by
Baxter
Black,
Herald
and News
11/24/11
Not
everyone
has a
car,
owns a
home,
carries
a cell
phone,
can
swim,
knows
the 18th
president
and can
hum
“Blue
Eyes
Cryin’
in the
Rain.”
But
everyone
in this
country,
rich or
homeless,
conservative,
liberal,
gray,
green,
black,
white,
brown or
yellow
eats
what we
in
agriculture
produce;
everyone,
no
exceptions.
Do those
of
you who
farm and
ranch
think
about
the
lives
you
touch?
Steve
Jobs
invented
Apple
computers,
Oprah
Winfrey
had a
talk
show
that
reached
7.4
million
people
five
days a
week,
J.K.
Rowling
sold 450
million
Harry
Potter
books,
and 111
million
watched
Superbowl
XLV …
talk
about
reaching
out! But
everyday,
every
person
eats
something
you
produce.
Your
contribution
to their
well-being
exceeds
Hollywood,
the
Nobel
Prize or
their
psychiatrist.
The
public’s
dependence
on your
ability
to keep
them fed
is
deeper
than
their
need to
text,
jog,
work,
play
golf, or
go to
school.
You are
more
essential
to their
lives
than
their
bookie,
their
broker,
their
drug
dealer,
their
teacher,
their
boss, or
even …
their
best
friend!
This
week we
celebrate
the
Thanksgiving
holiday.
It’s
still a
real
holiday,
you can
tell
because
most of
the work
force
gets the
day off!
I think
of it as
a time
when we
thank
God for
the
blessings
we have
been
given.
Usually
the
Thanksgiving
table is
covered
with
food.
Food,
that we
in
agriculture
produced.
Even the
needy in
soup
kitchens,
home
alone-bachelors,
single
mothers,
on-duty
soldiers,
and
orbiting
astronauts
will eat
something
we grew;
a piece
of ham,
canned
peas, a
drumstick,
a Happy
Meal, or
pumpkin
pie.
Regardless
of what
is on
their
plate it
started
in some
farmer’s
pasture
or
plowed
field.
I don’t
mean to
be
boastful.
I don’t
even
expect
the
average
urban
Thanksgiving
diner to
remember
the
farmer’s
contribution
to their
day.
Many
praises
will
fall
upon the
one who
cooked
the
meal.
That is
due, but
without
mentioning
the
farmers
who grow
it is
like
praising
the
painter
of the
bridge
while
the man
who
designed
and
constructed
it,
stands
in the
shadows.
It is
common
to hear
that
farming
is a
“Noble
Calling.”
That is
flattering
but its
importance
is much
more
profound.
I agree
that
what we
who work
the land
do, is
noble,
but
more, it
is as
vital to
their
lives as
air and
water.
What
they eat
is the
gift of
our
labors
and
somewhere
down
deep as
they sit
down to
Thanksgiving
dinner
Thursday,
they
might
conjure
up a
picture
of a
farmer
leaning
on a
hoe, or
a cowboy
on a
horse.
That
thought
might
just be
the
connection
that
helps
them
understand
where
their
food
comes
from …
real
people.
Baxter
Black is
a large
animal
veterinarian,
cowboy
poet and
radio
commentator.
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