man is my mother!”

Yes, I like to make pots out of clay but I do not grow hemp plants to make rope or cloth or narcotics!

A variety of narcotics, including pot, are made from the upper, tender parts of hemp plants. Consequently, when a large number of wild hemp plants were discovered in a roadside corner here many years ago, law enforcement officers promptly cut and destroyed them. That made big headlines in both local papers. The word marijuana was new to me then and the word pot meant something else.

Pot is what we called the lidded vessel that sat under the bed on cold nights when the other choice was to grab shoes, coat, cap and mittens to go down a path to the “bath.” Later I discovered that pot also refers to marijuana, which is made from hemp.

For centuries, hemp’s strong fibers have been twisted into cords and rope and woven into sailcloth, carpet thread, etc. The Chinese wove the first cloth using hemp about 4,000 years ago.

Originally from Asia, hemp cultivation spread throughout many countries, including ours. The first American colonists arrived wearing clothing made from hemp, which is sometimes called bhang, Indian hemp or cannabis.

Several narcotics can be made from the tender, top part of this plant -- which is related to nettles. The stalks reach heights of 10 to 12 feet. Its seed has been used for food, but it’s now more likely to be found in bird seed and chicken feed. The seed also yields an oil that can be used in soft soap or for mixing paints and varnishes.

Before processing machinery was invented, hemp cloth and rope was made by hand. It was a difficult, drawn-out chore. Long, soft hemp fibers had to be removed from inside the stems’ outer bark. This bark was softened by “retting” -- or rotting -- it in water. Then it was dried in the sun and the stems were beat with a blunt instrument to crush the bark. This separated the trash from the usable fibers. It could then be twisted into rope or woven into a heavy cloth. The bark trash, called oakum, was used to chalk sailing vessels.

I wouldn’t have known any of this if that woman hadn’t called the Tribune and thought I was a pot grower.

Pot grower? Not on your life. I’m a pot thrower.