"We are all like tractors."

"We are all like tractors."

At least that's what Grandpa Bill (Mr. B's Grandfather on his mother's side) told me as we stared out from the porch of his old farm home across the vista of his hundreds of acres of corn, soy beans and tobacco.

“Oh?” I replied. Afraid to say any more in fear of bringing his drifting thoughts back to reality and losing the moment.

“We can go along with the plow of our tractor up, idling and doing no good at all, or we can put our plow to the ground and work.”

There is something simple and yet profound about wisdom shared between tired breaths from someone with muddy boots and callused and cracked hands. He is an example of work, and as such did not pontificate or chastise, he merely made an observation and his character spoke as the teacher.

Then pointing to a particular field of corn, he recounted a story of when one of his sons had sprayed 20 acres of the field with chemical that hadn't been mixed properly. He got teary-eyed as he reminisced.

"He didn't put enough chemical in the 20 acres of corn. I showed him how and set him lose, and all that work for nothing! I was so mad, and he was gonna get it. But then I remembered, I've done dumb things too. [tears] Back in the day I ran the machine to plant corn. I drove 15 acres without planting a thing."

In one afternoon he taught me the importance of work and forgiveness.