"So God Made A Farmer"

I grew up on a farm.  I watched my Dad work all day in the fields and then go to a 2nd shift job in a local factory.  He did this so he could provide opportunities to his children that he never had.  I never heard him complain...ever....about working all those hours.  Sometimes I would catch up with him before he went to his factory job, sometimes I would be up late to talk to him when he came home.  He was always happy to see me.  He's gone now and I wish I had told him what an amazing man he was.  

There was a Super Bowl ad last night that used a Paul Harvey speech from 1978.  If you are old enough to remember Paul Harvey's radio show then you are familiar with his voice and "The Rest of the Story" segments.

Anyway...this is the script from the ad....So God Made A Farmer.  It obviously struck a chord with me.  I wanted to share this.


And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So, God made a farmer.

God said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So, God made a farmer.

I need somebody with strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon...and mean it. So, God made a farmer.

God said "I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And...who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, pain'n from "tractor back", put in another seventy two hours. So, God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop on mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So, God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets...and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark. So, God made a farmer.

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight...and not cut corners. Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed...and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'd laugh and then sigh...and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life "doing what dad does". So, God made a farmer.

My Dad

.