Dear Folks, I hope that Mary Ellen doesn't mind my sharing her response to my "Sea to Shining Sea" story personally but I feel that all of you would appreciate her feelings and similar memories. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don and Mary Ellen Newsom" <[email protected]> To: "Vee L. Housman" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 12:18 AM Subject: Re: [FOLKS] From Sea to Shining Sea > Vee, > > I had a very similar experience one summer when I drove to Washington, > D.C., and back to Chicago and then took the Amtrak to Flagstaff, AZ, and > back to Chicago. I used to hate field, after field, after field, of > corn---growing up in the midwest can do that to you. It is pretty > boring sometimes. But, after traveling cross country and returning to > the lush green of the midwest, with its incredible fields of wheat, > barley, rye, oats, alfalfa, clover, soy, corn, (yadda-yadda), truck > farms, fruit orchards, blueberries that grow along the roads as well as > in the fields, cattle and dairy farms, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens of > all sorts and sizes (many of which are able to graze "on the land" > rather than on feed lots),etc., I suddenly had a new appreciation for > the farms and farmers of the "food" belt of this great country. I cried > real tears for the beautiful, albeit FLAT, midsection that feeds not > only this country, but many other countries as well. OK, we can't grow > citrus here except in greenhouses, and I can't walk out back and pull > off enough lobes to make Cactus candy, but, if it weren't for the flat, > old, boring midwest, we'd all starve!! > > How's that for "America the Beautiful" and how about America the Bountiful!? > > Luv ya, > Mary Ellen Newsom