A Vanishing American Lifestyle
One of the main reasons my wife Liz and I have a solid growing loving relationship is that we both have roots "back home on the farm". We just returned from a 10 day vacation which featured a family reunion with Liz's family "back home" near Troy, NY and my 50th high school reunion "back home" near Syracuse, NY. We always look forward to her bi-annual family reunions. As always we visit her uncles and cousins on their farms. Yet as we leave we are saddened to see the decline of the two old family farms. Gone are the milking cows, only beef cattle remain. While 2 of Liz's nieces expressed interest in keeping the farms going, neither are able. It's rough life, full of long hard hours, great uncertainites; not only the weather, which can wipe out a crop that took weeks to nuture, in a few hail storm minutes but the price of crops sold and the price of support items like crop seed, livestock feed and fuel for the machinery.
Farming is also one of the most dangerous professions. I remember the loss of one neighbor farmer 4 decades ago, while racing to get in his corn in ahead of an approaching storm, got the corn harvester clogged. Instead of turning off the PTO (power take off), he left it in gear. He unjammed the corn from the harvester, in the process he slipped and got his arm caught, which grabbed his arm and pulled him in, ripping his arm off. Fortunately for him the tongs that pull the corn in hit him in the head and instantly killed him, no pain. That, of course, stalled the old Oliver tractor. They never found the pieces of his arm, no one even tried.
My high school reunion reunited me with some of the friends I spent 13 years with in school. 90% of us were farm kids. Today none of us farm. Many, like me, left the "backward life" of the farm to make our living in the "big city". We have grand children and even one great grandmother. Our waste lines have expanded, hair turned gray (for those who still have some!) and the aches and pains of aging are setting in. Of our graduating class of 48, 9 are now gone, from either disease (several heart attacks for instance) or car accidents, 3 total. Add to that the 6 who did not graduate with us, either elsewhere or not at all and we have 15 who have gone on before us. Our growing sense of mortality looms heavier now than it used to. Yet we still celebrate our lives, the good times.
I have one family friend who has known me all my life. She and her family still live on a family farm. Yet they too, have sold their milking cows, farm maybe 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans. While they still get help from their sons, none of the boys express any interest in taking over the farm when Joan, 72 and Jimmy 76, have to quit one day. Jimmy drives a hazmat tanker to help make ends met. Like on many farms, one day new homes may replace their corn and soy fields, sold to provide retirement income.
As they say, "You can take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy." What I miss is the closeness of country folks. Bill and Janet are re-discovering the closeness of community in their Albany, NY street community. In the old days we knew (often too well!) our neighbors, could always depend on their help when it was needed. The ethic of hard work built strong character. I credit being born a country boy for surviving my recent heart attack. I had a solid base physical base, (even though the base is a bit wider than it used to be!). The guys who die early from heart attacks are often those who abuse their bodies, dying in their 40's and 50's, way too soon.
Most of all I miss the ethic of trust. In my day a man's word was his bond. We did things on the basis of a hand shake, no lawyer needed, thank you. If we needed help, help was always there. (In 1946 My brother rescued an elderly lady from her burning home, rolling her on the ground to put out the flames in her bathrobe). Fire service was provided by local volunteers, much as it is today in rural areas, yet even that is slipping away. If you got snowed in a neighor would plow you out.
I miss corn fresh off the stalk and in the pot in 10 minutes, beef steak tomatoes fresh off the vine, Mom canning corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and the like, in old Ball jars, with their rubber rings on glass jar tops. I miss the sweet smell of a wheat field just after a summer rain, the thunder and lightning of a summer storm, the soothing sound of rain on the old metal roof over our farmhouse kitchen, the feel of the first warm wind from the south, announcing finally that Spring had arrived, accompanied by the sound of the "peepers", the small frogs down back in the old swamp. Most of all I miss the hours of quiet walks in the fields and woodlands surrounding my home. It was there that I saw firsthand the laws of nature revealed, lead me to my first career in environmental impact analysis.
And oh so much more.
Maybe guys like Jim Ramelis, in the "wilds" of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan can still relate to what I'm relating. It's a life we are losing, lost in the maddness of "modern living".
Well 'nuff of this, thanx for listening.
Rich
An old country boy.
