Credit: Mark Rogers / The Texas Tribune
LITTLEFIELD, TEXAS — Jimmy Drake started farming when he was 18.
He had grown up learning the intricacies of agriculture alongside his father under the unforgiving West Texas sun. He would come home covered in dirt that is good for little but growing cotton.
He has managed the land for the last seven decades. There has been abundance. There has been devastation. Through it all, Drake was propelled by a sense of family and purpose. He belonged to the land as much as it belonged to him.
And then, last year, a longtime employee resigned. Working 2,500 acres — more than three times the size of the State Fair of Texas — alone was suddenly daunting. At 85, Drake had to call it quits. But unlike his father and grandfather before him, Drake’s […]
A story of the bitter and the sweet… which is how I think of this era…the changes, the pandemic of fear, the wave of Gen Zers that continue to show remarkable wisdom and offer blindingly bright future dreams. Showing us what America, the world could be…
The article mirrors to us our current values. Farmers value the land, its vitality, and life. As a culture we value money, and the illusions which electronics bring. But you cannot eat computers, cell phones, or Tic Tok videos. They are as ephemeral as the electricity which powers them. One blip and they disappear. We distance ourselves from the fundamentals of life at our own peril. The fertility of the land is the basis upon which our culture is built. If we destroy this, and deny the value of those working the land we spell our own doom.