Getting Our Hands Dirty

My ancestors have done a lot of interesting things. Mostly they farmed, they fought in every war since the French and Indian War, and they used tobacco. Not trendy by today's standards, but very American and rather cool, in my opinion. I raise dogs, served in the Navy and the Army and use tobacco just to see my peers get all twisted up about it. Trendy is not interesting to me but bucking the trends is great fun.

My father's ancestors came down to Missouri from Illinois after the Civil War . They farmed, ran a saloon, and sat on the coroner's inquest jury after the Younger-Pinkerton Gunbattle outside Roscoe MO. Because they happened to be living atop the most extensive lead and zinc fields in the world at that time, they became miners.

One of the most interesting things about mining in the Tri-State area (Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas) was their resistance to unions. They stubbornly insisted on doing it all themselves, resisting big business and big unions alike. The essence of the "poor man's camp" was that you learned everything you needed to do the work all the way through the process and you did it.

One of my great great grandfathers, James Bodine, was one of the many who operated his own "poor man's camp" in Jasper County MO . Grandfather Bodine (himself or with one partner) leased the land, prospected, dug out the ore himself , smelted it and loaded it on a mule to send it off to market.

In Grandfather Bodine's case, his partner had to pull out of one venture due to having financial trouble and being unable to feed his family. Grandfather Bodine then proceeded to strike it rich a few months later --and the first thing he did was to go to his partner and give him what would have been his share of the profits if he'd stayed.

Now THAT was a man...Where are the Grandfather Bodines now ? Where are the people of vision, hard work, fairness to their neighbors? Whatever happened to American small business, the cornerstone of our culture?

I started this blog in the hopes of finding others who are rethinking the American business model as I am . Why do we think we need easy credit, venture capital, major startup funding? Why make our ability to conduct business dependent on the whim of the corporations?

Here in my rural NC county, we have people selling home grown produce, making wine from their own vineyards, advertising services with a little sign in their yards. We are finding that if we go to our neighbors first for what we need, we can all make it.

I sell fine dogs that I breed and train, and t-shirts and gifts honoring our fathers in the Revolutionary War. I crawl to no one for money, preferring to risk my own pension, not that of other people . It seems to me that if we are willing to work hard, be patient and be creative, we ought to be able to build our businesses the old fashioned way.

So this is a record of my own "poor man's camp", my own experiment in raising a business independently. I welcome the input of others who wish to do the same.