- anElder's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
as long as we're tripping down memory lane...
I want to make one thing perfectly clear from the outset. I AM A TOWN GIRL. Born and raised. Town Girl.
But I have my own set of memories of peanut farming and cotton farming, plus no matter what else you did, you had the dirt farm garden so you could eat. The only real big differences, other than the crops, it sounds like, is how the community of farmers scheduled out their days, which I learned first hand the year I was farmer-rancher editor and didn't know a grain sorghum from a winter corn.
See, all the farmers would gather down at Lupe's (the sign outside said Hermenia's Restaurante but we just called it Lupe's) along about 5 a.m., that was opening time. By the time Lupe was laying down the platefuls of huevos, the farmers were figuring out which place they were all working when. You just don't bring in a cotton harvest all by yourself. They also talked over what machinery they wanted to buy come fall, and they made sure that any real specialized piece was only got by one person, the community only needed one, after all. That "all for one and one for all" community mindset is something I really don't see anywhere else except among farmers. They'd joke with each other which wife was the best cook, and I heard peach or pecan pie promised as incentive more than once. It ALMOST made me want to volunteer, except I've picked cotton before and I'll never volunteer for that again.
One of my great uncles had a peanut farm. I must have been very little, I don't remember how old anyone was but I don't remember my little brother there, and I do remember my granddaddy there and he died real young. So younger than four probably. I think the whole peanut crop was brought in during one long day, my memory's hazy on that. But I do remember the men in their trucks dumping dried out peanut plants whole for the women to pull the peanuts off of. They strang huge strings of lights and worked way past dark, worked way past bedtime, I do remember watching the halo around the closest light to me, half-asleep in my mama's skirts. And more than willing to stay looking asleep, because I learned real fast I hated picking peanuts, the dust made your hands feel all cracked and crawly.
Ain't no question about it. I'm a town girl.
Still a country boy...
Rich I enjoyed reading your article it took me back to my childhood. Here is a little bit of reassurance for you: my family still owns and operates a small independent dairy farm in South Jersey (my Aunt to be exact). I spent every weekend and every summer that I possibly could on my Aunt's farm. I will always cherish the memories I have of living and working there. I have always contributed my strong work ethic to the many long hours I spent feeding calves, milking cows, chasing down dry cows in the pasture, picking corn, raking hay and straw and my all time favorite bailing hay and straw (no sarcasm intended...I swear ;) )
I will always remember those cool summer nights and the even cooler early summer mornings... Alarm clock what is that?! The sound of a rooster crowing as the sun began to rise...ahhhh! Although, my cousin and I had already been up for an hour feeding the calves it was still music to my ears. I too remember the sound of bull frogs that would croak away at the edge of the woods where a small pond was nestled just barely out of sight.
Thanksgiving on the farm what a feast...and the once annual 11 on 11 football game...
So many wonderful memories of my time spent on the farm. Thank you Rich for taking me down memory lane!
I think I should also mention that my cousins are already running the farm and their children plan to follow in their footsteps. So it looks like a small dairy farm in South Jersey plans to defy all of the odds!
One last thing a small objection to Jim's statement about country boys not being in any better shape than city boys these days. That may be true when referring to the larger corporate farms, but is far from the truth when considering the much smaller independent farms. The pockets aren’t as deep for the independent farmer the only thing mechanized on my Aunts farm is the standard issue John Deer tractor... Just about everything else is still done with the hands and back that the good Lord provided...
Thanks Again!
An old '29 John Deere
Hey Jersey Guy,
Glad to be of service. Especially happy to hear that the Garden State still has some small farms in good hands. I remember one ole rooster who'd challenge any creature who dared enter the old hen house. Man could he put up a fight! I got a 2nd place ribbon in the local FFA Fair. That's another thing that's gone by the wayside back home. No FFA (Future Farmers of America) 'cuz there ain't no future farmers to serve. My old high school has also cut out the Indutrial Arts program. We had a special building out back dedicated to "shop". I had a triple major in High School; History, Science and Industrial Arts.
Now, just to illustrate the cultural change, a private group built a state of the art health club, attached it to the end of the elementary school addition. 400 members. When my classmates of '58 visited the old school last Friday we wonder, "Where in the hell did they find 400 farmers to join?" Well it seems that urbanization (gentrification more precisely) is taking over the old farm lands, folks from the "big city" of Syracuse are moving in, just to get out of the hustle and noice of urban life. Man, a health club!
