A friend and I were reminiscing about our
old folks. Simple farmers. Life today is more complicated today, we
observed, more stressful.
He talked about his Grandma keepin' house
in the hill country of Texas. Simple, he said. No electricity, no
phone, a hand pump outside for water.
Saturday was wash day. A big kettle over
an open fire, the men sliverin' homemade lye soap for the kettle.
Washin' clothes in the boiling water and ringin'em out in the gas
powered Maytag. Goin' to church on Sunday. Grandpa choppin' wood, doin'
chores, whackin' cedar for spendin' money.
I remember my Dad's family. Milkin',
cannin', choppin' cotton. Grandma lived for 85 years in a house with no
runnin' water. Killin' a chicken for Sunday dinner. Musicals anytime a
fiddler rosined up. Plowin' with a span of mules. Sellin' eggs in town
for pocket money.
Yeah, the good life.
I look around at the pressures of farming
today and on the surface, it does seem more demanding. Government
programs, environmental considerations, public land use, the EPA,
unwanted horses and the I.R.S. Commitments to home, church, county and
country, the Soil Conservation Service, the P.C.A., school board,
Stockgrowers Assn., and the Fair Board. Kids with band practice,
basketball practice, 4-H meetings, car payments and peer pressure. The
constant barrage of national issues that the television insists we be
concerned about!
But, do we really work harder and worry more than Grandpa did?
I ascribe to the Coyote Cowboy Proverb: "Be it work or worry, people expand to fill the vacuum."
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