There is no better embodiment of persistence than the American farmer. The quote on today’s Chalkboard isn’t just a motivational line; it is a truth that I see every day from my side of the trading desk. The American farmer has been the most consistent piece of Americana, longer than baseball...
...though baseball gets all the nostalgia credit thanks to James Earl Jones and his “Field of Dreams” speech.
People drive out to Iowa to watch ghosts play ball among the corn, but it is that same farmer who planted the corn in the first place, the one who puts food on our tables, pumpkins on our porches, and milk in our glasses.
There isn’t anything romantic about farming. It’s not a Norman Rockwell painting that has come to life. It is early mornings, late nights, weather forecasts, and bank notes. People think a farmer drops seeds in the ground in the spring and rolls a combine through in the fall. That is the storybook version. The real story is sweat, debt, and risk management. It is calculating hedges, fuel costs, and interest rates while praying for just enough rain, but not too much. It is a business and the American farmer is every bit the businessman as he is the producer of grain.
As a grain broker at the Chicago Board of Trade, I have seen it firsthand. Those market quotes flickering on my screen represent the lifeblood of America’s heartland. Behind every bushel traded is a man or woman who got up before dawn, checked the markets, checked the sky, and got to work. They don’t complain much, because they don’t have time to. The volatility we curse in the office is the same volatility they live under every single day.
And they keep showing up.
Year after year.
Cycle after cycle.
Jesus Christ and the American soldier might be willing to die for me, but the American farmer has kept me well fed and that is no small task to do. In a world obsessed with digital convenience, the farmer still works by the seasons. A rhythm older than our country itself and definitely older than a pitch count. That kind of consistency deserves reverence.
So when I think about persistence turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones, I think about a man in muddy boots walking his field at dawn, wondering if the rain will hold, if the market will rally, if his kids will want to take over the farm. He will keep going anyway. Because persistence isn’t a quote to him, it’s a way of life.
Have a glorious Sunday you Chalkheads. Go find astonishment and have time for some gusto.