I agree with your comment to Jim. The health club illustrates that he's right in one respect, but I agree that small farms still produce strong bodies. My wife's farm grown nieces are not somebody a guy would want to mess around with, they'd punch your lights out and still look like a lady! My country base physique, though now a bit rotund, did give me an advantage during my heart attack (which I attribute to being in the city too long).
Your recalls reminded me of the old '29 John Deere tractor my Dad bought back in 1954. Steel clog wheels, no seat, started by opening the petcock, turning over the flywheel by hand. At age 14 I had just enough strength to turn 'er over. I remember well the day Dad bought it and let me drive 'er home. Man at low speed that was one rough ride, bouncing down a MacAdam road in those old steel clog wheels. I got tried of the slow ride and opened 'er up in 3rd gear. Wow, that sure smoothed out the ride. Ye haw!!
You could turn it either by the steering wheel or stomping on one of the rear wheel brakes. Could turn 'er on a dime! And you'd have to be careful when dragging a tree truck back for bucking. Get hung up on a stump and she'd bury herself up to the drawbar if you'd let 'er.
Never could stall her, she'd just keep digging in the ground.
Also at age 12 Dad taught me how to use an old McCullough chain saw. Sure could cut up a lot of logs in a hurry. Also you'd have to careful using one of Dad's axes. You could literally shave yer face with 'em! And there's nothing easier splitting wood than doing in the old barn at 20 below zero. The sap would freeze, of course, and made the old wood pop when you hit it with a single bladed axe. I remember working one Sunday morning, bright sunshine, 20 below. Worked up quite sweat. Finally took off my coat and worked in just a flannel shirt. Never spilt more wood on one day than that day. Pop, pop, pop! Must have split and piled a couple of cord.
And balin' hay in the hot summer sun, would cut your neck at the shoulder fold if the straw dust got clogged in the sweat in the cracks. Would cut like sandpaper.
Well 'nuff for now. Good to hear from another old country boy. Man in someways I do miss it but those long winters are just too much for me now.
Cheers,
Rich
FFA still thriving in South Jersey.
Hey Rich,
The FFA is still thriving in South Jersey in fact I remember my cousin was the President of his chapter and traveled extensively when he was involved.
Also, we still have our "Salem County 4H Fair" annually. Where all of the animals are shown and judged with the expectation of that blue ribbon you refer too. My second cousins, 7 in all, now show the livestock Holstein cows to be exact every year.
Thanks,
Richard
Roosters
I have raised chickens many times in the past for meat and had several hens as layers with no roosters. (They produce unfertilized eggs without roosters, which many city slickers don't understand). I had one year of those roosters crowing at 4A.M., after that I started off with all hens for meat chickens but sometime a rooster would slip in there. The first time it started that 4 A.M. crowing stuff, he was outta there. Chicken soup, baby.
I will stand by comments about country kids being out of shape. I am on my local school board, my wife is the local 4-H coordinator, and I still have kids in school. Country kids are eating the same swill as city kids. Yes they get some fresh food but they are wolfing down pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, pop by the gallon, candy, sweets and the same high carb, high sugar diet that the rest of the kids in America are eating. Most farms are not small family farms but a large for profit enterprises. Thus most farm kids are on mechanized equipment and motorized aids to their farming and milking. There isn't enough work on a small family farm to offset the horrible diet are kids are eating. We are in the lowest 1 % in population density for America and we have an obesity problem among our teens. Our teen Type II diabetes rate is higher than the national norm !
Yes there are exceptions as Jersey Guy spoke of his Aunt's farm and there are people keeping a close eye on their kid’s diets. There are also "homesteaders" and back to nature organic types that deliberately do everything by hand and the old way but they are in the minority.
Reality is the modern day country kid is whizzing around on his four wheeler, drinking his high caffeine high sugar "energy drink", and pigging out on pizza, just like his urban counterpart.
