Farmers and Plummers

My dad was raised on a small family farm, as was I. So after two prior careers and nearly 40 years I found myself back on the farm. Oh, I know, there’s farmers who grow stuff in dirt and then there’s ranchers, who raise cows and other livestock. The fact is that what a rancher does is produce grass which is in turn fed to cows and other livestock. So all of us in agriculture are farmers, to one extent or another. Which leads me to the point of all this, another of Dad’s sayings. He maintained that “the two most important jobs in the world are farmers and plumbers - ‘cause ya gotta eat and ya gotta ----.” Well, you can see where he was headed. But like so much of what Dad had to say, there was a life lesson involved. Back when much of the population in the US was in the business of producing food, agriculture wasn’t taken for granted, as it is today. People knew where food came from and that it didn’t originate at the grocery store. And, can you just imagine living in a big city where there were no plumbers? I mean, face it folks, not everyone can live on the top floor. The point is that some jobs tend to garner higher regard than others simply based on how society looks upon those jobs. Jobs in law, medicine, academia, big business and yes, even politics are held in high esteem and dealt substantial financial reward. But without farmers and plumbers, all these “upper level” jobs couldn’t function, and without farmers ... you wouldn’t need any plumbers! George