Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Where Has All The Farmland Gone


Once upon a time, there was a beautiful corn field, right in the middle of Illinois, with a road running right beside it, and everyday automobiles, and trucks would drive right past it, but nobody paid any attention to this beautiful corn field, except the farmer who planted it every year, and once the corn came up, even he was not seen until Autumn harvest. Year after year this cycle would continue, planting, harvest, planting, harvest.
Then one Spring the farmer didn't come to plow the field, so it just sat there, and pretty soon weeds began to come up in the field, and still passersby paid no attention, but sometime in late Spring, on a bright sunny Monday morning, all eyes were on the field, for right in the middle there were bulldozers, earth movers, and dump trucks. Right away they began to dig a huge oval shaped hole in the middle of the field. Then they began to lay out streets all around the hole, and run large drainage pipes from the streets into it. They then built large expensive homes all around the hole. Then the rains came, and the hole filled up with water, and became a lake. At the entrance they put up a real fancy sign that says, "Lake Meadows Estates"
Now, as I pass by, I always look at the "Lake", sometimes it's low, sometimes it's high, depending on the weather. Now the ducks and geese have taken to hanging out at the lake, and some stay all Winter. I often see the geese walking around on the ice, and I'm thinking, "Why doesn't somebody go down there and break the ice for those geese", but then I think, "You stupid geese, you should be in southern Mississippi, or The Yucatan with the rest of your buddies that went south", but there they are, them and the ducks. Then yesterday as I passed by I saw two ducks swimming together, and I could swear they were talking, one said, "It's a beautiful day isn't it", the other one said, "Yes it is, but aren't you a little afraid"? "Of what"? "Of people, look at all these houses around here". "Oh they can't come down here". "Why not"? "You see those signs that go all the way around the lake"? "Yeah", "Those signs say, Keep Out" "KEEP OUT, then how come we're in here"? "Cause we can't read". "Oh".

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What an interesting story. Is it yours, Larry?

Larry said...

Thank you Petra. Yes, it is a real place, about 5 miles from my house.

I should take some photos of what it looks like now.