1957

Far down below me I can see a thin man in the valley. He is digging at the earth with his bare hands and turning the soil to accept the seeds he will drop there later. It has taken him hours to dig only this far and his back is breaking, his hands are aching and his body cold. The dark rain falling from the sky lightly douses the black earth and soaks through his clothes. Tending the earth as he and his kin have for generations he will reap a meagre harvest that barely feeds him or his family, and gives him neither delight nor hope.

The man is a fool.

I stop watching him and get back into the station wagon and drive down the ridge to the forest, then over the hardcore to the roadway which takes me onto the Interstate. I drive for miles in warmth and comfort, pausing only to leave the freeway and slip roads behind me. I drive into the car park and walk to the supermarket where I am sheltered from the rain and the cold and where produce is laid out for me in rows by people paid far less than me. I can select the items I want and pay for them later, having another poor face fill the brown papers bags and still another carry them to my car.

I drive home and unpack the groceries in the kitchen, then sit in my covered veranda and survey the garden I am growing myself from a dry vantage. Cracking open a beer I consider this; that I am not a fool. I reap a full and righteous harvest because I make correct choices and have elected not to live in the rainy valley where I would have to stick my bare hands into the earth for the vague promise of unappetizing food in a distant Spring that I am never sure will find me.