OPINION? Everybody Has One!!

Here I go again. I must be a throwback to the 1800’s because I just cannot believe the price of things. I was sent to town to buy a loaf of bread and a jar of salad dressing and I am surprised they didn’t have to treat me for shock! The little loaf of bread was over two bucks and a medium sized jar of white stuff was almost four bucks! I don’t even want sandwiches anyway!

I stopped to fill the truck with fuel and that was like bleeding. I had trouble finding my voice when I went in to pay the clerk.

My hands were shaking so bad he must have thought I had a bad hangover or some dreaded disease. I had to fish my hanky out and wipe my brow before I could see to get the right money out of my billfold.

The drive home was slow.

I had to think things over and try to put some kind of reason together for myself. You don’t know any rich wheat farmers unless they are pumping oil in the back pasture. You don’t know any fellers getting wealthy working at a factory mixing up mayo, so where is all that cash going! And why is everything so dang high?

I sold a steer that weighed 825 pounds a week ago; he was born late so he stayed by himself most of his life.

Thought about butchering him but my close relative said we didn’t need freezer beef right now. He was not the prettiest picture of beef, sorta high tailed, pot bellied and chiseled rear end. That sorry beef brought home $899.25.

Sure enough made me happy until I really started thinking about it.

Add the taxes and upkeep on the place, plus tires, gas, upkeep on your truck,hay fed, grain fed, keeping his mammy to breed, running a bull to be his daddy, taking about 11 months to get him on the ground and I came out in the hole!

What has happened? Dang if I know.

We gotta think about the perks for raising beef for America. No days off, no late mornings, no early evenings and plenty of pests are surely worth something. I like what I do but you had better love what we do or we are all gonna quit. I can and do say a lot of good things about the profession I have chosen, raised our family and they, too, have a great desire to stay on the land. It is a good thing I don’t have to buy groceries or write the checks for the bills.

Speaking of bills, I decided to ask when I got home.

The electricity bill was all I had the heart to listen to. Telephone, newspaper, TV network and any other miscellaneous amounts were too painful to hear.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, I want to go into the business of selling gas. Not a station; I want to be the feller who sells the gasoline from the first. He can raise the price, lower the price, stop the flow, increase the flow and we don’t have a right to say a dang thing.

He is the feller we should hang. He has bankrupted America. Just ask a working man or woman who had to spend the grocery money to buy fuel so they could get to a job.

My steer wasn’t worth what he brought and the bread wasn’t worth what it brought. But I have more cattle and if you are looking for beef I will be willing to sell you a good one!

-Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 07/28/2010