Tuesday afternoon after the rains, I had the good fortune to be sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of a just-completed small cabin at the edge of a pond in northwest Clay County. My host was Johnny Wray, a slow-foods farmer who embraces his vocation in the spirit of Wendell Berry.
Grass-fed Angus-Charolais and red Tarentaise cattle lolled in nearby plots delineated by strips of solar-powered electric fencing; lambs jostled against one another in a movable pen, also charged by the sun. A couple of dozen chickens were busy prospecting for seeds in cow poop, speeding its decomposition. Bees from three neatly stacked hives patrolled the grounds for nectar and pollen.
I felt like a character in a children’s book, “Down on Grandpa’s Farm.”
Wray’s place is called High Hope Farm.
A well-read and well-traveled retired church administrator, Johnny Wray returned to his native ground eight years ago to farm and try to plumb the mysteries of nature. His successes offer a hopeful, compelling case for an alternative to the tidal wave of commercial — read “chemically saturated, genetically modified” — agriculture that permeates our food supply.
Our conversation on this soggy afternoon ranged from literature, to animal husbandry, to the condition of our communities.
Wray remarked on the devastating effects of the disappearance of jobs from West Point: Bryan Foods, Babcock and Wilcox, Blazon Flexible Flyer and the supporting industries that had grown up around them — little piggies, as John Correnti used to call them. Thousands of jobs gone.
“Things are going pretty good in Columbus, aren’t they?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I’d say that,” I said, hesitating. “Yeah, the new industries are providing a lot of jobs, and there are a lot of good people doing good work, but I can’t say we function very well as a community with a single, united vision.”
Then I blurted out something that’s been eating at me: “The place is so dirty. There is trash everywhere and too few people seem to care. It seems to be getting worse by the day.”
The comment struck a nerve with my host, who for a time served on an anti-litter committee in West Point that came to naught. He told about cruising the gravel road he lives on with his tractor and a small trailer and filling the trailer with beer bottles, discarded appliances and litter in general.
He then went on to tell the following story. He was living in a town in west Tennessee, when the local carburetor plant closed. “Car makers stopped making cars with carburetors,” Wray said. The plant had employed more than 1,000. Rather than seek another single large manufacturing concern, the city fathers decided to fill the void with several smaller businesses.
A manufacturer that would provide 200-300 jobs showed interest and the Tennessee town was among the handful considered. In the end, the company chose another site.
When questioned about its decision to go elsewhere, a company representative said it was the litter that killed the deal.
You have to wonder how many visitors looking for a place to retire, site a business or simply move here have taken a look at the litter on our streets and roadsides and kept on driving.
Later in an exchange of emails, Wray sent me a link to a TV news site about an anti-litter campaign in DeSoto County. “Shame on Y’all” it was called. The story quoted DeSoto County Supervisor Lee Caldwell who told of a town in Louisiana who was courting a new industry.
The drive in from the airport down littered roads killed the deal for the town.
“And as they left the airport and they drove into the community and they saw litter all over. And they said, ‘Stop, turn around, and take us back to the airport,'” Caldwell was quoted in the report.
Attracting businesses and new people to our area is a good thing, of course, but what about us? What about we who live here? This is our home. Let’s clean it up.
Birney Imes is the publisher of The Dispatch. Email him at [email protected].
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.