| Farmers don't suck |
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Frank Cotolo
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Each year during the harvest season in the US, I am asked to speak to farmers and their families at
various harvest celebrations in the Midwest. My messages are not always uplifting and yet the stark
reality I address is always taken well by these salt-of-the-earth folk. I have been a hit every
time, at least every time after I learned that telling farmer's daughter jokes doesn't cut it with
this audience.
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I'm writing this from the road, between two speaking engagements in small towns that serve the
great open space of farmlands where the corn and the wheat are being sliced down to go to market.
I thought it would be cool and contemporary to post my most recent speech, given at a podium erected
specially for my appearance at Historic Farmland, Indiana, at the junction of Indiana Highways 1
and 32 in Western Randolph County in East Central Indiana.
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"My good fellow farmers and fellow farmers' families. Thank you for inviting me to the core of this
fine harvest season, on the very land where grows the sustenance of our life source. And thank you
for allowing me to call myself a fellow farmer, even though I have no interest in farming at all
since that horrid scene in the movie "Casino," when Nicky and his brother are brutally murdered
amid the stalks of corn and buried while still alive.
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"Anyway, this harvest season there are hard times everywhere, including here. Let me put it
another way, here and there, hard times have swept across this country like similes. And when I
mean everywhere I mean all places, all directions. There is not a spot where things are not tough.
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"And farmers have it the toughest of all because they get up earlier than any workers and they get
dirtier than most workers, working longer hours than most workers and working for better reasons
than other workers. Sure, a plumber is important, but without corn and wheat products, fuel for
the muscles and mind, what good are all of his fancy wrenches?
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"When I was a boy my uncle took me to a farm in this part of the country and he said to me, 'Buddy,
someday all of this could be yours.' I didn't know what he meant until today, when I looked out at
this field behind me and saw the crispy, crackling, dried waste that has to be called a crop this
year. I thought to myself that I was happy all of this was not mine because you people got it bad
this year, real bad. Yes, I am glad it is not me who has to take the hit but it is I because the
worse the corn and wheat, the weaker I become. And the same goes for my children.
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"As for your children, they might not become farmers because it is too hard these days to plow the
fields and milk the cows and collect eggs and keep the tractor in order and feed the pigs, no
less do all of that before noon. Your children want to do more on computers, not with amber waves
of grain. Perhaps the children will develop a way, using computers that will save farming?
Wouldn't that be unusual? It would also be ironic.
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"Anything is possible, except those things that are impossible. So never fret, even though no bank
around will loan you more money to keep these fields fertile. Banks suck, you know? Farmers don't
suck. That's why I come here year after year, even for a few bucks less than the year before. I
bring you the message that you need to know, that you need to believe.
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"Farmers don't suck."
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There are usually rounds of applause when I say that phrase and once in a while the crowd chants
and one time they even formed a mosh pit for me to make my exit. I hope I have brought you the
message, too, and I hope that the next time you see corn or wheat or those other things they grow
and produce (Google "farm products") you will appreciate them more.
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Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme
Cotolo
Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca. |
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