In 1953, when I was 14, I worked on a farm in Newville, PA for a full summer. I fed and milked cows; drove tractors and plowed fields (see: In Newville, PA); picked cherries and peaches; cleaned stables and chicken coops; stacked hay bales; killed chickens; scythed roadsides; helped build a silo; etc. I worked ten hours a day, six days a week ... and two hours on Sunday ... for ten weeks ... all for $100 in compensation. I think this works out to about 16 cents an hour ... yet it was one of my life's most meaningful and defining experiences.
Now our Federal government, in its nanny-state wisdom, is planning to stop farm children under the age of 18 from doing many agricultural chores (see: New Labor Dept. Proposals). We all know that our government has done a lot of stupid things, but this takes the ten-tiered wedding cake. Now a Washington bureaucrat, who probably can't tell a heifer from a Hubbard squash, wants to tell farmers how to run their businesses and their families. This smacks of how well a senior lecturer in law from Chicago has been able to manage a nearly $15 trillion economy.
Balderdash!! Please kind readers do your part this Fall to help repopulate our government with grown-ups.
