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W
e e k l y F
e a t u r e P a g e
Links to archived past pages on lower left
The contents of the “Weekly Feature” page are provided
to you for your entertainment, amusement, and perhaps information.
Here you may find articles of interest, pictures, historical information
on the Club, or whatever shuffles to the top of the pile on our
desk. The only defined characteristic of this space is that we
will make every effort to change/replace it around the middle of
each week. Thank you for visiting, and please stop by again. Click
on any photo to see it larger in a separate window. |
Harvest
Season
As I ponder how best to fill this space, I often
seek parallels in the real world that have some logical relationship
to the state of
our affairs in the club. No stretch to imagine that this is our season
of harvest, since we have just finished bringing to life a very successful
annual show. By all accounts, it was at or near record levels in every
measure. We really only get one payday per annum in our business, and
that was it, our harvest for the year. Like all the farmers among you,
we now turn our attention to seeing what worked, what didn’t,
and what seeds we need to sow for next year. Planting and planning,
pretty much the same thing. It’s a little like playing the Futures
Market.
But for the moment, we’ll content ourselves to reflect a bit
on the recent events. We are known far and wide as a “tractor” club,
but as one of our leaders is fond of saying, it’s really a “people” club
in the final analysis, and we have had a bit of a harvest in that aspect
as well. We are proud to note the birth of Trevor Gross, to Keith and
Glenda, the impending birth of another child to Dan and Carla Mose,
the recent marriage of Andy and Ashley Shuster, combining two member
families, all to add emphasis to the considerable social dimension
of our group. Like life in general, the human component of our group
can be touched by joyful events and sad events, as the random nature
of life unfolds before us. We have also experienced the tragic loss
of member Mike Fuoss, as if to remind us how temporary all things human
can be. As with the harvest, to everything there is a season.
Maybe it’s a Michigan phenomenon, but as the harvest season approaches,
it often feels accompanied by a building sense of urgency. Deep down,
we sense that we are running out the clock on summer, and as I have
noted before, the days are getting shorter, just as the work is getting
longer. Another cruel joke played by Mother Nature. And so it is with
the club, we have a full calendar for the month of September, as we
try to fulfill our year’s obligation to our friends, fans, and
customers. We have to fit in all the remaining tractor events before
the season can be put to rest, but as any good farmer knows, next year’s
harvest is only as good as this year’s planting, so we have one
more special event yet to stage. On the 25th of September we will have
our 3rd annual Education Day. I think we could view this as our own
version of “planting”, as we sow the seeds of interest
in our club and the agricultural business into the fertile, impressionable
minds of elementary school kids from the area. In an era when fewer
and fewer youngsters have any direct contact with the history and the
business of farming, I believe this exercise is of very genuine value
to the kids involved. It is an investment in their future as well as
ours, and that’s not just good business, it’s good neighboring.
If you have any doubt, check the photo page from the 2008 Education
Day outing. They don’t look that happy in math class. |