Fat kids, cleat wheels, and death as part of life
Well Jim I guess I'll have to agree with you re: today's country kids. Yes, there is a lot of mechanization on the farm, but there was in my day, too. But we didn't have air conditioned cabs and like, or 4 wheelers. Milking parlors, done by machine and not by hand were coming in back in the 50's. I do see 4 H clubs (should we let the city slickers know what the 4 H's stand for?) at local county and state fairs. Good to see some kids still fattening up cattle, pigs and chickens for slaughter. My niece and family in Oregon still raises sheep, pigs, cattle and chickens for food. (Also have 32 acres of vinyards, raise Pinot Noir mostly.)
That's another real difference between city and country kids. We learned first hand that death is a natural part of life. You raised and slaughtered chickens, ducks, pigs, cattle and other livestock for human consumption. I don't know how many chickens and pigs I saw slaughtered, pigs gutted and hung up from trees in the old apple orchard down back, chickens flopping around just after you chopped off their heads.
One sweet/sad memory I have is about Skip, our old black Water Spaniel. Dad would take old Skip with him hunting in the swamp land down back. Saved his life one day, when she pushed against his pant leg and wouldn't let him pass. He stood still and watched. Soon enuf he saw a Water Moccasin snake about, he recalled, 6 feet long and as big around as a man wrist cross the path a few feet in front of them. If he'd been bitten, the poison might have done him in. Well, the sad part is that as old Skip aged she got short tempered, nipped at my 3 year old sister once too often. Dad said, well that's enuf of that. One Sunday morning he got out his .380 Colt pistol and he and Skip went for a walk down back. We heard one shot and knew that that was the end for her. Man that had to hurt Dad, putting down a loyal dog who'd saved his life. (Brings tears to my eyes just recalling this.)
Later I also put down a dog with my .22 rifle. Isn't easy to do, but I was raised to believe it was more humane to put a suffering animal out of it's misery, than watch it suffer. Dogs and cats become a part of the family, so it's real hard putting them down.
This belief did cause a rift (temporary) between my Mom and I. My brother bought a Pomeranian dog just before he joined Army in 1949 (just in time for 11 months service in Korea). Sparky became Mom's dog of course. Well as he aged, his back and hearing got bad, heart got weak and was clearly, IMO, suffering. Finally one day I said to Mom, why don't you put him down. She snapped back, "Well what are you going to me when I get old? Put me down, too!" Whoops!! I learned, right on the spot, never to bring it up again.
Speaking of weapons, my 14th birthday present from Dad was
that .22 caliber rifle I just mentioned. A single shot bolt action Remington. First thing he told was to never aim a gun at another human being in anger and when carrying it on the field to carry it barrel up and to the front, and always know where your hunting campanions where. He also enrolled me in the local gun class offered at school by the Nat'l Rifle Assn. We learned to respect the power of guns, what they were used for and what not. Living on a farm once would once in a while bring you face to face with those who'd steal from you. My brother chased off a couple of intruders by the barn one night with one shot (in the air) from Dad's 12 gauge shotgun. At age 12 I learned to use that old 12 gauge, one day on my own. Dad told me to hold it tight against my shoulder otherwise the recoil would either knock off my feet or bust my shoulder. Followed his advice and all went well.
Mom had a .32/.20 1873 Winchester lever action rifle. She swore that if her kids lives were ever threatened she'd use it. I never doubted it. I used it once to rid our cats of an aggressive rogue cat. So I learned early about guns, death and the value of life. What about you guys?
Point of clarification. The wheels on that old Johnnie were cleat wheels, not clog. Me old memory gets a hiccup once and while.
Fun reminiscing w/ you guys, thanx.
Rich
Nature's Way and Guns
Rich, you bring up a couple of good points. Urbanites are divorced from the rhythms of nature and death is definitely part of that cycle. Urbanites would always think it was cool if I told them my chickens were "organic", no hormones, they got to roam around the yard, got plenty of sunshine, etc. But they always thought it was terrible that I butchered them myself. They assumed I sent them away to some vague place where the dirty work was done.
Guns are another urban/rural divide. I too started teaching my kids to shoot at 12 and now the 14 year old is hunting. Guns are just another tool in the rural landscape. I have bear, wolves, cougars, coyotes and the like in my area. The coyotes and wolves will grab a chicken every now and then. I also have a small dog, which could draw them in. If something happened around here and I needed a police officer, God only knows what the response time would be. I want a gun in the house.
