Both of my grandpas were farmers.
They held other jobs in their lives, did other work with their hands, but in their hearts they were always farmers.
By the time I came along, they were no longer working 40 acres with a mule and a plow, but they both had gardens.
Wonderful gardens.
Maybe there was something about rising out of bed before the sun came up, or smelling the dirt in a freshly plowed ground, or seeing a red, ripe tomato hanging on a vine, but until the end of their lives, they loved to pull on their overalls, put on their caps, pick up their hoes, and plant themselves into those gardens among the vegetables and fruits.
"Being a farmer takes 'lots of hard work and 'lots of humility," they told me at one time or another as I followed them down the rows.
"It takes 'lots of hard work because each morning from spring 'til fall you get up in the dark, walk the rows with seeds, hoes, and buckets in your hands, plant those seeds, hoe the weeds, and fill those buckets with tomatoes and squash and green beans and strawberries...you plant, hoe, and pick until your feet look like they’ve become a part of the ground, until the sweat from your body mixes with the dirt on the ground."
They were farmer poets, my grandpas were, some of the last of those wonderful farmer poets who used to walk the farms and fields of South Carolina.
"And it takes 'lots of humility because no matter how hard you work, you can't make the brilliant green bud pop through the deep brown dirt; you can't make the bright flower fold into a baby tomato; you can't make the rain fall to help the corn grow.
Nope, when you lay down at night and close your eyes to the day, you can only know that you have given as much of your heart, mind, soul and body as you can to the ground and that you will receive the produce as a gift.”
And it dawns on me this Monday afternoon…being a teacher is a lot like being a farmer.
