[AT] Sad times

[Cecil Bearden]

Same thing here in Western OK...   I talked to a fellow who grew up in 
SE Missouri from the Army Corps of Engineers back in about 2005 or 
so...   He said when he left to go to Korea with the U S Army, he had 
verbally commit ted to buying a 1/4 section and was going to come back 
and farm.   3 years later when he returned, he could no longer afford 
the land and it took 6 or 7, 1/4 sections to make a living.   He went to 
work for the Corps... It has only gotten worse year by year.  Americans 
do not realize how little of their paycheck goes for food compared to 
the rest of the world.  I won't go on, it would probably get political.  
It makes me so sad because  I wanted to be a farmer since I was 8yrs 
old.  I remember laying in the middle of the living room floor looking 
at the new Progressive Farmer  Mag and drooling over the new Allis 
Chalmers D21, and going to the State Fair and sitting in the cab of a 
new 2470 Case 4WD.    I finally bought one 6 years ago and just need to 
change the tires and wheels...
Now I sit here with Ice on my knee & ankle due to tripping over a stick 
in the grass while feeding the horses...  If you guys heard a loud noise 
coming from OK about 2pm yesterday, it was me when I tripped and ended 
up sitting on my ankle with my bad knee bent farther than it has for a 
few years..............  This is the lowest temperature on record this 
week and here I sit with Ice!!!!!!!!
Cecil

On 7/24/2019 7:34 PM, Kenneth Gene Waugh wrote:
> I have felt the same thing. Most of my family were farmers in NE 
> Indiana since the 1880s. Along with many others, my folks both left 
> the farm. I spent a great deal of time on these farms, especially the 
> one of my maternal grandparents. Also several uncles, etc.
>
> Six months or so I was over that way and drove a loop passing a number 
> of my old haunts. I won’t be making that drive again. Most of the 
> houses are still there, but not a single barn I stacked so much hay in 
> still stands. Mother’s folks had a large (mostly apple) orchard. It 
> too is gone. Happily, I have an aerial view from the mid 50s. That 
> picture makes a sad comparison to the satellite image of today.
>
> Ok, that’s enough. Just an old man reminiscing!!
>
> Gene Waugh
> Elgin Illinois
>
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 7:15 PM Ralph Goff <alfg at sasktel.net 
> <mailto:alfg at sasktel.net>> wrote:
>
>     On 7/24/2019 4:30 PM, Greg Hass wrote:
>     > Had to take a trip to a town 20 miles from here today. Decided to
>     > bring back roads home; pasted many old barns some falling down,
>     some
>     > being kept up. You could tell from the old milk houses that many
>     had
>     > been dairy farms. Many old silos, a lot with the blower pipes still
>     > up. All are now a part of the past, a past that will never come
>     back.
>     > Many memories came to mine of how it used to be, farms all over
>     with
>     > small herds of cattle and the family making a living. My dad was
>     able
>     > to raise 6 kids and send most to college on 160 acres; my mother
>     never
>     > worked off the farm- she never worked on the farm either but
>     thats a
>     > whole other story. Now we have several farms in the county that
>     milk
>     > over 5000 cows.
>
>     I lived through those good times too and its sad to see them gone.
>     Most
>     obvious here is the disappearance of the wooden grain elevators
>     and the
>     rail lines that brought life to every
>
>     little town here. Maybe each generation sees the same thing in the
>     loss
>     of the way of life they knew.
>
>     Ralph in Sask.
>
>
>
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> -- 
> Gene
> Kenneth Gene Waugh
> Elgin, Illinois
>
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