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Saturday, May 12, 2018

Frog Hospital's Fred Owens And Pax On Both Houses Discuss Getting Down And "Dirty"

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Fred Owens is with Laurie Moon.
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Last week Laurie and I visited the tulip fields in the Skagit Valley. The weather was delightful and I didn't have to do any work, just walk around.
Mentioning work because I worked in these fields thirty years ago, some six seasons harvesting daffodils at Lefeber's Bulb Farm.........It was too hard....... Lefeber offered me a year round job but I turned him down. Being full time I could have ridden the tractor and do cool stuff like that instead of just bending over all day picking flowers for piece work money...... But I preferred being a part time farmworker........
. I used to promote this kind of labor and I wrote stories like "Americans ought to pick their own fruit." and "Bring Back the Berry Bus." The idea being we ought to do our own farm work instead of hiring poor people from poor countries to do it for us....... I thought why are those tourists riding bikes down the farm roads getting exercise -- why don't they just get in the field and do the work..... Well, I did my share, six seasons.... If everybody did a few seasons of field work we would get it all done......
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Fred Owens My kids picked strawberries and worked in the spinach fields when we lived in LaConner in the 1980s and early 90s. I don't think local kids do that work anymore.
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Fred Owens But you can work in the fields even today. Don't stop and take photos of quaint campesinos. No, get out there in the field and do some of the work yourself.,,,,,, It can be strenuous and tiring, but if you did even an hour you'd be better for it......No need to jog and join the health club when there's farm work to do.
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Fred Owens I am still a liberal, but I never got it quite right. you're supposed to be concerned about the plight of the farm worker --- you're not supposed to actually do the work.....
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Alan Archibald Thanks Fred for continually calling us back to earth. 

Small gesture though it is, I have always cut my own grass - using a rotary push mower. 

Day before yesterday, I dug a "$10 hole" for my $2 Canadice seedless grape - amending that hole with compost from my free-range chickens. 

Ever since working for the Sandinistas in late '80s Nicaragua, I have held that every head-of-state would benefit from mowing his own yard - yes, you too Daniel-Traitor. 

We imitative monkeys are, of course, eternally tempted to re-make the world in our own image. 

But in this instance I'm persuaded that mowing one's grass -- or keeping a few goats to do it for you -- would keep politicians sufficiently grounded to avoid the manifest lunacy of gold-plated toilet seats and the creepy Pharisaism of posing as patriotic democrats while channeling the mustachioed monster who, in fact, promised to "make Germany great again." 

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../donald-trump-and...

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/.../hitler-promised...
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