"I Am the Farmer I Want To Be"

“My farm is the size it wants to be; I am the farmer I want to be.”

Observing HeadSodBuster growing up was like watching a balloon being inflated to its greatest capacity, and then waiting for it to be released into the air without tying it off: If you see this guy coming, you better step aside. 

Of all of his ideas, plans and goals, the one which stood out the most was the one which also terrified me the most: “I am going to be rich,” he used to intone, as though it were as elementary as getting a high school diploma.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I would respond simply. “Money is highly overrated when it comes to being happy.”

“What are you talking about? If I had some loot, I could go out and buy a 4WD Yoda, instead of driving around in old Brownie.” Brownie was the early ’60’s model half-ton Chevy pickup, that HeadSodBuster had purchased from Jeff. Jeff was the son of the rancher, Jerry, from whom we had purchased our parcels of land, back in the mid-seventies.

I will state right up front that making money was the furthest thing from my mind when I committed to making $67.00 monthly payments, for twenty acres of rolling hills property, paid over thirteen years. Gluten-Free Mama and I wanted simply to get out of San Jose, an hour south of San Francisco, so that we could raise kids who roamed the hills instead of the streets.

GF Mama and I have purchased exactly one brand new vehicle in our 35 years together, a 1992 Trooper, also the first 4WD vehicle we ever owned. This came after living on Bell Springs Road for a decade with only 2WD whips to get us into the ‘Ville five days a week, to answer the bell at the start of the school day.

Nevertheless, the littlest sodbuster maintained he was on a mission, one which would make him a millionaire by the time he reached thirty.

“Why?” I asked him, and then again, “Why do you want to be rich? You seem to have this impression that having money equates to happiness, and I have to tell you Buddy, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“Easy for you to say,” he might have responded. I did not need a road map to follow the route his mind had charted. I mean, realistically, how happy can a school teacher possibly be, while making the salary of a second-class professional?

Teachers are expected to be professional on the salary of amateurs. Let’s see how many politicians, policy-makers or CEO’s would have the cajones to even stand up in front of a class of 35 eighth graders, let alone try to learn them anything in the way of grammar. 

You get your mama to diagram sentences, Mr. O… You know what I’m saying?

“The problem with being rich, is that then you have all this money, and you assume it will bring you happiness. The truth is that money can’t buy happiness-the most it can do is rent it for a spell. Happiness does not come automatically because you have money-it comes because you like what you are doing in life, and you like the people around you.

What if you had all the loot in the world, but you hated your job? Or the people you work with are a bunch of arrogant so-and-so’s? How happy can you be if a third-or more-of your life is spent doing stuff you hate?

There is nothing mysterious about it, except that there are no guarantees that money will make you happy. Mostly it’s the opposite because once you have some, you want more. And if you get it, then the feeling gets worse; if you don’t get it, then…the feeling gets worse.”

“Right, Dad. Still, I’m getting tired of driving a beat-up old wreck to school, when my friends are driving real trucks. It would be hard to guarantee that having a fire-engine red 4-Banger would bring me happiness, so let’s just call it a Science Fair Project, what d’ya say?”

Fast-forward to HeadSodBuster’s appearance before the California State Assembly February 20th, when he appealed to the state’s lawmakers to include small farmers and the cottage industry, clearly within their sights, while pondering the future.

To hear HeadSodBuster’s calm voice of reason, shouting his message to our state’s lawmakers, is to fill my heart with pure, unbridled joy. In the midst of folks all around “going big,” I hear him say the words, “Last year our three craft farms were the equivalent to three 2,500 square ft cottage licenses. 

We are very small, total vegetable cultivation of just over an acre between our farms. My wife and I each made $12,000 last year from the farm; we would have done more but the licensing and regulatory costs ate most of that up. 

I was lucky enough to find an off-farm job to make ends meet. I’d like to celebrate that I have a temporary state license, but I can’t do it because most of my community does not…” 

Finally came the words that brought me full-circle back to when he was a teen, and I was trying to influence him,

“My farm is the size it wants to be; I am the farmer I want to be.”

Words are only words unless they are reinforced with actions. Can a school teacher genuinely be happy, living on a pittance? I don’t know; can a farmer? I guess he can, if he is the farmer he wants to be.