We all have work, if we're lucky. But for most of us, work doesn't require rolling out of bed before dawn seven days a week to toil outside in all kinds of weather. And fretting about weather because, if not correctly predicted, it could wipe out months, even years worth of effort.
My great uncle was a farmer. Patriarch of a smalltown Illinois corn-growing family, who inculcated in my father respect for hard work and knowing how to drive as soon as your feet could touch pedals. Was it the fresh air? The farm food? The potent homemade moonshine? My uncle lived to be 104, outliving his 102 year old wife by two years. When I went to pay my respects last week, I saw, next to him in the coffin, two husks of his cross-bred specialty corn. How many of us do work we'd want to take with us?
