The Farm Never Left the Boy

While visiting my cousin today, who is in an adult care home in a neighboring town, we (my sister and I) had opportunity to visit some with a few of the other residents who were there and were gathered in the “visiting” room along with us. One of the ladies remarked that she liked my shirt, which had the words “Wheat Farmers” on the front of it (It’s a long story). We visited some about farming, wheat, etc.
One of the residents overheard the conversation and asked me where I farmed. I told her I haven’t farmed for years, ever since I was a teen. We visited a little about that and about her farm, and then I told the lady that the boy may have left the farm, but the farm never left the boy.
After we had left the facility, I recalled something former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said. His comment was, "I will always consider myself first and foremost a kid from Kansas who got lucky. I have now worked for eight presidents. Whatever I have accomplished I believe has been due to my Kansas roots and heritage -- a heritage of family, friends, mentors, and values. The boy left Kansas, but Kansas never left the boy."
We don’t hear that kind of thing said all that often anymore. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the place we were raised, the work we did, the family we came from, or something else. I have to wonder just how much we appreciate our past and the things and people that were a part of it.
The newspaper where I obtained that quote (The Hays Daily News) also quoted Gates as saying this, "We must never forget the ideals and the beliefs that make us a nation; we must never forget the hopes and aspirations of our people; we must always keep the faith. In addition to a wonderful home, my youth in Kansas was rich with good and modest people. Character, and integrity, Kansas values and Kansas common sense became the bedrock of my life, a bedrock that has been my touchstone no matter how far I have traveled or how long I have been gone from Kansas."
I don’t cite this to say that Kansans are somehow better than Texans or Californians, but rather to say that who we are is more a function of our past, and who and what we interacted with as younger people than we might think (or like to think). Yes, we can change. No, I don’t want to go back to the “good old days”. And yes, we can embrace the new and different.
Some of us celebrate our history. Others of us wish to eliminate it from our memories. Still others just don’t remember much at all. But we all are affected by it regardless and in spite of it all. We live in the present, look to the future, and recall the past. Somehow, thanks to the God of heaven and earth, it all gels together and we are able to function, work, play, and live and love.