WEBVTT - The Farming Game 0:00:15.396 --> 0:00:24.436 Pushkin. One day early last spring, my producer Ben came 0:00:24.476 --> 0:00:28.956 by the house with a lime green box. All right, 0:00:28.956 --> 0:00:34.236 so this is the farming game. All right, the farming game. 0:00:34.876 --> 0:00:37.796 I find a stick or pease guys, so everyone gets ten. 0:00:39.116 --> 0:00:43.556 I'm so daunted by long instructions of board game. They're 0:00:43.596 --> 0:00:46.876 not that long. They'd lose the princison small. Okay. I 0:00:46.916 --> 0:00:49.436 may not love long instructions, but I do love a 0:00:49.476 --> 0:00:53.076 good board game. The game board had fifty two squares 0:00:53.276 --> 0:00:56.876 all around the edges, a calendar, each square a week 0:00:56.916 --> 0:01:00.156 of the year. Like all board games, it was something 0:01:00.196 --> 0:01:05.556 of a time capsule, history in a box. This season 0:01:05.596 --> 0:01:08.636 of the last archive, we're talking about common knowledge, the 0:01:08.756 --> 0:01:11.996 things everybody knows, and farming used to be the most 0:01:12.036 --> 0:01:14.916 common sort of knowledge. How to grow the food you eat, 0:01:15.196 --> 0:01:17.756 how to live on the land around you. That kind 0:01:17.796 --> 0:01:20.756 of knowledge used to be held in communities and families, 0:01:21.076 --> 0:01:24.636 passed down from one generation to the next, or from 0:01:24.676 --> 0:01:28.396 one neighbor to another. But far fewer people know that 0:01:28.476 --> 0:01:32.236 stuff now. When people lose that kind of knowledge, they 0:01:32.276 --> 0:01:34.316 lose a sense of their own place in the world. 0:01:35.116 --> 0:01:37.516 This game isn't just about how to save the farm, 0:01:38.076 --> 0:01:42.836 but about how to save farming. Nice, Okay, So the 0:01:42.876 --> 0:01:45.196 object of the game is well, so it's kind of 0:01:45.236 --> 0:01:47.756 like it's it is to win, it's to make enough 0:01:48.436 --> 0:01:50.556 money farming that you can quit your job in town. 0:01:51.676 --> 0:01:53.476 But it's more than anything, just like not to lose, 0:01:53.556 --> 0:01:55.556 because you sort of it used like start in depth 0:01:55.596 --> 0:01:59.556 and then it just gets worse. The story of the 0:01:59.596 --> 0:02:02.756 Farming Game is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard. 0:02:02.996 --> 0:02:06.956 It's got everything in it, the sixties, geodesic domes, cows. 0:02:07.756 --> 0:02:12.076 So this episode Been is going to tell you that story. Ready, Ben, Ready, 0:02:12.516 --> 0:02:15.836 imagine a place, a barn in the lazy fields of 0:02:15.876 --> 0:02:20.116 your mind, line with shells cluttered with clues, stocked with 0:02:20.276 --> 0:02:23.116 millions of dollars in play money, and all these little 0:02:23.156 --> 0:02:26.756 plastic farmer figurines the boards laid out over on the table. 0:02:27.236 --> 0:02:31.596 I guess I'd better roll these dice. Let's see brings 0:02:31.596 --> 0:02:34.876 me to fall. The second week of October nineteen sixty nine. 0:02:35.436 --> 0:02:41.716 So step through the sliding barn door into an apartment 0:02:41.796 --> 0:02:46.196 living room, start of the semester at the University of Colorado, Denver. 0:02:47.156 --> 0:02:52.196 Move in day. Yeah, it was a two blocks off campus, 0:02:52.236 --> 0:02:56.476 a little teeny apartment. We flip coin, who gets the bedroom, 0:02:56.516 --> 0:02:59.716 Who sleeps in the living room? Oil, I slept in 0:02:59.716 --> 0:03:04.036 the living room. That's George Rohrbacher, inventor of the farming game, 0:03:04.116 --> 0:03:07.476 but not yet at this exact moment, he's creating something 0:03:07.636 --> 0:03:10.836 entirely different. I was in the midst of making a 0:03:10.996 --> 0:03:17.076 fringe suede jacket. I had done some things for a 0:03:17.156 --> 0:03:19.916 guy and he owed me some money. Didn't have any money, 0:03:20.076 --> 0:03:23.716 but he does have a couple of pieces of suede 0:03:23.796 --> 0:03:28.316 that are, you know, right off the cow kind of pieces. 