Not many people would guess this, but I was a 4th-generation farmer. I grew up on a dairy farm straddling a rural-route road, milking cows, raising hay, housing tobacco and daydreaming as much as I could get away with. I even commuted to a local college, driving out each morning, going to class, driving back home, milking cows, doing homework and going to bed! I loved being out on the farm, and often would take many long walks at night through the pastures, looking at the stars and listening to the sounds of cattle in the tall grass. What I didn’t like was the back-breaking labor in the burning sun or freezing cold. I didn’t like tobacco or mud, and I couldn’t understand how anyone could work that hard to be poor. Of course, that was the view of an 18-year old, who had visions of telling wonderful stories with my art.
I left the farm when I was 20, running away with a woman to live on dreams and little else. Eventually, she divorced me and moved along to other places. Nearly 20 years after leaving the farm, I was married in a beautiful corner of the family farm to my wife, Ann.
I never stopped dreaming about the farm. Now, I’ll be 40 next month, and now that I’m a man, my passions are clearer to me. We’re going back to the farm. In a few years, we’ll abandon our place in town to set up a home out in the fields. We work furiously to educate ourselves…she is taking classes to be a chef, I read everything I can on organic, grass-finished beef, poultry and vegetables. We plan to have a “community table” restaurant, sell produce and baked goods at farmers markets, maybe a B&B and direct-market anything that we raise that people will buy. To be a successful farmer today, you must diversify and sell directly to the consumer.
That brings us to Ghost Zero. I’m not 100% farmer, after all. I feel like I have a “calling” to tell these stories, even if not everyone likes them. So, in the summer nights and during the winter days, I plan to work on the comic. Hopefully, in a few years, it will be seeing some sort of financial success (depending, ironically on the same farmer traits of diversity and direct-marketing), and will provide yet another supplimentary income to our lives.
All of this means being poor. Living simply. Avoiding debt. Working hard. But, can you picture this:
It’s evening in late summer, and I’m coming in from a last check on the cattle, making my way to the house. We’ll be having about 20 guests over for dinner tonight, and Ann is working to get the food in order. I take a quick shower, putting on a comfortable, button-up shirt and stop by the study to check my email. I just read from the publisher that the first printing of a Ghost Zero story has sold out and is scheduled for re-printing, and I shout it out to Ann, who stops to flash a smile on her way past the kitchen doorway. I smile and step out back onto the covered porch to look out at the farm and savor the evening for a minute.
I close my eyes, breathing deeply for a few satisfied breaths and listening to the crickets start to sing. Then, the sound of a car coming up the drive tells me that the first of our guests is about to arrive, so I head through the house to the front door, ready to play host for the evening.
It’s a great day.
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