Forbidden, Fatal Things for Promising Future Farmers to Remember

This is not a public service notice. I promise. But it is a strong plea to young Americans between the ages of 18 and 27 and frustrated because the job market is lean and that includes you youngsters who have college degrees in hand as you sit in one interview after the other only to hear numerous numerous Human Resources managers as well as Personnel Managers say, “We are so sorry. We are not going to pursue filling the position we advertised. Our company is going in a different direction.”

All of that was a slick-spin by corporate public relations experts to say, “You are not going to be hired because “the new direction,” this company is taking is outsourcing the job you applied for.”
So now, all of your career options have vanished. All of your job leads have dried up. But you are down to “a” choice. You can see if the City Sanitation Department will give you a “look, see,” or you can panhandle for a living. Face it. Times are that tough. But you are not one to take this lying down. You know how to take defeat and you know how to fight back.

Later that night, you do some very serious thinking about yourself and your career that for now is a dream not realized and you know that you cannot live with your parents forever. You are a college graduate with an independent spirit and large backbone. You arrive at two new choices: One, join the military. But not to get your college tuition paid. You have already graduated college, but in the military, you get paid monthly, a roof over your head with no mortgage, and free life and health insurance for you and your future faily for as long as you stay in the Armed Forces. And your second choice: Farming.

True as the morning sun. Farming. Why not farming? The only reason you can find against farming is all of your college friends all have jobs in law offices, investment firms, and the medical profession. But there you are about to go into farming and not put that much faith in your degree in Sociology.

I have got to hand it to you. You are certainly a young man of faith for taking this giant step in your search for a career. Farming is probaby America’s most-noble vocation. You can hold your head up for most of our founding fathers were farmers including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams.

So with some sweat, blood, sacrifice and pure grit, one day you will be as wealthy as your college friends who may not remember you, but that’s their problem. You are a proud member of one of this nation’s most-respected fraternities: Farming.

But before you start borrowing money to buy land, equipment, and seed, you best follow my advice and hire yourself out to “shadow” a real life farmer for a few weeks to study his every move day in and day out. And please take notes. One day you will thank me for this idea, but you have one thing to remember at all costs . . .

Forbidden, Fatal Things for Promising Future Farmers to Remember

• Upon getting hired to work with a master farmer, remember that a "disk" has a lot of razor-sharp edges to break-up the dirt, so please do not be a fool and try standing in the middle of the disk while "Mr. Farmer" is disking his field.
• Speaking of riding, do not straddle "Mr. Farmer's" diesel tractor at the front and act like a California surfer boy.
• Aggravating "Mr. Farmer's" dog, "Cannon," a purebred Doberman he bought from a friend he has in the Special Forces, is not a great idea.
• Laying flat on your back in the freshly-disked field and falling to sleep will get you two things: one, injured severely by "Mr. Farmer" on his John Deere tractor as he thinks you have already left for home and continues to disk where you are snoozing. And two, fired on the spot if he sees you.
• Trying to impress "Mr. Farmer" by acting like you are walking a tightrope as you try to balance yourself on the barbwire fence is foolish on so many levels. If you were to fall, and you will due to your lack of experience, and you will rupture yourself and have to be taken to the emergency room.
• Asking "Mr. Farmer" for his truck keys so you can do to town to drink beer is not a wise thing to do.
• Throwing those hard dirt clods at "Mr. Farmer" from behind a huge tree is very stupid. Although he is safely confined in his air-conditioned cab of his tractor, when he hears the clods hit the cab, he will panic and think he is being hit with giant hailstones.
• Sneaking into the fields that "Mr. Farmer" has planted during the day and pouring the homemade poison you have made will get you black-listed on every farmer's list of jerks not to hire. And you just did this so you could get a day or two off.
• Oh, look. You have brought your Winchester rifle along with you when you moved into the free apartment in the barn loft provided by "Mr. Farmer." But using his chickens and turkeys for target practice will get you fired and arrested.
• If the day comes that "Mr. Farmer" thinks that you are ready to drive his John Deere tractor, then do your best at the disking or plowing, but do not get to the end of the field and keep going as fast as the machine will go. Now you will be fired and arrested for grand theft tractor.
• Do not, and I mean, do not flirt with "Mr. Farmer's" decent-looking wife as she hangs out the laundry. Although she might love the attention, please know that "Mr. Farmer" will beat you silly and fire you on the spot if he catches you.
• Calling "Mr. Farmer's" children a lot of wild apes will get you unemployed very fast.
• Do not, and I mean, do not act like you are sick with a head cold so you can take the day off and sneak into the house to flirt some more with "Mr. Farmer's" wife. What will you say when he walks in on you holding her in your arms while she is doing the vacuuming? I think you know. The word starts with "F" and ends with "D."
• While dining at day's end with "Mr. Farmer" and his wife, do not just talk all evening across the table with his wife. That includes winking at her and playing "footsie" underneath the table, but if you do play that flirty game, make sure it is her feet and not "Mr. Farmer's".
• Using "Mr. Farmer's" John Deere tractor to sneak into town in the middle of the night because you are lonely is an asinine decision.
• Then the day will come when you are taught how to chop cotton by "Mr. Farmer," a humble and patient man, but when you catch him not looking and you hide in the bushes at the end of the field then jump out on him growling like a Sasquatch will cause him to lose his patience and whip your behind.
• One of your first lessons you learn is that "Mr. Farmer" and his wife rise at 4 a.m. to get the day started, so to help him out and have some fun, one morning you throw an entire pack of Black Cat firecrackers into their room and scurry back to your barn-loft apartment. Then you will try to keep a straight face at breakfast as they talk about this scary event.
• If you have a streak of being a bully inside you, do not hire yourself out to a farmer to learn the noble trade of farming for I fear that one day, out of pure unexplained meanness, you will trip "Mr. Farmer," as he climbs down the ladder from the barn loft and injure this nice man.
• You are beginning to be more "down home," as you notice that there are a lot of gophers living inside the barn, but you have it covered. You kill them all with D-Con rat poison and to have some fun with "Mr. Farmer," you pile those dead gophers on the doorsteps that lead to the kitchen. Funny. You are the only one that laughs when "Mr. Farmer" discovers their carcasses.
• One morning you are surprised by "Mr. Farmer's: wife who has brought you some breakfast. Then you have an idea. You tell her, "Hey, I saw this in a movie." Then you tell her to rest herself on the pile of hay while you lay by her side and sing to her. Apparently she loves it. But as she is getting up to get back to the house, she stumbles (or did she?) into your lap just as "Mr. Farmer" lumbers into the barn to feed the livesock. Uh oh!

Note: I do pray that you and "Mr. Farmer's" ex-wife are happy together and that you can find a job quickly for you were fired quicker than a Jack Rabbit and now you have two mouths to feed.

Why not look into being a used car salesman?