0:03:28.996 --> 0:03:31.876 I'd visited George and Colorado where he lives now, and 0:03:31.956 --> 0:03:34.636 he got out the jacket. Okay. The guy that I 0:03:34.716 --> 0:03:39.316 got the suede from had the most outrageous color of 0:03:39.476 --> 0:03:42.716 suede I'd ever seen, or have seen since. This is 0:03:42.756 --> 0:03:49.196 like a lurid green, purple, lime, green, purple, and orange. 0:03:49.516 --> 0:03:51.996 I believe it was the fringe zone this arm that 0:03:52.036 --> 0:03:56.076 I was cutting. There's your timestamp, nineteen sixty nine, the 0:03:56.116 --> 0:04:00.316 war in Vietnam, anti war protests on campus, Woodstock, George 0:04:00.316 --> 0:04:03.636 and the amazing technicolor suede jacket, which I should say 0:04:03.956 --> 0:04:06.436 it's got like a tuxedo. It's a one of a kind. 0:04:06.516 --> 0:04:10.516 Let's just put it. It's pretty awesome. Oh and tails. 0:04:14.476 --> 0:04:16.796 I'm telling you this not only because the jacket is 0:04:16.836 --> 0:04:19.796 a wormhole to the nineteen sixties, but also because that 0:04:19.876 --> 0:04:23.116 moment with George in his living room slash bedroom was 0:04:23.156 --> 0:04:26.116 the moment his life changed. The sewing was hard work, 0:04:26.156 --> 0:04:28.876 and he gotten hungry for a blt problem was he 0:04:28.916 --> 0:04:30.796 had the bacon, but he didn't own a frying pan. 0:04:31.236 --> 0:04:33.516 He was contemplating this when all of a sudden he 0:04:33.596 --> 0:04:36.156 looked out the window and saw a girl walking by 0:04:36.196 --> 0:04:41.636 on the balcony. Wow. He thought she was gorgeous. He 0:04:41.716 --> 0:04:44.716 also thought she might have a frying pan. And I 0:04:44.796 --> 0:04:49.116 was making a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and with 0:04:49.316 --> 0:04:51.716 nothing to do. Well. This is prior to the invention 0:04:51.756 --> 0:04:55.916 of microwaves, and the only way you cook bacon is 0:04:55.956 --> 0:04:59.156 in a frying pan. And once you get the taste 0:04:59.156 --> 0:05:01.876 of bacon in your head, it's hard to get it's 0:05:01.916 --> 0:05:04.916 hard to get it about. Yeah, George drops the Swede 0:05:04.956 --> 0:05:11.716 jacket and heads next door. I was in the apartment 0:05:11.876 --> 0:05:15.516 on the phone when there was a knock at the door. 0:05:16.076 --> 0:05:18.836 That's Anne, the girl from the other apartment, also a 0:05:18.876 --> 0:05:22.076 student at the University of Colorado. She answered the door, 0:05:22.596 --> 0:05:25.316 he said, can I borrow a frying pan? She's on 0:05:25.356 --> 0:05:28.836 the phone. Yeah, sure, And I handed him the frying 0:05:28.916 --> 0:05:32.556 pan and he said, I'll bring it back. She gets 0:05:32.596 --> 0:05:35.036 back on the phone and closes the door, and I 0:05:35.156 --> 0:05:39.156 just stand there, just stunted. I was thinking, I want 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:43.356 to get to know that guy. Well, first off, she's beautiful, 0:05:43.636 --> 0:05:51.036 I mean beautiful, and she had this long honey brown hair. 0:05:52.036 --> 0:05:54.676 She had long hair down to his shoulders head, a 0:05:54.676 --> 0:05:58.516 big beard. Basically, the outside world said there was a 0:05:58.596 --> 0:06:02.276 hippie and he had on overalls and he drove a 0:06:02.476 --> 0:06:07.716 sort of old purple pickup truck and not not only 0:06:07.796 --> 0:06:11.836 beautiful face, but one of these people. After talking to him, 0:06:11.916 --> 0:06:18.956 where you realize the heart inside is every bit or 0:06:19.076 --> 0:06:21.956 more beautiful than the outside. I mean you could just 0:06:22.516 --> 0:06:25.716 or I could just feel it immediately. And the joke 0:06:25.876 --> 0:06:27.316 is I always say I had to marry him to 0:06:27.356 --> 0:06:32.436 get my frying pan back. An Roarbacker, co creator of 0:06:32.476 --> 0:06:35.716 the farming game. First thing George told me the story 0:06:35.756 --> 0:06:39.196 of that game is a love story. Anne went Georgia 0:06:39.196 --> 0:06:42.036 frying pan, he made his blt and then later that 0:06:42.156 --> 0:06:46.196 night he went back over to Anne's apartment, So George 0:06:46.236 --> 0:06:51.156 came over and it was my roommate and I and 0:06:51.276 --> 0:06:56.036 George proceeded to get really high and tell the entire 0:06:56.356 --> 0:06:59.356 movie of King Kong, how it was made, and you know, 0:06:59.476 --> 0:07:04.156 just all of the nuances of where it fit in society. 