The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1928-06-14
FARM LIFE rs
NOT so DRAB
AS PICTURED
Farmerett Contrasts Actual
Conditions ON Local Ranch
es with Dreary Description
of Country Life in Ameri-
can Mercury

Dear Editor: The other evening /
ran across an amusing note on
cage and the Farmer" by Jean
Nathan in back number of the
American Murcury. He wrote:
"The oldest man this side of the
grave is the American farmer of
forty-five. Where his urban com
patriot of like age is still a fell
low of considerable juice and
bounce, he is already, even in
these relatively tender years. in
the sere and yellow. The farmer
of forty-five, indeed, looks like
the city man of sixty or more.
In the agricultural belt life is per-
haps more monotonous and rou-
tine more hum drum than any
where else in Christendom without
excitement it is under this
deathly grind that the rube is re-
duced to an old man long before
his time. The yokel never hears
music, even jazz, save on a cheap
monograph; his eye is never pop
ped by pretty girl, he has to do
his drinking out of dirty jug,
his vista is one of weatherbeaten
barns, barbed wire fences and
manure; the house he lives in is
aesthetic homicide; he reads moth
ing but patent medicine altman
acsx and the foursheet newspaper
printed in the nearest village, his
cooking has no variety, there is
no reason for him to shave, or
even to take bath, there is, an a
word, no challenge, no inspiration,
no conflict. And like an animal he
burns to dust long before other
and more fortunate human beings.
Look at the farmer of middle
years and you will see a man whose
face looks like dried prune and
whose eyes are wholly without
curiosity and sparkle and whose
body is as sapless as a grandpa's.
One good barber shop and one
Follies' girl in the rural counties
would affect the cure for the
farmers ails that all the Peruna
in the Coolidge empire has thus
far failed to-"
Good, isn't it? / felt horribly
depressed when I'd finished read
ing it and Thought I'd go out and
take a look at my husband. But
someone knocked on the door and
there stood neighbor wanting
to borrow a magazine to read. l
found him an S. E. p, its cover
decorated with Pan piping to
spring. He looked at the picture
and then kept me half an hour on
the porch in the cold wind listen
ing to the tales of Morse mythol-
ogy. Across the road smoke arose
from bath house where another
neighbor was taking his evening
scald. In, our own yard my hus-
band with a trocar in his hand
stood beside two cows which had
just been relieving the monotony
of his drab existence by both be-
ing bloated at the same time. Who
can doubt that he got almost as
much kick out of it as a gangster
does from stabbfng a man in the
back? Inside the house sat my son
and neighbours daughter-pretty
enough to make any mans eyes
pop, were listening to the same
music over the radio that their
s.urban compatriots1 hear.
Of course some farmers do
smell unto high heaven but that is
more matter of temperament
than environment and I doubt II
they can compete with their city
brethren of like proclivity. They
are Handicapped by the winds OF
the wide open spaces. And are
country Jugs any dirtier than
night-club coffee cups?
Now, our community has three
and a half good barber shops and
I'll wager, more than thrice that
number of girls handsome enough
to be in the Follies. Perhaps MI.
Nathan was not referring to our
country but to the one across tne
river. I've heard stories about the
peopie ose yAMTLpPE