of all the commercials during the 47th superbowl, this, the paul harvey dodge ad, hit me the hardest.
back in 2009, my father in law had major heart surgery; my husband being the good son that he is stayed w/ him for several weeks helping him recuperate. my father in law lives in manteno, illinois, a very small, very very rural town. i would often make the drive out to see my husband (who was actually my boyfriend at the time) for *ahem* “conjugal” visits. those trips were about an hour long drive from our home in indiana, very peaceful, long stretches of road w/ homes sprinkled here and there. the thing that stood out the most during these trips was the lack of farms. or rather – the lack of active farms. there was no lack of farming structures – barns, silos, pens that once held cattle, livestock. even the landscape was barren. no lush crops of amber waves of grain, or corn, or anything really. i’d see the occasional soy field, and even the corn. lots of small homestead gardens. but farming itself – only the remnants were left behind.
seeing it made me understand. it was a depressing thought. because, regardless the fact that i could never survive the farming life (really – wake up at the butt crack of dawn to milk cows, gather eggs, feed livestock, etc and so on, w/out messing up my hair so the boys would think i was hot? no, not for me.), it’s importance was never lost on me. i grew up in superior, wisconsin – we were a small city, surrounded by many many farming communities. we grew up learning about agriculture, what farming was. i personally knew farmers – people who earned their living growing the land, rearing our food. i had an aunt who lived exclusively on her own garden vegetables, and she composted everything. the land was a gift that gave and gave and gave. and as long as we “nurtured” it, it would continue to give to eternity and beyond.
growing up in chicago illinois did not keep these lessons near and dear to my heart. how could they? chicago is an urban metropolis. very limited access to “nature” as god intended unless you venture out of the city. people there are just worried about survival, and everything was about business. farming was not thought about. we took for granted our food supply.
but even now, venturing out of the city does not guarantee a rural settng. not w/ all the overdeveloped land, and grossly populated countryside. fields that once belonged to farming sold to developers.
and then there is the issue of our seed supply being manipulated by greedy opportunists, like monsanto, who is the devil in disguise. buying seed lots, changing the genetic structure to produce a “super” seed, trying to punish those who would dare to farm au natural (due to land purchasing / seed rights). farmers having to sell their soul because how do you compete w/ volume, which allows for cost reduction, which = cuts to your own bottom line? and of course there’s the “super” livestock, reared on antibiotics and diets NOT created by nature. big money has gotten to them too.
how is the american farmer supposed to compete w/ corporations? why has farming been allowed to die? does anyone even care? call me a bleeding heart, blah blah blah. thanks to my ability to get away from mass cult like religions, i realized as the wiccans, and the native americans, etc. that the earth will take care of us, if we take care of it. food supply is a huge part of this.
and it always seems, that every answer that involves the downfall of society, goes back to the dollar. every single institution has been affected by the dollar.
i hope other people were paying attention to the paul harvey narrative. every other commercial paled in comparison.
message received paul, message received.