0:07:04.556 --> 0:07:07.636 And I was like, oh my god, this guy is nuts. 0:07:09.156 --> 0:07:11.356 I mean, he literally told the entire movie. If you 0:07:11.396 --> 0:07:12.996 ask him a story, he has to go back to 0:07:12.996 --> 0:07:16.836 the very beginning, until every detail from the very beginning. Well, 0:07:16.836 --> 0:07:20.156 you know, it's a strange. That's a strange topic to 0:07:21.076 --> 0:07:23.636 spend the evening talking about with the woman that you're 0:07:23.636 --> 0:07:26.636 gonna ask him marry you in a week and a half. 0:07:29.916 --> 0:07:35.196 But it must have worked. That's Wednesday. Thursday, George walks 0:07:35.196 --> 0:07:37.756 and to class and writes her a poem. Friday, they 0:07:37.756 --> 0:07:40.636 get on a plane to Seattle to meet Ann's parents. Saturday, 0:07:40.756 --> 0:07:42.916 George gets in a long argument with her dad, a 0:07:42.956 --> 0:07:46.916 businessman and veteran, about Vietnam. A week later, George and 0:07:46.916 --> 0:07:50.036 Anna decided to get engaged. This is where I want 0:07:50.036 --> 0:07:52.076 to be, this is who I want to be with. 0:07:52.756 --> 0:07:56.876 It was instantaneous. It was just an knowing that he's 0:07:56.996 --> 0:08:00.116 my partner, he should be my partner and we should 0:08:00.236 --> 0:08:04.236 do life together. Just before Christmas, the square that kicks 0:08:04.236 --> 0:08:06.836 off play on the game board. They tell Anne's parents 0:08:06.876 --> 0:08:12.436 they're getting married. They were not overly excited about George. 0:08:12.836 --> 0:08:16.396 Her parents were horrified, But George and Anne won't change 0:08:16.396 --> 0:08:20.196 their minds. Sometimes you just know. The weeks passed by 0:08:20.236 --> 0:08:24.716 in a haze. Lucky rolls. Only sixes, classes, missed, exams taken, 0:08:24.876 --> 0:08:27.956 papers and poems written, ringing round the board till it's June. 0:08:28.156 --> 0:08:31.636 George graduates and he and Anne get married. It's the 0:08:31.676 --> 0:08:36.796 summer of nineteen seventy. They decided to take a trip 0:08:36.796 --> 0:08:38.836 around the country just to see where and who they 0:08:38.836 --> 0:08:41.676 wanted to be. George comes from a family of doctors 0:08:41.676 --> 0:08:44.556 and academics and always figured he'd be a professor, but 0:08:44.796 --> 0:08:47.716 plans change. Anne had been working as a cleaner, and 0:08:47.756 --> 0:08:50.596 they had saved up a thousand dollars. They loaded up 0:08:50.596 --> 0:08:54.596 George's purple Dodge pickup truck and set off. They drove 0:08:54.596 --> 0:08:57.276 through thirty seven states over the course of ten months. 0:08:57.716 --> 0:09:00.676 As they wandered, they got fascinated by a new movement 0:09:00.876 --> 0:09:05.316 of going back to the land. We had gotten interested 0:09:05.556 --> 0:09:09.996 in the dream to the degree that we decided, well, 0:09:10.836 --> 0:09:13.436 neither one of us has ever lived in the country, 0:09:14.996 --> 0:09:18.516 maybe we want to do that. In the nineteen seventies, 0:09:18.516 --> 0:09:21.716 the environmental movement was coming of age. The First Earth Day, 0:09:21.836 --> 0:09:25.116 the founding of the EPA, the most substantial legislation to 0:09:25.156 --> 0:09:28.116 protect our natural environment, came all in a rush. You 0:09:28.236 --> 0:09:31.236 heard all about that in the last episode. People weren't 0:09:31.276 --> 0:09:33.316 just worried about what we put into our rivers and air, 0:09:33.356 --> 0:09:36.516 though they were worried about what we put into our bodies. 