February 4, 2013--Superbowl

Half the fun of watching the Superbowl is not watching the game, but rather the commercials.

At least that's true some years. This year the game was entertaining--the momentum swung back and forth to the last minute between the Ravens and 49ers--and the commercials were awful. Some even out-and-out offensive. 

I'm not a super-patriot but the one for Jeep that masqueraded as a salute to our overseas troops was the worst. 

What hutzpah to mix images of Jeeps (which, incidentally, are no longer used by the Army) with others of military families suffering while their sons and daughters and fathers and mothers are away from home fighting for us. 

The only thing lower was an on-air commentator claiming that it is because of our soldiers that we are fortunate enough to have Superbowls. So, that's what they've been fighting for. 
But that's cynical me.

So I was surprised that my favorite commercial was one that had a voice over by the late, conservative radio legend, Paul Harvey and that the subject--besides attempting to sell Dodge trucks--was farmers and God.

Mixed with evocative black-and-white photos of farmers and their families was Harvey reading these lyrical words that brought tears to my big-city eyes--

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 to get up before dawn and milk cows and 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 strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon . . . and mean it. So, God made a farmer! 

God said "I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks, and shoe scraps. And . . . who, at 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 on 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, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets . . . and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark. So, God made a farmer! 

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight . . . and not cut corners. Somebody to seed and weed, feed, and breed . . . and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk.  

Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'd laugh and then sigh . . . and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life "doing what dad does." So, God made a farmer!

That was Paul Harvey. "Good day."