Monday, February 4, 2013

So God Made A Farmer

As you all should know, last night was the Super Bowl.  I figure you watch the Super Bowl for one of four reasons:  the game; the commercials; the half-time show; or you don't care, you just like getting together with friends and eating good food.  Well I fall under the commercial category and I always find the Super Bowl as a good excuse to get together with friends and eat good food!

My favorite commercial this year was from Ram Trucks.  It included the transcript from Paul Harvey's speech, "So God Made a Farmer," that he deliver at the 1978 National FFA Convention.  The hidden greatness of this commercial is two things:
  • First, Ram has declared 2013 as the Year of the Farmer.  Throughout the year, Ram will be celebrating the American Farmer.  I'm excited to see what else Ram does during this year of dedication to the "people, food and lifestyle that keep America growing".
  • Second, every time you watch the Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial, the National FFA receives $1, up to $1 Million.


Do you want to learn about my family's "rest of the story"?  Check out my Farming - A Family Tradition blog post.

And if you are interested, here are the words to Paul Harvey's "So God Made A Farmer" speech:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.

"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.

"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.

4 comments:

  1. I've already lost track of the number of times I've watched the Dodge commercial. Reading those words give me chills, just like watching the commercial. Thanks for posting the text.

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  2. It was, by far, the BEST superbowl commercial in history! I loved it so much!

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  3. The speech was originally recorded by Lynn Ketelson.
    He states, " I recorded that piece in the 1970s at the American Farm Bureau Federation meeting in Anaheim. I had the only recording at the time, and actually fed it to both AFBF and later ABC. We kept it alive by airing on the Linder Farm Network on holidays and I have used it at speeches for many years. It's historical, and parts are certainly out of date, but the spirit of it is there."

    http://www.linderfarmnetwork.com/index.cfm?show=10&mid=3

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