0:09:36.916 --> 0:09:39.916 I think that a very great date deal of sickness 0:09:40.116 --> 0:09:43.396 is because of the refined foods. I think we're literally 0:09:43.396 --> 0:09:45.996 at the mercy of the people who take all the 0:09:46.076 --> 0:09:47.876 minerals and vitamins out of the sugar and out of 0:09:47.876 --> 0:09:51.756 the flower. The organic food movement took off. Between that 0:09:51.876 --> 0:09:54.316 and the mounting feeling that we were killing the earth, 0:09:54.716 --> 0:09:58.476 a lot of people, especially young white college students, started 0:09:58.476 --> 0:10:02.636 looking for a way to reconnect in our uncertain nuclear future. 0:10:03.316 --> 0:10:07.676 The homesteading movement is once again gaining ground. They wanted 0:10:07.716 --> 0:10:10.676 to be self sufficient. They read magazines like Mother Earth 0:10:10.716 --> 0:10:14.356 News and Whole Earth Catalog, books like Buckminster Fuller's Operating 0:10:14.396 --> 0:10:17.396 Manual for Spaceship Earth and Adele Davis's Let's Get Well. 0:10:17.836 --> 0:10:20.636 They ate vegetables raw from their gardens and cooked gypsy 0:10:20.676 --> 0:10:23.636 soup from the Moosewood cook Book. They sang songs like 0:10:23.716 --> 0:10:29.516 Joni Mitchell's Woodstock, I'm gonna cambach on the lane, I'm 0:10:29.516 --> 0:10:37.876 gonna try and get NHow. Americans have been going back 0:10:37.916 --> 0:10:41.236 to the land since the nineteenth century, but those early 0:10:41.276 --> 0:10:45.436 movements were typically a response to economic crises. The settlers 0:10:45.436 --> 0:10:49.996 were romantic but also practical, living off the land subsistence farming. 0:10:50.396 --> 0:10:52.436 That was one way to be sure you wouldn't starve 0:10:52.476 --> 0:10:55.156 when the next panic came. Also, it made for a 0:10:55.156 --> 0:10:58.436 lot of good books, movies, and of course old timey 0:10:58.556 --> 0:11:02.716 radio shows like The Grandbes Green Acres Martha Martha. Let's 0:11:02.756 --> 0:11:05.596 face it, the price of food wouldn't be any problem 0:11:05.636 --> 0:11:07.396 to us if we'd done what I wanted to do 0:11:07.476 --> 0:11:10.436 five years ago and bought a fart. But the nineteen 0:11:10.516 --> 0:11:13.596 seventies back to the Land movement was different. It wasn't 0:11:13.596 --> 0:11:16.276 a response to an economic crisis like the Great Depression. 0:11:16.596 --> 0:11:19.276 It was the expression of an ideal. The back to 0:11:19.316 --> 0:11:23.196 the Landers wanted to make things and live in sustainable communities. 0:11:23.756 --> 0:11:26.316 Some people just wanted to live in nature, but George 0:11:26.316 --> 0:11:29.076 and Anne wanted to farm, and all of a sudden 0:11:29.476 --> 0:11:33.476 an opportunity fell into their laps. A friend of Anne's 0:11:33.516 --> 0:11:36.916 parents bought a duck hunting club in Washington State. They 0:11:36.956 --> 0:11:40.636 needed a caretaker the club, not the ducks. Basically, it 0:11:40.716 --> 0:11:43.396 was four rooms, a bathroom, a bedroom, a living room 0:11:43.396 --> 0:11:46.396 in the kitchen. Opened the door the place. It was 0:11:46.996 --> 0:11:51.236 full of dead bugs and mosquitos. The house and the 0:11:51.316 --> 0:11:53.876 duck club was a shit hole, and it was hot, 0:11:53.916 --> 0:11:56.716 and it was miserable. There's really no other way to 0:11:56.796 --> 0:12:00.076 describe it. Were like, what the hell, We'll take it. 0:12:00.516 --> 0:12:02.756 The club was in a town called Toppenish in the 0:12:02.836 --> 0:12:06.156 Yakima Valley. The Yakima is some of the most fertile 0:12:06.156 --> 0:12:08.996 farmland in the United States. It can grow a spare 0:12:09.196 --> 0:12:13.956 us apples, hey, corn, wheat, barley, mint, grapes, peaches, pears, 0:12:14.076 --> 0:12:17.156 and cherries. The kind of land it takes eons to make, 0:12:17.716 --> 0:12:20.956 worn by day and cool in the evening with plentiful sunshine. 