County Highway

Or How A Story I Thought Would be Depressing Turned Into a Blessing

Hello Crew of the USS Tom Clancy,

In a welcome departure from my normal writing beat—depressing stories about soldiers and spies—a couple months ago I got the chance to go to central Oklahoma to write about farmers.

A new publication called County Highway, co-founded by the writers David Samuels and Water Kirn (full disclosure, Walter is a good friend and occasional travel companion) commissioned me to go and write about the wheat crop failure there; and while I needed the work—I always need the work—this initially seemed like it would also be a depressing project.

I worried about this assignment when I got it; these things sound easier than they are, emotionally, on a human to human level.

*You* try to psych yourself up to go talk to a farmer in Western Oklahoma who's just lost his shirt on the winter wheat failure; this after working his hands numb the previous November, getting the crop in, maybe borrowing money to do so.

We'll call this hypothetical character Gilbert Joad.

Now the mortgage on Gilbert Joad's grandpa's place is coming due and he's not going to be able to pay the note. He's going to lose grandpa or great grandpa’s place, land that’s been in the family for years and supported generations before him, and on top of that his wife is divorcing him because he's never home for her or the kids.

Now he's thinking about eating a bullet or moving to Reno to do casino security with his cousin there, which is a slower path to the same end.

This hypothetical Gilbert Joad was the ghost of farming's past I was anxious to avoid; I come from a long line of farmers; both of my grandpas were farmers, my uncles are farmers.

Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wraith has a line about buying a distressed farm, of the type that there will be plenty of on the market in Oklahoma after the crop failures this year:

You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk. But watch it, mister. There's a premium goes with this pile of junk and the bay horses - so beautiful - a packet of bitterness to grow in your house and to flower, some day. We could have saved you, but you cut us down, and soon you will be cut down and there'll be none of us to save you

Anyway, the story turned out to not be like that at all, it turned out to be one of the best experiences I’ve had writing in quite some time, and one where I was lucky enough to meet a farmer and Kiowa Warrior named Dixon Palmer who’s crops weren’t failing; in fact, due to the way he farmed, they were thriving—and you can read it yourself…but not online; it’s a physical newspaper, and is well worth reading, and is available by subscription, or by visiting any of these fine book and record stores.

I picked up copies in Arkansas at a bookstore and a record store in Fayetteville, and it’s a beautifully designed paper with excellent writing. If you like The Hunt for Tom Clancy—which obviously I hope you do—you’ll like County Highway.

And while you can’t read the story online, subscribers can read the story behind the story right here on The Hunt for Tom Clancy…

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Best,

Matt Farwell