By John Mattingly
In the fall of the year, when the season’s efforts – good and bad – must be accepted, and preparations for the next year are less demanding, it is nice to sit on a tractor all day and watch Earth turn from daybreak to dusk. The light has a slant and richness that are hypnotizing. It is a time for what my father called “a long ponder.” After one such ponder he told me that he suspected he was living in the last years of Homo sapiens. Even then, in the years of Reagan and Bush Sr., he could not quite reconcile the persistence of war, greed and cruelty. It is sad and humbling to think what humans could do if all the killing of human culture had been applied to improving the life of everyone.