0:12:21.196 --> 0:12:24.796 An American Eden, George and Anne started a garden off 0:12:24.796 --> 0:12:27.116 the shack near the creek and got jobs in town. 0:12:27.436 --> 0:12:30.236 George is a teacher Anne as a bank teller. On 0:12:30.276 --> 0:12:32.836 the weekends, George helped out at a cattle ranch and 0:12:32.916 --> 0:12:36.436 learned about taking care of livestock and riding horses. There 0:12:36.516 --> 0:12:40.516 was something that struck a chord inside me that said, 0:12:40.556 --> 0:12:44.156 this makes sense. Well, it's like you eat something new 0:12:44.236 --> 0:12:48.916 and it just boy, that was really good. He left 0:12:48.956 --> 0:12:51.036 his teaching job to work more with the farmers in 0:12:51.036 --> 0:12:54.516 the valley, learning all he could about farming. Anne stayed 0:12:54.516 --> 0:12:56.916 on at the bank. They got cattle and ate the 0:12:56.916 --> 0:13:00.796 food they grew from their garden. We not only like it, 0:13:00.996 --> 0:13:04.116 but we're doing well at it. I think this is 0:13:04.156 --> 0:13:07.316 how we want to live. I came home one day 0:13:07.396 --> 0:13:11.836 from work and George said, A found a farm. It 0:13:11.956 --> 0:13:14.796 was twenty seven acres in the Yakima Valley on sale 0:13:14.836 --> 0:13:19.476 from an improbably named Widow. Her name was Leifa Fields. 0:13:21.236 --> 0:13:24.316 They bought Lefa's place, and over the years their farm 0:13:24.396 --> 0:13:27.836 did so well. They got bigger and expanded. They had 0:13:27.876 --> 0:13:31.156 walnut trees and apricots in their garden, mint and alfalfa 0:13:31.236 --> 0:13:34.356 in the fields. Their conquered grapes went to Welch's Juice 0:13:34.516 --> 0:13:37.636 and their sweet corn to del Monte's. They worked eighteen 0:13:37.676 --> 0:13:40.596 hours a day, seven days a week, at the farm, 0:13:40.716 --> 0:13:43.756 at the bank, at the feed lot. They were rediscovering 0:13:43.796 --> 0:13:45.596 a whole way of life that was new for them, 0:13:45.636 --> 0:13:47.916 but old hat to a lot of their neighbors, and 0:13:47.956 --> 0:13:50.756 the community helped them find their way. They had their 0:13:50.796 --> 0:13:54.156 first child, a baby boy named Blake, and they were happy. 0:13:54.676 --> 0:13:58.876 And basically since we left the Duck Club, we had 0:13:58.876 --> 0:14:01.516 been on a roll where things were getting better and 0:14:01.676 --> 0:14:06.716 better and better. The early nineteen seventies, those back to 0:14:06.756 --> 0:14:10.476 the land years were amazing for American farmers. I didn't 0:14:10.476 --> 0:14:14.316 know any farmer who had gone broke, gone broke his 0:14:14.396 --> 0:14:18.476 back in the des Bowl era, that stretch of farming prosperity. 0:14:18.956 --> 0:14:23.316 It happened under one man, in particular, Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture, 0:14:23.676 --> 0:14:27.876 Earl Rusty Butts, Indiana born, raised on a farm in 0:14:27.876 --> 0:14:31.436 the nineteen tens. Here's Butts. I don't want to go 0:14:31.476 --> 0:14:33.716 back to the good old days. I only want to 0:14:33.716 --> 0:14:37.316 go forward. Whether Butts was really taking the country forward 0:14:37.396 --> 0:14:39.996 or backwards was something people would come to argue about. 0:14:40.276 --> 0:14:43.236 He was a friend to big agribusiness, also to Republicans. 0:14:43.596 --> 0:14:46.236 He kept a wood carving of two elephants, having sex 0:14:46.276 --> 0:14:49.916 in his office. Why because he said he was trying 0:14:49.916 --> 0:14:53.196 to make Republican voters multiply, and he had a terrible 0:14:53.236 --> 0:14:57.436 sense of humor. In the postwar decades, increasing farm productivity 0:14:57.556 --> 0:15:00.156 had already driven down the number of farms and increased 0:15:00.156 --> 0:15:03.276 their average size. Now Butts wanted to take the trend 0:15:03.396 --> 0:15:07.956 even further. He wanted to supersize American agriculture, and he 0:15:08.036 --> 0:15:11.036 got the chance. In the early nineteen seventies, just as 0:15:11.036 --> 0:15:14.356 George and Anne were buying their first farms, the Soviet 0:15:14.436 --> 0:15:16.676 Union had just gone through a patch of terrible weather. 0:15:16.996 --> 0:15:19.276 If they were going to eat, they needed to import crops. 