Full Text of the Excerpt

Hopefully there is a community of people to have discussions going on, have friendships going on. So I think of communities and I didn't experience it along the farm. I said to other people and myself in 1993 when I was planning to sell my farm. I said no matter how hard I worked on my farm, no matter how much I made my farm looks like my grandparents' farm, I started to realize that even though I was making my farm like theirs, in terms of fences, the colors of the farm and other stuffs I chose, that I can never bring my grandparents back to work with me. There is nothing, there is no way to replace human connection. I think perhaps the peak of my Farming experience, although I began to make so much money later by myself, it has to go back to the time when I worked with my grandfather together in the mountains. There is something about the two of us working together that was right. I most love that one."

JUN WANG:

how about other farmers near you? Do they also work alone?

CHARLES D. THOMPSON:

"Most other farms mostly stopped, retired in the community when I was farming. It's just inactive farming community. Most people had day jobs."

JUN WANG:

So you didn't have a community life?

CHARLES D. THOMPSON:

"No. We did have a group get together in the hay season. We got paid as a group. I mostly participated. That was something. I involved fully."