A Look at Farming

In Brian Lamb’s rerun interview with author Frank McCourt last night on C-SPAN, the author told of his once being referred to as “just a teacher,” while others around him had high-powered jobs or successful writing careers, whatever. Doors were closed to him everywhere, he said, for he was just a teacher.

Then he wrote Angela’s Ashes, about his mother. It was a best seller, as you know, and now he says doors are opened to him everywhere.

For generations in American society, three vocations rated as being at the top, above all others: religious ministry, medicine, and law. At least one of these rested upon a calling—that’s what vocation means—and perhaps the other two also, depending on the individual. Though today well-sprinkled with felonies and misdemeanors, they still are at the top. But there are two fields of endeavor, usually not called vocations, that hold high standing in my view. They are farming and teaching, but only when done well. A poem exists, written from the point of view of a farmer that begins with “I guess I’ve seen more light than any man alive [sic].” Whenever I think of wide open fields, I recall that line. It figures the light seen is even more than what a pilot sees, for he doesn’t fly every day. The farmer rises daily to look over his fields, and, of course, to look up at the sky for signs of pending rain. He must take in the clouds, and even the stars, when he tucks his land in for the night. That’s one positive way to look at farming. You see more light than anyone else. It is an honorable estate.

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