There is not much difference in local deer hunting and raising a farm animal. The deer eat my apples and eat on my land all year. I feed them all year, just like any other animal I would raise. I just have to go get a license from the state to take the deer. Urbanites usually think deer hunting is terrible too. I will take criticism from a vegetarian but as far as meat eaters go, no criticism accepted. Deer, in rural areas, are just another source of meat. If the deer population was left unchecked, and we were all vegetarian, deer would have to hunted to keep them out of crops, so we could all eat the vegetables.
Urbanites often have a fantasy like conception of what nature is, often developed from one too many Disney flick. The true rhythm of nature is all about lunch. All the critters are looking for something to eat. All the vegetation is trying to soak up or eat water and sun. The critters eat the vegetation and each other. That is the way of the world and in the country; one gets a close up glimpse of that.
Maybe that’s why country people tend to be more religious than urbanites, we know what the way of the world is and we want something better.
Country Life
A lot of what you remembered is still true of country life. One of the things that I always find striking, whether it is up north or down south or back east or out west, is the pace of life . Rural life is muich slower and people are more patient and courteous. One of Bll Clinton's charms was said to be that for one brief moment he made you feel as if you were the only one in the room. He was from a small town. Country folk tend to acknowledge each others humaness more than city folk. And in defense of city folks , since I been there and done that too, they can't ackonwledge everyone's humaness, they would go into sensory overload if they did.I took a trip to Chicago a couple of years ago after a long winter in the U.P. and I hadn't been much of anywhere for most of the winter. The first 4 or 5 street people that came up to me asking for money, I gave them each a five dollar bill, whatever their sob story was. Then I caught myself, realized I was in a country mode, checked myself and became a steely eyed urbanite again, who didn't even look at the street people, and didn't look others in the eye, for that matter .I started minding my own business, just like a good urbanite. I couldn't afford to give every street person I encountered money and I didn't have the time to listen to their stories.
Some things are different though, too, Rich. Country Boys don't seem to be in any better shape anymore than city boys because everything is so mechanized and motorized.
The mores are pretty much the same though, taking into consideration it is 2008.
A farming joke and 3 non-jokes
I have 4 comments.
1. The first is an old joke about agricultural economics and the family farm. A farmer wins a mega-million dollar lottery and is asked what about he's going to do with all that money. His answer: "well, I guess I'll just keep on farmin' til the money runs out."
2. Agricultural economics and the family farm is no joke. "A Vanishing American Lifestyle" is vanishing in large part because agricultural politics has favored the large farms, corporate farming, the bulk commodity crops, and the interests of a few dominant grain trading and export companies, like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland.
The very conservative Cato Institute has a report on ADM as the nation's "most arrogant welfare recipient." -- Archer Daniels Midland: A Case Study In Corporate Welfare.
For Cargill, there's a lovely report from the consumer/environmental advocacy group, Food & Water Watch, with the title Cargill: A Corporate Threat to Food and Farming.
Local farmers' markets and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) show that there are real possibilities for sustainable, often organic, small-scale agriculture that serves the needs of small farmers and the people who live in nearby towns and cities.
3. The agricultural policies which favor Cargill and ADM are responsible for yesterday's collapse of the World Trade Organization's trade talks in Geneva, after 7 years of the "Doha Round" of negotiations. With food security becoming a salient issue, China and India insisted on higher tariffs to protect their agriculture from cheap imports, while the USA insisted on high subsidies for our agriculture so that we can export artificially cheap food into China and India. Way to go. The media mostly blame China and India for sinning against free trade by succumbing to the wiles of promiscuous protectionism. The needs of corporate agriculture seem to take precedence over the needs of people for food security and sustainability.
4. This brings us back to the example, the basket case, of Haiti. Something on the order of half the entire population is in various stages of malnutrition. Yesterday's Guardian ran an article on the mud cakes I mentioned in one of my blog entries back in April, "Global food crisis quotes -- read 'em and weep": Haiti: Mud cakes become staple diet as cost of food soars beyond a family's reach, The subhead reads "With little cash and import prices rocketing half the population faces starvation" You can see a series of four pictures of mud cakes, their making and marketing, beginning with http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/jul/22/haiti?picture=335890174.
Read the article, look at the pictures. Then what?
Bill