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Poor, but proudEditor's Note: Ken is feeling under the weather, so we are reprinting this column that ran previously. "No, I couldn't accept it," said my father in a hoarse voice as he stood on the cracked porch of the old red house and looked at the man standing in front of the border of lilies about two feet below him. "I'd sure feel better if you let me pay for your hearing aid," said the man again. "Nope, wouldn't think of it," said my father with an exaggerated shake of his head. This exchange followed a fishing trip where our two families had gone to the "Deep Fork" of the North Canadian River when I was a 6-year-old boy, and the man's son had fallen into the water. It was swift and deep, at least by Oklahoma standards, and he was in danger of drowning. I remember that we were playing when he fell from a slippery log and into the current. We started yelling, and my dad came out of nowhere to run down the log and dive into the stream. I still have an image of him frozen in my mind, his hands shaped into a "V" in front and going headfirst into the water in full overalls and boots. He was also wearing his pocket hearing aid. According to Dad in later stories, he easily scooped up the little boy, who was swimming toward the surface and had yet to figure out he was in trouble. The boy's father came down the bank, and Dad just tossed him out, then swam to the bank and pulled himself out of the river. It was one of those dramatic moments that you could play back in your mind, frame by frame. We'd gone home and dried out, but the hearing aid wouldn't work. My mother was as angry at him as she could be for ruining the device that he relied on to hear because it was expensive and had to be replaced. I think that it cost $60, and the year was somewhere around 1954. She asked him why he didn't take it off before he jumped in, and he explained that there was nothing on his mind but saving the little boy. She'd then go back to the money issue, and he'd plead his case for taking action. The next evening the family stopped by, and the man offered to pay for the hearing aid. This was a real quandary for farm folks with literally no money, but Mom never challenged Dad when he refused. After several attempts, even going to the car and coming back to the house, the man left with thanks for saving the child from drowning but not being able to pay for the loss of the precious hearing device. I saw this behavior several times in my formative years and found it standard across our farming community. The people held their pride above their pocketbook and would not accept payment for any action that helped another. If you got stuck in a ditch and had to walk to the neighbor's house to ask to be pulled out, they did so immediately. It was then customary to say: "What do I owe you?" Their response was to say that you owed them nothing. They would not consider any payment, and no matter how hard you tried, there would be no money changing hands. If someone did charge for such action, they were looked down on for preying on the misfortune of others. Needless to say, we had no wrecker service in that community. We really didn't have any services except a telephone, and it had eight houses hooked to each line. You could keep track of what was going on at the neighbors' houses just by listening to whose phone was ringing throughout the day and night or listening in, which my mother adamantly refused to do. She did visit with Florence, who ran the "central" switchboard, and got a lot of news from her. The work ethic of these rural people had been put to the test as the Dust Bowl and Depression of the 1930s took out anyone who had the slightest weakness. Following the war, there were more off-farm jobs, and my memory is that Dad worked on a bridge with the man he invited fishing. No matter the source of income, these people saw themselves as farmers and held strictly to the code of accepting no charity. They would accept money from the government, however. This has always been a humorous contradiction in my mind, as they were almost Amish in their justification of this income stream. Grow the wheat, seal the bin, take the payment or put land in the soil bank. It was rudimentary, compared to the finesse of farming the government today. But they did their best to maximize the revenue while criticizing the program. The fact was that they had a simple moral base from which they directed their lives. They were willing to be poor if they could also remain proud. In small communities with a static population, the social pressure was so great that any step across the line was seen and discussed by all. It was the closest to pure communism that this country could achieve. So my mother relented. Dad bought a new hearing aid, and they paid for it from farm production and laborer's wages. They grumbled at each other (forever), but the actions of my parents became a part of my moral base. In my adult life, I find myself wanting to help others more often than I can justify doing. And when I do, I cannot accept more than a token payment for doing so. When I am assisted, I sincerely wish to pay, but I am careful not to insult the person who helped me by pushing too hard with offers of compensation. We are all the product of our raising. In my mind, the example set for me by my parents and farming community is a good moral base from which to direct my life. Editor's Note: Ken Root is an independent agricultural journalist. He was named the 2009 Farm Broadcaster of the Year and was the 2008 winner of the Oscar in Agriculture. He is an Oklahoma native and graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in Agriculture Education. Ken taught vocational agriculture at Union City, Okla., before taking his first broadcasting job with WKY Radio and Television. He worked in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as an agricultural broadcaster and began writing for the High Plains Journal eight years ago. He has spent the last five years as Lead Farm Broadcaster at WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. Ken has also been the executive director of the National AgriChemical Retailers Association in Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Farm Broadcasting in Kansas City, Mo. He and his wife Gail have two adult children and two grandchildren.
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