Making The Best Of Things

Constant Repetition Dulls Receptivity.

The Prairies Were Dust. Day After Day, Summer After Summer, The Scorching Winds Blew The Dust And The Sun Was Brassy In A Yellow Sky. Crop After Crop Failed. Again And Again The Barren Land Must Be Mortgaged For Taxes And Food And Next Year's Seed. The Agony Of Hope Ended When There Was Not Harvest And No More Credit, No Money To Pay Interest And Taxes; The Banker Took The Land. Then The Bank Failed.

Life Is A Thin Narrowness Of Taken-for-granted, A Plank Over A Canyon In A Fog. There Is Something Under Our Feet, The Taken-for-granted. A Table Is A Table, Food Is Food, We Are We - Because We Don't Question These Things. And Science Is The Enemy Because It Is The Questioner. Faith Saves Our Souls Alive By Giving Us A Universe Of The Taken-for-granted.

There Is A City Myth That Country Life Was Isolated And Lonely; The Truth Is That Farmers And Their Families Then Had A Richer Social Life Than They Have Now. They Enjoyed A Society Organic, Satisfying And Whole, Not Mixed And Thinned With The Life Of Town, City And Nation As It Now Is.

That Way Of Life Against Which My Generation Rebelled Had Given Us Grim Courage, Fortitude, Self-discipline, A Sense Of Individual Responsibility, And A Capacity For Relentless Hard Work.