0:15:19.636 --> 0:15:22.396 The Soviets bought up a quarter of the American harvest, 0:15:22.796 --> 0:15:26.676 billions of dollars in US grain and soybeans. Wheat prices 0:15:26.916 --> 0:15:31.276 rose enormously, farm income hidden all time high. Butts had 0:15:31.276 --> 0:15:34.636 found a global market for American crops. He told farmers 0:15:34.716 --> 0:15:38.236 to get big or get out. Agribusinesses thrilled to the 0:15:38.276 --> 0:15:41.756 spike in demand for their new herbicides, machines and fertilizers. 0:15:42.236 --> 0:15:47.076 Bigger modernized farms meant bigger sales. Our challenge is not 0:15:47.316 --> 0:15:50.236 to go back to morning effacian ways. Our challenge is 0:15:50.276 --> 0:15:53.156 not to put more people back on the land. Our 0:15:53.236 --> 0:15:55.796 challenge is to adapt to the change in situation which 0:15:55.836 --> 0:16:03.356 we find ourselves. Butts's vision was part of the reason 0:16:03.476 --> 0:16:07.236 farming knowledge began to ebb away. The emphasis on efficiency 0:16:07.396 --> 0:16:09.876 of growing as much as you possibly could came at 0:16:09.876 --> 0:16:13.836 the cost of older, more sustainable practices like crop rotation 0:16:13.956 --> 0:16:17.876 and plant diversity. Instead of small amounts of several crops, 0:16:18.156 --> 0:16:22.156 you got thousands of acres of just soybeans, another farm, 0:16:22.196 --> 0:16:25.956 all corn. Butts's vision was not exactly the back to 0:16:25.956 --> 0:16:29.556 the land dream, but George and Anne still benefited. A 0:16:29.596 --> 0:16:32.756 lot of farmers did. At least at first, the value 0:16:32.756 --> 0:16:37.076 of farmland skyrocketed. Farmers were living well, The family farm 0:16:37.156 --> 0:16:40.316 was becoming more like a factory, and the family farmer 0:16:40.396 --> 0:16:44.156 took out loan after loan, uneasy credit to expand, which 0:16:44.196 --> 0:16:47.396 is why when George saw a thousand acre ranch for sale, 0:16:47.876 --> 0:16:54.036 he thought, why not fourteen miles out of town, four 0:16:54.076 --> 0:16:57.636 miles from the next door neighbor, and you can see 0:16:57.836 --> 0:17:02.196 the Milky Way, and it just felt just absolutely right, 0:17:02.436 --> 0:17:06.036 and we said, this is where we want to raise 0:17:06.076 --> 0:17:10.396 our kids. The thousand acre ranch was surrounded by canyons, 0:17:11.036 --> 0:17:13.916 ninety five miles away from their old farm, across the 0:17:13.956 --> 0:17:17.916 Sadus Pass, fringed by timber, off the Cascades Mountains, at 0:17:17.916 --> 0:17:20.596 the breaks of the clicatat river, where the rocky land 0:17:20.636 --> 0:17:24.076 pulls away from the water. They called it the Brake's Ranch. 0:17:24.876 --> 0:17:27.876 The day they saw it, they made an offer. The 0:17:27.956 --> 0:17:31.396 next day they got a call. So the house burned down. 0:17:31.916 --> 0:17:37.716 It is one gone electrical fire. Consider that this place 0:17:37.916 --> 0:17:41.036 is ten times the farm George and Anne have ever worked. 0:17:41.556 --> 0:17:44.636 Consider that the farmers selling it are doing so because 0:17:44.636 --> 0:17:48.356 they've fallen on hard times. And consider that the house 0:17:48.436 --> 0:17:51.636 is now burned down. This I think was a sign 0:17:51.676 --> 0:17:54.636 from the universe about what was to come. George and 0:17:54.636 --> 0:17:57.236 Anne had the chance to fold up the board and 0:17:57.356 --> 0:18:00.156 walk away, but that's no way to play a game. 0:18:00.516 --> 0:18:04.116 And we've been rolling fives and sixes since the day 0:18:04.156 --> 0:18:09.036 we got off the bus. I said, well, let's go 0:18:09.236 --> 0:18:13.436 for the place and we'll build a house. They negotiated 0:18:13.436 --> 0:18:16.236 the price down and bought the land and also fifty 0:18:16.276 --> 0:18:18.716 head of cattle. A neighbor lent them a trailer to 0:18:18.756 --> 0:18:21.276 live in, and George started to solve the whole house 0:18:21.276 --> 0:18:24.036 situation In a very George way. Well, it's like the 0:18:24.276 --> 0:18:28.156 fringe jacket, you know. And there was a contractor in 0:18:28.356 --> 0:18:32.996 Yakima who was actually building two geodesic domes at the time. 0:18:33.716 --> 0:18:37.276 For the uninitiated, a geodesic