Farmers and ranchers, I was thinking of
you today. You hardly ever write any more. When I started writing this
column 35 years ago I got lots of letters. Paul Harvey once sent me a
box of 1,400 letters addressed to me. But not so much any more. I don’t
know if I’ve run out of material, I’m not as good as I once was, or if
you’ve simply grown tired of me.
I wonder, is it because I no longer amuse
or if people just don’t write letters any more like they used to.
Letters are so out of fashion in an e mail and texting world. I have
exactly zero followers on Facebook and I have no idea how to Twitter or
Tweet. I’m such a dinosaur!
I tell myself that one of the reasons I
don’t hear from as many of you is because I’m being taken for granted.
I’m like an old hat or an old dog, you just assume that I’ll be there
for you whenever you want. But this essay isn’t about me, it’s about
you, the farmers and ranchers of this country. Talk about being taken
for granted! Everything I’ve said about myself can be said about you,
only 7.125 billion times over. That’s how many people you are helping to
feed every day. I know what you mean to this country and the world’s
hungry. When Americans sit down to eat they expect the food you grow and
raise to just magically appear. When they go to the grocery store,
farmer’s market or restaurant they just assume there will be Quarter
Pounders, organic lettuce and filet mignons forever. We assume too much.
It’s a sign of the times.
Not only have you been taken for granted,
you are seen as public enemy number one. You use too much water, too
many pesticides, too much land, too much everything. And yet it is you
who make their very existence possible. Figure that one out.
The problem is you’re not new any more
and these days you have to be new to be in the news. We’re all about new
boyfriends, new clothing styles, new lips, new ideas, new energy, new
subscribers, new members, new customers and the next hot item. Old is
out. You gotta have the newest I-Phone even if the old one works just
fine. We want our cereal new and improved even if it’s just the
packaging. It’s all about marketing and it doesn’t matter if you’ve done
something good or bad, as long as it makes Entertainment Tonight, or
has thousands of “hits” on You Tube. People become celebrities who
haven’t done anything.
My problem, and yours too, is that we are
old living in a new world. You and me, we’re not comfortable
“reinventing ourselves” every six months. We just want to do our job and
be appreciated once in awhile and we’re much too modest to constantly
be bragging and marketing ourselves. In the business world this is known
as the “theme park dilemma.” You always have to be building a bigger
and better roller coaster.
It’s out with the old and in with the new.
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