I didn't really see a way to make a living on the farm. I always loved writing. I was the guy who won the D.A.R. essay contest and things like that, and it was the era of Watergate, and I decided I would be the next Woodward and Bernstein, and then retire to the farm.
I sat next to Carl Bernstein throughout Watergate, and Woodward would come over, and they would argue everything out, so I was really tuned into what happened.
My family and I reside on a non-working farm, although we have a couple of horses and the usual stuff like pigs, cows, and chickens. We really don't have an honest-to-goodness farm, more of a hobby farm.
I was a typical farm boy. I liked the farm. I enjoyed the things that you do on a farm, go down to the drainage ditch and fish, and look at the crawfish and pick a little cotton.
The Cubs, we built one of best farm systems - I think for a while there, it was the best farm system in baseball. And that was great. It got a lot of attention. But we didn't want the credit for the farm system. What we wanted was to see if we could do the tricky part, which was turn a lauded farm system into a World Series champion.
Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart.
Farm country -- you know, hay, horses, cattle. It's the ideal situation for me. I like the physical endeavors that go with the farm -- cutting hay, cleaning out stalls, or building a barn. You go do that and then come back to the writing.
In the 1970s, I bought some cheap horses, then decided that if I was going to be in it, I was going to go big time. So in 2001, Bill Casner, a partner with me in Excel, and I bought a breeding farm, WinStar Farm, together.
A farm includes the passion of the farmer's heart, the interest of the farm's customers, the biological activity in the soil, the pleasantness of the air about the farm -- it's everything touching, emanating from, and supplying that piece of landscape. A farm is virtually a living organism. The tragedy of our time is that cultural philosophies and market realities are squeezing life's vitality out of most farms. And that is why the average farmer is now 60 years old. Serfdom just doesn't attract the best and brightest.
I grew up a child of Watergate. It gave me a good dose of skepticism about authority. One of my favorite movies is 'All the President's Men.' Woodward and Bernstein, those guys were my heroes. I have a degree in journalism.
I enjoyed working with Dustin Hoffman. That was really fun. He decided that to really be effective as Woodward and Bernstein, considering their differences, we should spend some time together. Because Dustin and I were very different.
The most insistent and formidable concern of agriculture, wherever it is taken seriously, is the distinct individuality of every farm, every field on every farm, every farm family, and every creature on every farm.
Upon the farm of the uncle with whom I lived, we did know of the mortgage as some dreadful damper on youthful hopes of things that could not be bought. I do have a vivid recollection that the major purpose of a farm was to produce a living right on the spot for the family.
When I was four, we moved to a farm outside Springfield, Missouri. We had a radio show from that farmhouse. My dad always wanted a farm. We used to go out and milk the cows every morning and then do a radio show with a remote control from our living room. We'd start by singing 'Keep On The Sunny Side.'
I think things like 'farm to table' are misleading. I think sometimes that becomes a pedestal or a soap box to get people into your restaurant but is not... it's almost empty in a way. I mean, my food comes from a farm, and I serve it on a table.
I was blessed to grow up on a farm, and when you're a farm boy, exercise is part of your lifestyle. Like it or not, that environment makes you work out. On the farm, nature is your gym. You walk and run and swim and have to do a lot of work with animals too.
Through that organization [Community Service Organization], I met Cesar Chavez. We had this common interest about farm workers. We ultimately left CSO to start the National Farm Workers Organization, which became the United Farm Workers. I was very blessed to have learned some of the skills of basic grassroots organizing from Mr. Ross and then be able to put that into practice in both CSO and the United Farm Workers.