CC: When I come and visit you out in the country every once in a while a combine or a tractor will drive by out in front of the house and a lot of times you’ll cry when you see that. Why is that?

BFC: I cry because I’m so proud of how hard my mom and dad worked. When I was a young child I didn’t appreciate it. I think I was in almost my 40’s or 50’s before I really realized the sacrifices that they made and what all it took. One spring I remember, I had to be maybe 6 or 7 years old somewhere in that age, and my dad was getting behind with planting the corn and soybeans. Of course then there weren’t lights on the tractors. And so he rigged up lights so that they could farm at night and mom is the one that did the farming at night. Daddy would work in the field all day and come in for supper and then mom would go out to the field and my dad would stay in with us kids and I can remember after I’d had my bath upstairs in the big ol two story house we would go to the window and listen for my mom out in the field and uh…. I lost my mom in May and I appreciate so much everything she did for me. My dad always said she was the best hired man he ever had.