WEBVTT - Board Game Season 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Bushkin. 0:00:21.796 --> 0:00:26.036 In just a few days, it will be Christmas, and 0:00:26.076 --> 0:00:28.836 in houses around the world there will be thousands upon 0:00:28.916 --> 0:00:33.596 thousands of long squat boxes covered in wrapping paper. Inside 0:00:33.836 --> 0:00:38.156 will be little plastic figurines, trains, top hats, empty octagons. 0:00:38.476 --> 0:00:41.196 There will be cards, spinners, tokens, potty pencils, and dice. 0:00:41.556 --> 0:00:45.956 They will play money. There will be scorecards. For this, 0:00:46.156 --> 0:00:51.316 my friends, is the season of the board game. Board 0:00:51.316 --> 0:00:54.556 games have always fascinated me. I used to play double 0:00:54.556 --> 0:00:57.356 board risk as a kid with ten players and the 0:00:57.396 --> 0:01:02.956 games would take minimum twelve hours. Once one took sixteen hours. 0:01:03.196 --> 0:01:05.916 My friend Terry and I developed our own brand of Monopoly, 0:01:06.196 --> 0:01:10.196 where we fixed all the problems with the Parker Brothers version, 0:01:10.596 --> 0:01:16.396 including introducing the use of derivatives. The philosopher Ctun says 0:01:16.396 --> 0:01:19.196 that games are an art form that work in the 0:01:19.236 --> 0:01:22.996 medium of agency. Game shape what you want and how 0:01:23.036 --> 0:01:25.596 you can get it, so every game is a pocket 0:01:25.796 --> 0:01:29.156 philosophy of life, like the story of the woman who 0:01:29.156 --> 0:01:32.876 invented Monopoly to promote a socialist idea about how we 0:01:32.916 --> 0:01:36.476 should tax land, before the Parker Brothers turned it into 0:01:36.476 --> 0:01:38.276 a game about how fun it is to own a 0:01:38.316 --> 0:01:42.156 lot of land. Or my personal favorite, class Struggle, the 0:01:42.156 --> 0:01:46.276 truly tedious board game about communism, invented by an NYU 0:01:46.356 --> 0:01:50.036 professor and scholar of Karl Marx in the nineteen seventies. 0:01:50.596 --> 0:01:53.796 You get the picture. Every game lets you try on 0:01:53.876 --> 0:01:56.996 a way to think about the world. So today on 0:01:57.036 --> 0:01:59.516 the show we have a story from producer Ben at 0:01:59.516 --> 0:02:02.716 Alfhaffrey about a family who invented a board game not 0:02:02.956 --> 0:02:06.876 just to impart some life lessons, but in fact to 0:02:06.956 --> 0:02:11.236 save their own lives. It's a wild, part comedy, part tragedy, 0:02:11.796 --> 0:02:15.716 and the love story perfect for the holidays. It begins 0:02:16.316 --> 0:02:19.316 in the fall of nineteen sixty nine in an apartment 0:02:19.436 --> 0:02:23.796 living room, started a semester at the University of Colorado. 0:02:24.516 --> 0:02:29.676 Moving there. Yeah, it was two blocks off campus, a 0:02:29.836 --> 0:02:33.836 little teeny apartment. We flipped coin, who gets the bedroom, 0:02:33.836 --> 0:02:37.036 who sleeps in the living room? Oil, I slept in 0:02:37.076 --> 0:02:38.356 the living room. 0:02:38.676 --> 0:02:41.796 That's George Roorbacker, inventor of the farming game, but not 0:02:41.876 --> 0:02:45.756 yet at this exact moment, He's creating something entirely different. 0:02:46.596 --> 0:02:48.916 I was in the midst of making it a fringe 0:02:48.956 --> 0:02:54.756 swede jacket. I had done some things for a guy 0:02:54.916 --> 0:02:57.316 and he owed me some money, didn't have any money, 0:02:57.396 --> 0:03:01.036 but he does have a couple of pieces of swede 0:03:01.116 --> 0:03:05.716 that are, you know, right off the col kind of pieces. 0:03:06.396 --> 0:03:09.156 I visited George and Colorado where he lives now, and 0:03:09.316 --> 0:03:10.396 he got out the jacket. 0:03:10.596 --> 0:03:14.396 Okay, the guy that I got the swayed from had 0:03:14.756 --> 0:03:18.556 the most outrageous color of swede I'd ever seen or 0:03:18.676 --> 0:03:24.036 have seen. Since this is like a lurid green, purple, 0:03:24.516 --> 0:03:27.796 lime green, purple, and orange. I believe it was the 0:03:27.876 --> 0:03:30.156 fringe zone, this arm that I was cutting. 0:03:30.716 --> 0:03:34.356 There's your timestamp. Nineteen sixty nine, the war in Vietnam, 0:03:34.556 --> 0:03:38.236 anti war protests on campus, Woodstock, George and the amazing 0:03:38.276 --> 0:03:41.716 technical or swede jacket, which I should say is got 0:03:41.716 --> 0:03:42.436 like a tuxedo. 0:03:42.836 --> 0:03:44.436 It's a one of a kind. Let's just put it. 0:03:44.436 --> 0:03:45.316 It's pretty awesome. 0:03:45.676 --> 0:03:50.876 Oh and tails. 