Farmer Joe and Farmer Jane As most of you all know I have worked at a feed store since I was fifteen years old. Just the other day in my dusty, dingy, air-conditioned but un-insulated office I stumbled upon some files that contained receipts from many years ago. The story these receipts told is controversial to say the least. It is a story of ordinary people and extraordinary thievery. The following rendition about farmer Joe and farmer Jane is fictitious but it is based on real world hometown numbers. Enjoy. A not-so-long time ago, 1972, in a town not-so-far away, Grapevine TX, there were two young farmers who never met: farmer Joe and farmer Jane. While they enjoyed farming well enough, they loved their horses. Jane simply loved to ride, while Joe loved to use his horse in different western competitions. Just like normal farmers they were simple, but good people. Their days were filled with activities normal to the small American farmer such as milking the cows, collecting their chicken’s daily gifts, and irrigating their crops. On the weekends they would head into town to buy the goods they couldn’t make themselves or obtain from the land. On these weekend trips to town both would stop by the local feed store to buy oats for their horses, and this is where our story really begins. You see, the previous year was great for farmer Joe and farmer Jane, as both far surpassed their normal crop yields. Amazingly both surpassed their normal farming profits to the tune of exactly $10,000 each. Both farmer Joe and farmer Jane knew the value of a dollar, having the calluses to prove it, and therefore were rather frugal people. Because they loved their horses, they both considered buying oats in bulk with their $10,000. Oats at Grapevine’s own Master Made Feeds were $1.95 a bag at the time or $78 a ton. However, each farmer only had about 10 horses and there is no way they could go through the 128 tons of oats that their $10,000 would buy them before they went rancid. Oats were out of the question. Each farmer contemplated what to do with their surplus and finally decided that instead of buying new farm equipment, or the latest and greatest color TV, or that hot new model Ford put out called the Pinto, they would save their money instead. Farmer Joe loved the smell and feel of money. No, he wasn’t greedy, he just simply enjoyed holding a fat stack of greenbacks. So he decided that he would withdraw his $10,000 of extra profit from the bank and keep it in physical cash. Farmer Jane, on the other hand, couldn’t stand paper money. She was a germ-a-phobe (quite the unfortunate condition for a farmer) and had always heard how many germs and other undesirable human particulates resided on even the cleanest looking dollar bill. So, instead, she bought as much gold as she could with her $10,000 which just so happened to be 166 ounces, gold being approximately $60 an ounce in 1972. With gold she could sanitize it daily without worrying about soggy bills! Both farmers, happy with their lot, stuck their respective treasure safely in their mattresses. Before either farmer knew it, it was the grand year of 1996. 24 years had passed since we first saw them. They were older now, but that never slowed them down, for they lived by the adage “it’s better to wear out than rust out.” With farmer Joe and farmer Jane’s steady and consistent labor their farms were still up and running, though they never again quite matched the surplus of 1971. They were still milking cows, gathering eggs, and watering crops. Most importantly for our story, however, both farmers were still feeding their beloved horses oats. Other new fancy feeds had popped up in recent years promising all sorts of benefits, but our farmers were old dogs. After all these years, some of which were rough, farmer Joe never spent his $10,000 and farmer Jane held on to all of her 166 ounces of gold. 1996 was an unusually tough year for our local grapevine farmers though, and it caused both of them to think very seriously about opening up their mattresses to spend the money (of course they have changed mattresses by now, they simply moved their treasure to the new mattresses!). Both were serious enough to take their treasure to Master Made Feeds to buy oats for their hungry horses. Farmer Joe came to the feed store first with $10,000 cash to see how many oats he could buy. Oats at this time were $7.45 a bag or $298 a ton. The owner of the feed store did the math and told farmer Joe that he could sell him 33 tons of oats for $10,000. Joe decided early in life that his desire was to be a farmer much to the chagrin of his school teachers who recognized that Joe had a photographic memory. Joe recalled 24 years earlier that he could have bought 128 tons of feed with $10,000! Insulted at what he thought was price gouging on the part of the feed store, he walked out, drove home, and stuffed his cash angrily back into his mattress. Almost immediately after farmer Joe stomped out of the feed store, farmer Jane came strolling in with her large bank bag, full of gold of course. She told the feed store owner she wanted to buy oats with it, but was unsure how many tons she could buy with her 166 ounces of gold. The feed store owner was unaccustomed to transacting business in gold but after farmer Joe’s tirade he decided to be accommodative. Not knowing what the price of gold was, the owner grabbed his daily newspaper and saw that gold was valued at $390 per ounce. The owner then converted $390 per oz x 166 ounces to get the total value of $64,740. He then told farmer Jane that she could buy 217 tons of oats. She was ecstatic! She too remembered that 24 years earlier she could have only bought 128 tons of feed. She was so jubilant that she ran out of the store, drove home, and put it back into her mattress for safekeeping. Miraculously the next day a great rain came, nourishing Jane and Joe’s land, and both of our local farmers made it through the rough year of 1996 without having to spend any of their treasure. And so our story finally brings us to today. Farmer Joe and farmer Jane are still around. They’re still milking, collecting eggs, and watering. And they are still buying feed for their horses. Not the new extruded-high-fat-super-anti-aging-miracle-super feed. Nope, still oats. Our farmers are even older dogs today. Neither Joe nor Jane ever got married, subsequently they never had any children. It was a shame they never met the townsfolk often said. They never amassed a fortune through farming, having only the ambition to do an honest days work for an honest day’s wage. They did, however, still have their surplus from 1971 stuck in their mattresses. In their age they began to think about moving off the farm and retiring, but they had one condition: They wanted to keep their horses. They both independently decided to turn their treasure in for oats in order to afford the feed for their 10 horses during retirement. Off went farmer Joe to the feed store yet again. He had long since forgiven the local feed store owner as he found out back in 1996 that oats had gone up everywhere, not just in Grapevine. He walked into the store and greeted the owner. They discussed the recent rains and such until farmer Joe produced the same wad of cash he had 17 years previously. He asked how many tons of oats he could buy with his $10,000. The owner sighed, remembering well the last time this had happened. He did the math once again, but this time the results were even worse. He told Joe that since oats were now $14.95 a bag or $598 per ton that he could only give him 16 tons of oats. Farmer Joe was livid. How could he only buy 16 tons of oats when 17 years ago he could’ve bought 33 tons, and 24 years prior to that he could have bought 128 tons? It was as if someone had directly stolen 112 tons of feed from him, or 88% of his treasure. He was seeing the value of his labor over the last 41 years of his life being devalued before his very eyes. He remembered last time he drove further to buy oats only to find them at the same price. The owner was thankful that this time Joe didn’t get mad at him. Joe simply put the wad of cash back into his bank bag and walked dejectedly out of the door. Farmer Joe knew he couldn’t retire as he had planned. In fact, he could no longer afford to keep his horses. As you would expect by now, farmer Jane came in with her bag full of spotless germ free gold right after farmer Joe left. She plopped 166 ounces on the counter, just as before, and asked the beleaguered owner of the feed store how many oats she could buy with her gold. Once again he checked the newspaper and found that gold currently was $1350 an ounce. The owner then, once again, converted $1,350 per ounce x 166 ounces to get the total value of $224,100. He then told farmer Jane she could buy 374 tons of oats. She let out a gasp. She had worked for 41 years and now she could retire and feed her horses with plenty left over! And that’s exactly what she did.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:21:38 +0000
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