In short, I now in some ways regret my decision to flee. As i get older, I guess nostalgia,brings me back to that place. The place of solitude and good honest dirty work. I’ve gone so far as to work for a Cooperative grain elevator to be close to farming, with out directly farming. Yea I’ve worked in factories, painted cars at a dealership, learned to lay carpet, and many other jobs that I can attribute to skills learned growing up on a farm. You can say a Jack of all trades, Master of none. One truth I can not deny, it always leads me back to farming.

I believe the change in attitude really started about mid 60’s but didn’t snowball until the mid 70’s to 80’s. For what ever reasons (I have my theories) the small family farms have been forced to sell or consolidate and grow just to survive thus removing the population from rural to urban. Where kids, like I did, fled for a “better” life. Here’s the kicker, up until the late 60’s, early 70’s there was a lot of the urban population that still had ties to their farming families. The city families usually shipped their kids to the farm relation for at least a week each summer. There is were they found out about dirty hard work and just how their food comes to be. Fast forward to now. One operation will farm as much ground as 4 families did in the 50’s- 60’s. Here is where I pin the disconnect of the ties of rural stewardship and husbandry life to urban un-discovery.

Thanks Mike for opining about the FFA and farming. I may have not been involved in the FFA program, but I was a 10 year 4-H’er (another program that is facing a bit of image crisis) where urban, as well as rural kids not only learn where their food comes from, but learn invaluable life skills before 19 that will last them a life time.