I think I've mentioned this before but my wife grew up on a farm. From her earliest days she knew what it was like to get up before the sun and do a half a day's work before she even went to school. When most kids were learning to ride a bike, she was driving a tractor through some field while her dad and brothers followed along side doing whatever it was the season required to get the crops in and the animals fed.
Before her, her Dad grew up on a dairy farm. A dairy farm is unique in the level of work required because not only do you have to get the crops in but morning and night you have to milk the cows. You get sick, you milk the cows. You want a vacation? Just as soon as the cows are milked. There is no way to talk the cows into not producing for a weekend or even a day so twice a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year,
This Thanksgiving day I was sitting in my living room, strumming my guitar, listening to the excited chatter of my 3 kids and the 2 I have taken in because their parents are incapable. They were laughing and running around and absolutely driving my poor wife crazy with questions as she shoo'd them out of the kitchen at least umpteen times. The smells were wonderful as usual and I was thinking about how lucky we were and, true to the core, thinking about how difficult life would be if there were not truckers out there on the road bringing in the turkeys and yams. In the midst of all of this I was looking around my living room and trying to imagine the drivers who had hauled the things around me and how much less comfortable our lives would be if we had to drive to Japan and pick up our own TV. sets.
Soon my thoughts turned to life in this country back when the first Thanksgiving was celebrated. I have all my life been fascinated with the lives and customs of our native Americans so I thought of them too. I looked at my TV. and my stereo and the soft places to sit and the carpeting and all the little gadgets and knick knacks that modern Americans seem to accumulate. Then I thought about what a hard life many of those native Americans had just because there were not truck drivers back then bringing in the food. Now don't get me wrong, I often fantasize and envy the life many of our native Americans lived but in truth I know it was a difficult life. They would travel for many days to get to a place where a certain berry or root was ready for harvest. Then they would travel hundreds of miles to another place to where the game was plentiful enough to supply their winter food and clothes. Boy talk about a tough day shopping. I don't even like to go to the grocery store.
The conclusions I came to during all of this meaningless meandering was that one, we in the modern world have very much to be thankful for. First of all we have a transportation system which makes it possible for me to buy wheat and it's products from a farmer in Nebraska. Beef from a rancher in Wyoming. Potatoes from a farmer in Idaho and all without ever driving more than a couple miles from my warm, comfortable home.
Somewhere in there another thought occurred to me. What good is the transportation system if there were not freight to haul. Or more specifically, food to haul. Again looking around my home at all the trinkets and doodads I wondered just how we might be living if there were no Farmers out there Thanksgiving morning milking the cows. From this I had an epiphany. "A grass hut or tepee with food in the stores holds value far greater than the most precious palace of marble and gold which has not crumb or crust for the sustenance of it's inhabitants." Or how about this? "What value doth hold a golden throne and a cranking stereo when men faint and children cry for want of food?" Please forgive me. I've been reading LITERATURE.
A few months ago I read an editorial in Truckers News where the editor was talking about the most important job in America. I was just looking for that article so I could quote it because Steve Sturgess usually has some pretty valuable things to say. I couldn't find it so from memory it seems like his conclusion was that trucking was either the most important job or at least near the top. I will agree with that except to say that the number one most important job in this country is the farmer. If a man is well fed then most of the other problems will take care of themselves. But if a man is starving, no increase in wages or benefits will fill his stomache.
The scary thing about this is the fact that most farmers live in a poverty income level. Sure, some of them have millions of dollars worth of equipment but their families live in homes that in many cases could be condemned by modern standards. You don't often hear these folks complaining. For one thing they are too busy milking the cows to complain and for another thing they just don't know any other way of life. Every day there are too many family farms going under. We have such an easy time running to the grocery store to pick up a loaf of bread that we never consider the plight of the folks who made it possible to produce that bread. We charge them the same ridiculously high interest rates on their necessary machinery that you and I might pay for our boat and camp trailer. They pay the same property tax on their farm that we pay on our fishing cabins or whatever.
My point is, this is not only wrong but it is very stupid. The taxes for working farm land should be absorbed by the government, which last time I checked was you and me. Sure we are all over taxed but what value is money if there is no food to buy with it. These guys get ripped off every time they turn around. They hand deliver a beef cow for slaughter and they still get charged a shrinkage rate which is only supposed to be charged if the slaughter house picks up the cow. Shrinkage in weight normally occurs during transit but if you deliver the cow yourself the shrinkage has already occurred before you delivered it. Yet some of these crooked slaughter houses will weigh that cow on their site then deduct the normal shrinkage rate from it. I believe this is called "biting the hand that feeds you." If that doesn't convince you then just compare the price of a bushel of wheat to what you are paying for a loaf of bread and a box of cereal then tell me the guy who produces that wheat is not getting the short end of the deal...
Anyway, I just felt it needed to be said. If there are any farmers out there I just want you to know that I am thankful to you for a job well done. We owe you a great debt and I hope this country will soon wake up for our own sakes....
Until next time.....