When I was
young and growing up on the farm, one of my father’s standing rules was that
whenever we encountered a rock while working in the field, we were to pick it
up, place it on the tractor platform and deposit it along the fence row for
later collection. I was twelve when I finally understood the relationship
between rocks, costly equipment and seed displacement. You see, I was a young
farm boy who was prone to daydreaming. Although I had my assigned tasks on the
farm, I wasn’t very diligent in performing them because my mind was often
wandering to places and events far beyond our acreage in north central Ohio.
During the
spring of my seventh-grade year my father had to be hospitalized for an
extended time. My mother and I were left to milk the cows, feed the hogs,
gather the eggs and prepare the fields for planting. My siblings at 9 and 8
years of age were too young to materially assist us, so I missed a few days of
school and we soldiered on. After we had the fields ready for planting, our
neighbors and fellow church members arrived with their planting equipment and
completed the job in one day. I learned about neighbors helping neighbors and
the blessings of community that year. It was an eye-opening experience for my
curious twelve-year old mind.
Back to the
rocks… During my early years on the farm I could not fathom why rocks would
appear in fields after we had picked them the previous years. One field was
particularly obstinate. It consisted of 6 acres of “jackwax”… a black-blue soil
that turned over in huge slabs when it was plowed with a moldboard. It was
beautiful to see and extremely difficult to work as the reluctant slabs would
fight every attempt by the disk, cultimulcher, cultipacker, springtooth and
harrow to tame it into a seed-ready bed. That darn field was a kidney destroyer
when I would drive the tractor across its massive slabs. Invariably, a few days
after beating the black mass with our entire equipment inventory, my Dad would
tell me to take the small tractor and a trailer and go “pick up the rocks in
the jackwax field.” I was perplexed. I thought we had retrieved all the rocks
the year before…and the one before that. What evil presence was pushing these
rocks up to the surface just to annoy me?
That year
that my father was in the hospital… the answer was revealed to me. The rocks
were numerous and were lying in the rich soil quietly minding their own
business when an all-day soaking rain or a 30-minute “gully-washer” would wash
the soil away and expose their hiding places. The fertile black-blue soil
camouflaged the rocks as they lay silently waiting to damage a disk blade or
deflect some precious grains or kernels of seed. The cleansing rain washed away
their cover and exposed them for what they were: impediments to our lives and
prosperity. If the field were to have a good yield, the offending rocks had to
be removed. Their hard-core interference had to be stopped so that our family
farm might flourish.
More than a
half-century later I was picking rocks from my own fields for the same purpose
that my father and grandfather had. Even as I approach “golden-ager” status, my
mind still wanders….and wonders. As I was driving my Gator while “rock scouting”
and stopping to pick up the offending “back breakers,” I thought my exercise
would provide a simple metaphor for where our nation is today. We are so
blessed to live in a land of abundance and variety. We have a population that
has brought the strengths of many cultures to our shores, but we are
struggling…. and our yields are diminishing.
If the field
represents our nation, the rich and potentially productive soil is symbolic of
our natural resources and our citizens. Clearly the rocks are the faulty
policies, the venal career politicians and the arrogant bureaucrats who damage
our tools and suppress our yields. The Tea Party, liberty advocates and
patriots are the rains. The steady downpours are the constant vigilance and
insistence for accountability that our freedom warriors demand. The thunderous
gully-washers represent the inflamed ire of our people when they have been
“crossed,” sold-out or cheated. Freedom-loving people will expose the offending
rocks and remove them….one by one until the field is cleared. We must never
forget, however, the rocks will continue to appear, and we must always be
vigilant rock pickers forever more. We cannot afford to be daydreamers like
that young farm boy was more than a half-century ago. We must be alert. The
heavy lifting never ends.
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