# Fly-over Country....



## tasunkawitko (Feb 27, 2013)

I'd like to share this with you all; it's from an old Paul Harvey radio broadcast, and was ressurected as a commercial for the Superbowl this year. Most of you may be familiar with it, but unless you live the life, it's hard to explain how everyone stopped and dropped everything all across "fly-over country" when this was broadcast - we stopped, we listened, and we remembered....









Paul Harvey wrote:


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 willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, 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 arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it."

So God made a farmer.







God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, 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 in 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 and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.







"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'"







So God made a farmer.




For me, the words above above are about a whole way of life. I grew up in extremely-rural north-central Montana, and came back here to make my living, such as it is; in fact, part of making my living is to visit with farmers and ranchers every day, and to make sure that they get a fair shake when "things happen." My roots are in even more-rural western North Dakota, where the words above are simply a description of every-day life.

Folks either understand it, or they don't; for those who do understand it, it's very possible that some of them might have just wiped away a tear after reading that ~ but even among those who don't understand it, there are probably a few who can surely appreciate it.

I gotta say, after reading that, I wish I could call my grandparents and visit with them; but unfortunately, there are no phones in Heaven.  Signature


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## jarjarchef (Feb 27, 2013)

Very nice.... I heard this for the first time during the Super Bowl. I did not know who did it to send to my Father In Law.......It describes him to a T.....


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## kathrynn (Feb 27, 2013)

This was the way I grew up too.  My Dad was a Cattle, Soybean and Cotton farmer.  Loved the life...and miss it and him too.

My Maternal grandparents were the local conservationists in Greenville, AL.  Learned so much from all of them.  They will be missed and have great memories from it too.

Thank you for posting this today!

Kat


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## jp61 (Feb 27, 2013)

Best commercial during the SB, in my opinion. Never lived the life of a farmer, I can only imagine what it's like. Although the lifestyle did always  appeal to me. That's about as far as it ever got for me...... too late now.


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