(This has nothing and everything to do with teaching--if you're looking for pedagogy, won't find it here today. But you might find some wisdom under an apple tree.)

I just got a call from the man in those boots. He's a farmer, and a good one.

He lives on a good chunk of land in Lenawee County, in the state given up by McCain today, and he grows apples. His family has been on the same piece of land for over 150 160 years, and it's in as good shape now as it was before anyone reading this was born.

His family could have sold it years ago, and every Keeney for the next seven generations could have lived high off the hog.

They chose not to. Instead, the man in those boots chooses to work a full-time job so he can keep the other full-time job as farmer.

He just called. It's been a bumper year for apples. A few years like this one and...

I interrupt. "You sound like a farmer. If you didn't, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing."

He laughed. He's sending me a bunch of apples. He sends them every year, no matter how his crop did. Northern spies, jonathans, macs.

We talked a bit about the gyrating stock market, but he reminded me that the apples grow the same no matter what the market does.

Hail storms, well, they matter. So does drought. A lot of things can go wrong--scab, rust, mildew, bugs--and they do.

Still, his family survived the 1930's on the farm, and I reckon they'll do just fine in the current crisis.

And I'll keep getting sunlight disguised as northern spies.




The boots belong to Dave Keeney, and I lifted the photo from Bill Bynum and Co.; the apples are from the USDA site. While you're at the Bill Bynum site, listen to Sinners and Saints--"every sinner has a future, every saint a past"--thanks, Dave.