dome is a structure popular 0:18:37.316 --> 0:18:40.716 in the sixties counterculture, involving lots of triangles fit together 0:18:41.076 --> 0:18:43.516 in the shape of a dome, and you can put 0:18:43.556 --> 0:18:46.636 the walls in tie anywhere you want them because they're 0:18:46.676 --> 0:18:49.396 not holding up the roof. The roof is holding up 0:18:49.396 --> 0:18:53.716 the roof. George was a dreamer. He believed everything could 0:18:53.756 --> 0:18:57.436 be done, and he was right. He was right most 0:18:57.436 --> 0:19:01.556 of the time. They bought the dome Easter weekend of 0:19:01.636 --> 0:19:04.236 nineteen seventy six, with their one year old looking on. 0:19:04.836 --> 0:19:07.556 George and Anne put up the forty five foot structure 0:19:07.836 --> 0:19:11.596 triangle by triangle with a bunch of friends. They moved 0:19:11.596 --> 0:19:15.516 into the basement, plywood ceiling, concrete floors, with a drain 0:19:15.556 --> 0:19:18.156 in the middle, a hose to draw water from the spring, 0:19:18.676 --> 0:19:22.996 and absolutely no heat. You talk about back to the land, 0:19:24.316 --> 0:19:28.836 we're back only six years earlier. They've never farmed in 0:19:28.876 --> 0:19:32.596 their lives. Now they own a thousand acres miles from 0:19:32.596 --> 0:19:38.996 the nearest person, surrounded by mountains, spiritually, geographically, financially, they 0:19:39.036 --> 0:19:47.876 were way out there. The trouble with games of chance 0:19:48.156 --> 0:19:50.436 is when they go your way, you think it's all 0:19:50.476 --> 0:19:53.916 about you. You're lucky, or you're special, you've got the 0:19:53.956 --> 0:19:56.396 hot hand or the mightas touch. But if you roll 0:19:56.476 --> 0:19:59.716 the dice often enough, your average moves towards the middle, 0:20:00.236 --> 0:20:04.956 and if you've started high, you're gonna get laid low. Well. 0:20:05.996 --> 0:20:09.596 All of a sudden, a place that normally gets five 0:20:09.676 --> 0:20:14.316 to thirty inches of rain, we got four inches of rain. 0:20:15.316 --> 0:20:18.316 There wasn't enough hay to feed the cows, and instead 0:20:18.356 --> 0:20:21.436 of thirty five bushels of wheat per acre, they made ten. 0:20:22.316 --> 0:20:25.516 It was nineteen seventy seven. Something like this was happening 0:20:25.516 --> 0:20:30.036 to farmers across America. Prices were down, costa rising with inflation, 0:20:30.476 --> 0:20:32.916 and farmers were having to take on more and more 0:20:32.996 --> 0:20:36.676 debt just to survive. In the pit of my stomach, 0:20:36.756 --> 0:20:41.476 the bottom is falling out. They had their second child, 0:20:41.716 --> 0:20:45.956 a boy named David, and so year seventy nine kicks in. 0:20:47.476 --> 0:20:51.436 We get two and a half inches of rain. Disaster. 0:20:52.316 --> 0:20:56.236 The crop failed, the farm was failing. Anne took a 0:20:56.316 --> 0:20:59.196 job far out from the ranch and things were going 0:20:59.196 --> 0:21:02.596 badly for everyone. George could sense it in the local 0:21:02.676 --> 0:21:06.196 store at the feed lot. But the middle of May 0:21:07.396 --> 0:21:10.916 and she gets out of there, and I've just come 0:21:10.956 --> 0:21:16.876 in for dinner, and she lets the kids loose in 0:21:16.956 --> 0:21:20.156 their room, and she comes up to me and she says, Honey, 0:21:21.556 --> 0:21:28.116 I'm pregnant again. We both knew that it was a 0:21:28.156 --> 0:21:32.156 slim chance. We were staying that this. We were gonna 0:21:32.156 --> 0:21:34.356 have to admit the experiment failed and we were gonna 0:21:34.396 --> 0:21:38.796 have to give it up. Anne and George owed more 0:21:38.836 --> 0:21:41.116 in interest on their debts than they could make in 0:21:41.156 --> 0:21:44.436 a year. They were living in an unfinished house with 0:21:44.476 --> 0:21:48.036 two kids and a third on the way. Spring turned 0:21:48.076 --> 0:21:50.076 to summer and it was time to cut the hay. 0:21:50.916 --> 0:21:53.316 George bailed by moonlight when the duke came up and 0:21:53.316 --> 0:21:55.676 the dried out crop had a chance of sticking together. 