"Thank you for smoking," said the politically incorrect sign on Agriculture Commissioner Jim Graham's desk.

Graham, who died Thursday, was a throwback to an earlier era in North Carolina -- the time before mega-malls, sushi bars and no-smoking signs.

You don't have to dig very deeply in most North Carolinians' family tree to find their rural roots, though not many people make their living farming any more.

But more than any other political leader, Graham was a reminder of a time when the rhythms of Tar Heel life revolved around corn shuckings and hog killings, church picnics and canning your own vegetables, grits covered with red-eye gravy and biscuits slathered with blackstrap molasses.

There is even a "World Famous Jim Graham Biscuit" at the State Farmers Market Restaurant in Raleigh -- tomato, mayo, onion and streak o' lean.

Not that he ever got through one of those biscuits without being interrupted by well-wishers.

"From here to the mountains, everyone knew him," said Charles Cole, 72, of Cary, who has run a shop at the farmers market for the past quarter century. "If he had seen you once, he knew you."

Graham was a larger-than-life figure, both figuratively and literally. The footprints for his 15 1/2 EEE boots are encased in the concrete floor of the Jim Graham Building that is used to show livestock at the State Fairgrounds.

From age 14, Graham knew what he wanted in life.

As Graham told the story, he was unloading a 200-pound bag of fertilizer at his family's Rowan County cattle farm when he noticed the bag bearing the name of Agriculture Commissioner William A. Graham (no relation).

A field hand told him: "Jim, if I were you, I would be the commissioner of agriculture when you grow up and you won't have to lift these heavy bags anymore."

Although Graham became the political embodiment of a Bob Timberlake painting, his politics actually sprouted out of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He was one of populist Gov. Kerr Scott's Branchhead Boys in the 1940s and '50s, and he was appointed agriculture commissioner by Gov. Terry Sanford in 1964.

"Like Kerr Scott, the farmers in North Carolina respected him [Graham] because he stood up for them," said J.D. Croom, 73, a farm boy turned accountant as he sat Thursday on a bench outside the farmers market restaurant.

When unpopular Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale campaigned in Asheville in 1984, all the major Democratic officeholders found reasons not to be there. But Graham campaigned at Mondale's side as he toured the western farmers market.

Graham learned his politics in the pre-television era, when politicians were expected to be entertaining rather than slick.

Appearing on stage with Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, Graham made the national network news when he let loose one of his trademark donkey brays, complete with pawing the ground. His wife and daughters hated that, and as North Carolina became more suburbanized, he retired his bray.

In 1976, Graham bet that if heavily Republican Wilkes County went Democratic from the White House to the courthouse, he would kiss the rear end of a jackass in front of Smithey's Store. He puckered up.

As time passed, Graham along with longtime Secretary of State Thad Eure became almost museum pieces. Transplants to North Carolina had difficulty deciphering his molasses thick mumblings. His bottomless sack of Bible stories left some quizzical.

But he is remembered fondly by people such as Keith Allen, 40, of Benson, who sold his tomatoes, peppers, collards and pecans at the farmers market.

The Sodfather, Allen recalled, once visited his mother in-law's farm to see how she was making out. Not bad service.

"It ain't like that any more," Allen said. "That's the reason he loved the fair so good. He just loved people."