I don’t think I could
ever be a sodbuster…sodbuster is another term for a farmer…a term that was used
mostly in the 1800’s I believe…and one that wasn’t complimentary usually…for
one thing, you gotta get up too darn early in the morning…I don’t know too many
night owls who are successful farmers…and I am for sure I am a night owl…it’s
about 3 a.m. as I write this…I have a lot of respect for farmers…it’s long
hours and hard work…I remember driving through Indiana and seeing the farms…the
fields full of corn, and other things…it looks like a good, quiet life but I
don’t know that for sure…just think of the people who went west in the late
1800’s and tried to make a life of it working the soil…some were squatters and
were constantly involved in fracases with large scale ranchers who didn’t want
any part of the newcomers…it was a hard life trying to make a go of it then…a
lot of them gave up but some persisted…I never knew any farmers personally
except for Oliver Wendell Douglass on the old Green Acres TV show…and he wasn’t
much of one…come to think of it, I do know someone who raised a crop…until the
police found out about what he was growing and put an end to it…I imagine
farming has changed a lot since I was a boy…as I grew up, I know farmers faced
a lot of hard times and still do…a lot of private farmers have given up and
sold out to co-ops…these big corporations that run things now…although I guess
we oughta be grateful to them for keepin’ the farms goin’ and keepin’ us fed…but
the concern there is what kind of chemicals are they using in the process…thinking
of getting up at 4 or 5 a.m. makes me shudder…getting up much before 11 a.m. is
difficult for me.