0:21:56.636 --> 0:22:00.436 On July seventh, nineteen seventy nine, he got up at 0:22:00.476 --> 0:22:04.396 three am and stepped outside. There's no other lights other 0:22:04.436 --> 0:22:09.396 than starlight above and the lights of my tractor. I'm 0:22:09.436 --> 0:22:17.916 as as alone as a man can be, crushing pressures, 0:22:19.276 --> 0:22:24.796 no way out kind of pressures. I am at fault 0:22:24.836 --> 0:22:31.316 for this disaster. What what can I do? And for 0:22:31.436 --> 0:22:37.476 some strange reason, I have no idea how or why 0:22:37.676 --> 0:22:43.236 this blanked into my head. This problem I'm in would 0:22:43.236 --> 0:22:45.916 make this hell of a subject for a board game. 0:22:47.276 --> 0:22:54.716 We'll be right back. It's nineteen seventy nine. Family farms 0:22:54.716 --> 0:22:58.556 across America are in trouble. One farmer in particular is 0:22:58.596 --> 0:23:02.796 taking it pretty hard. Crop prices are just total shit. 0:23:03.596 --> 0:23:08.596 George Robacker, farmer in trouble, crushing debt, failing farm. Baby 0:23:08.596 --> 0:23:11.076 on the way. It's three am, and he's out in 0:23:11.076 --> 0:23:15.356 the field, not asleep, but still dreaming about a board game. 0:23:16.716 --> 0:23:20.876 I finally get done bailing. Hey, eat breakfast, Go down 0:23:20.876 --> 0:23:23.476 in the basement, get a scrap of sheet rock and 0:23:23.596 --> 0:23:29.396 a framing square, and draw myself a game board picture. 0:23:29.396 --> 0:23:32.836 George alone in the basement of his geodesic dome, surrounded 0:23:32.876 --> 0:23:36.476 by thousands of acres of failing farmland, scratching out a 0:23:36.476 --> 0:23:39.476 board game on a loose piece of sheet rock. There 0:23:39.556 --> 0:23:43.236 is a fine line between genius and insanity, or sometimes 0:23:43.516 --> 0:23:47.036 no line at all, And it occurs to me that 0:23:47.516 --> 0:23:53.076 those four sides could beat the seasons. Okay, that makes sense. 0:23:53.716 --> 0:23:57.116 The sun is high overhead now, sapping the last moisture 0:23:57.116 --> 0:23:59.796 from the alf Alpha. There are cows to feed, work 0:23:59.836 --> 0:24:02.996 to do, but George is riding the lightning. He can't 0:24:03.036 --> 0:24:07.076 stop inventing farmer figurines. Debt from the bank the Yakima 0:24:07.116 --> 0:24:11.116 Valley at the center a board game about how miserable 0:24:11.156 --> 0:24:14.956 it is to be a farmer. I didn't go back 0:24:14.956 --> 0:24:19.516 out to the field, I didn't eat lunch. And and 0:24:19.796 --> 0:24:23.516 comes home and it's pretty warm, the kids are fried, 0:24:24.276 --> 0:24:27.596 and she walks in the door, and I just literally 0:24:27.636 --> 0:24:30.756 can't wait for the kids to get out of the 0:24:30.796 --> 0:24:35.156 way to tell her, I've just discovered the trap door 0:24:35.156 --> 0:24:37.916 the way out of this mess. It had just come 0:24:38.116 --> 0:24:42.236 like full out of his head. Here was this game, 0:24:42.356 --> 0:24:45.276 and we got to do this, you know, this is 0:24:45.316 --> 0:24:48.876 what's what's gonna save us. And she gave me a 0:24:48.956 --> 0:24:54.756 look like, are you frigging crazy? A board game. One 0:24:55.036 --> 0:24:58.596 crazy thing that's gonna see the other crazy thing. The 0:24:58.676 --> 0:25:01.316 game works a bit like Monopoly. It starts when you 0:25:01.356 --> 0:25:04.276 inherent land from your grandfather. Ten acres of hay and 0:25:04.356 --> 0:25:07.236 ten acres of wheat, each represented by a little vinyl 0:25:07.316 --> 0:25:09.596 stamp with a bale of hay or a wheat on it. 0:25:10.196 --> 0:25:12.236 There are six farms in the center of the board, 0:25:12.476 --> 0:25:14.916 each named after a real place in the Yakima Valley, 0:25:15.076 --> 0:25:17.356 and you've got one of them. Around the edge of 0:25:17.396 --> 0:25:21.196 the board is the calendar ear blocked off by harvest times, 0:25:21.236 --> 0:25:24.716 your hay cuttings, cherry harvest, livestock sales, and so on. 0:25:25.316 --> 0:25:27.916 You begin with five thousand dollars in debt with a 0:25:27.956 --> 0:25:31.636