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By the Rude Bridge that Arched the…Flood…

Sudbury Road, near Nashawtuc Country Club remains underwater and due to the relentless nor’easter it will most likely stay that way for a while.

That would have been good news in the 1930’s when the Taranto family was growing broccoli and asparagus on this fertile land.  My father, Nick Sottile, was the eldest son of the Taranto family. Childhood and working on the farm went hand in hand and most likely, by today’s standards, he would have been in violation of child labor laws.

Nick was planting corn, tomatoes, and pumpkins at 10 years old.  At 13yrs he was driving truck-loads full of produce to Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, his mother in the passenger seat.

There is something exceptional and wondrous about my father. I think when farming is in your blood it seems there is a kind of transcendent quality about your approach to life. Is it being in tune with the rhythm of the seasons and closeness to the earth? Or, maybe it is simply being the master of one’s own destiny – having sovereignty over your own country of you. Back in those days, we as a nation of farmers and traders worked hard to survive by growing our own food. We were were independent out of necessity. Henry David Thoreau wrote about it. “The autonomy of the individual is the natural state of the individual.” Those were the days before industrialization and the custodial organization, and a government that promotes dependency, disempowered the individual. I digress.

The Taranto/Sottile family farm, Concord Gardens, was one of many in this rich farmland community. It was located next to Arena Farms and across the street from the Amendolia Farmland.  Nick was good friends with Ernie Amendolia, the now deceased founder of Pine Tree Farms on route 2.

Farming is demanding, unrelenting work.  At harvest time Nick missed 9 weeks of school each year.  That’s just what was done. Nick was offered a full scholarship to Boston University for his amazing intelligence and his track and field athleticism at Concord High School. He chose to stay on the farm and help with the harvesting of hundreds of pumpkins, rhubarb, and strawberries instead.

When my brother, sisters and I were little, we would charge out of the car and through the farm-stand in the early morning hours around Easter, before it opened.  My grandmother, Josephine Sottile Taranto, made and sold her famous, and delicious, strawberry-rhubarb, apple and blueberry pies on the stand. There was always fresh, cold cider in a dispensing machine and, after running around like crazy, we would gulp it down like there was no tomorrow, to my grandmother’s dismay.  She was extremely cost conscious and I could see the dollar signs in her eyes as we gulped away.  There were polished gourds and potatoes for sale on the farm-stand, too.  I never could understand why anyone would want to purchase those polished, green and yellow gourds with funny bumps all over them.

It is easy to idealize the past, this is true. It is interesting to note, however, according to economist Richard Easterlin, that the “average levels of happiness … have risen very little if at all over the past 50 years despite substantial growth in per capita incomes.”  Why is this?  Have we, as a society been conditioned to become dependent, by external forces, the government, advertising? Have we given up our basic human need for self-governance? How did we get into the endless cycle of work and spend?

Yes, some of us have been fortunate, are happy, have attended ivy league institutions and are now working satisfying jobs and pulling six-figures. What about your average majority? What about the “Joe-the-plumbers” out there?  Do we even know how to take charge of our own destiny, run our own businesses, farm our own land, cook our own home-made dinner, subsist without McDonalds, the custodial “golden handcuffs” or government aid?

As a nation we have become reliant on prepared foods from grocery stores, franchise restaurants and coffee shops that make us obese.  This food is high in salt content, high in bad fats, sugar and it has very little nutritional value.

We have been conditioned to blindly accept and follow custodial leadership – a dependence on our corporations for benefits, retirement, for some crumb of worker satisfaction and fulfillment. In any event, for all our dedication and loyalty, we are “employees at will”, disposable in a heartbeat and now our employee benefits have, in most cases, disappeared.

It’s something to think about. Perhaps, before we measured happiness, when “By the rude bridge that arched the flood” the embattled farmers really were more independent, self-sufficient, in control of their own destinies and futures. Perhaps, because of their self-governance and autonomy,  they were actually happier.