0:03:51.836 --> 0:03:54.156 I'm telling you this not only because the jacket is 0:03:54.156 --> 0:03:57.076 a wormhole to the nineteen sixties, but also because that 0:03:57.196 --> 0:04:00.476 moment with George in his living room slash bedroom was 0:04:00.516 --> 0:04:03.436 the moment his life changed. The sewing was hard work, 0:04:03.516 --> 0:04:06.196 and he'd gotten hungry for a blt. Problem was he 0:04:06.236 --> 0:04:08.116 had the bacon, but he didn't own a frying pan. 0:04:08.556 --> 0:04:10.196 He was kind of plating this when all of a 0:04:10.236 --> 0:04:12.956 sudden he looked out the window and saw a girl 0:04:12.996 --> 0:04:14.196 walking by on the balcony. 0:04:15.516 --> 0:04:16.036 Wow. 0:04:16.996 --> 0:04:20.476 He thought she was gorgeous. He also thought she might 0:04:20.476 --> 0:04:21.236 have a frying pan. 0:04:21.756 --> 0:04:25.156 And I was making a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich 0:04:25.356 --> 0:04:28.436 and with nothing to do. Well, this is prior to 0:04:28.476 --> 0:04:32.036 the invention of mica waves, and the only way you 0:04:32.396 --> 0:04:34.876 cook bacon is in a frying pan. And once you 0:04:35.076 --> 0:04:38.996 get the taste of bacon in your head, it's. 0:04:38.436 --> 0:04:38.876 Hard to get it. 0:04:39.036 --> 0:04:40.196 It's hard to get it. 0:04:40.276 --> 0:04:43.796 Yeah, George drops the Swede jacket and head's next door. 0:04:45.356 --> 0:04:51.756 I was in the apartment on the phone when there 0:04:51.836 --> 0:04:52.756 was a knock at the door. 0:04:53.436 --> 0:04:56.196 That's Anne, the girl from the other apartment, also a 0:04:56.196 --> 0:04:59.316 student at the University of Colorado. She answered the door 0:04:59.836 --> 0:05:00.716 and he said. 0:05:00.636 --> 0:05:01.836 Can I borrow a frying pan? 0:05:02.196 --> 0:05:03.196 She's on the phone. 0:05:03.476 --> 0:05:07.676 Yeah, sure, And I handed him the frying pan and 0:05:07.716 --> 0:05:09.316 he said, I'll bring it back. 0:05:09.436 --> 0:05:12.076 She gets back on the phone and closes the door, 0:05:12.116 --> 0:05:14.836 and I just stand there, just stunned. 0:05:15.156 --> 0:05:17.636 I think I want to get to know that guy. 0:05:18.036 --> 0:05:25.076 Well, first off, she's beautiful, I mean beautiful, and she 0:05:25.156 --> 0:05:28.716 had this long honey brown hair. 0:05:29.036 --> 0:05:31.556 Had she had long hair down to his shoulders, had 0:05:31.876 --> 0:05:32.636 a big beard. 0:05:32.956 --> 0:05:36.396 Basically the outside world said, there's a hippie. 0:05:36.516 --> 0:05:40.076 And he had on overalls and he drove a sort 0:05:40.116 --> 0:05:42.276 of old purple pickup. 0:05:41.916 --> 0:05:46.636 Truck and not not only beautiful face, but one of 0:05:46.676 --> 0:05:51.956 these people. After talking to him, where you realize the 0:05:52.076 --> 0:05:58.316 heart inside is every bit or more beautiful than the outside. 0:05:58.476 --> 0:06:01.196 I mean you could just or I could just feel 0:06:01.196 --> 0:06:02.116 it immediately. 0:06:02.596 --> 0:06:04.196 And the joke is I always say I had to 0:06:04.236 --> 0:06:05.956 marry him to get my friend Pam back. 0:06:07.356 --> 0:06:11.876 And Roerbucker, creator of the Farming game. First thing George 0:06:11.876 --> 0:06:14.956 told me the story of that game is a love story. 0:06:15.756 --> 0:06:18.156 Ann went George a frying pan, he made his blt, 0:06:18.676 --> 0:06:20.996 and then later that night he went back over to 0:06:20.996 --> 0:06:21.716 Anne's apartment. 0:06:22.596 --> 0:06:28.236 So George came over and it was my roommate and 0:06:28.276 --> 0:06:32.596 I and George proceeded to get really high and tell 0:06:32.676 --> 0:06:35.076 the entire movie of King Kong. 0:06:35.076 --> 0:06:37.436 How it was made, and you know, just all of 0:06:37.476 --> 0:06:41.476 the nuances of where it fit in society. 0:06:41.956 --> 0:06:44.996 And I was like, oh my god, this guy is nuts. 0:06:46.476 --> 0:06:48.716 I mean he literally told the entire movie. If you 0:06:48.756 --> 0:06:50.316 ask him a story, he has to go back to 0:06:50.356 --> 0:06:53.316 the very beginning, until every detail from the very beginning. 0:06:53.796 --> 0:06:57.396 Well, you know, it's a strange it's a strange topic 0:06:57.476 --> 0:07:00.756 to spend the evening talking about with the woman that 0:07:00.796 --> 0:07:03.636 you're gonna ask to marry you. What a week and 0:07:03.676 --> 0:07:08.716 a half, but it must have worked. 0:07:10.156 --> 0:07:13.676 That's Wednesday. Thursday, George walks in to class and writes 0:07:13.676 --> 0:07:15.716 her a poem. Friday, they get on a plane to 0:07:15.756 --> 0:07:18.876 Seattle to meet Anne's parents. Saturday, George gets in a 0:07:18.876 --> 0:07:22.356 long argument with her dad, a businessman and veteran, about Vietnam. 0:07:22.876 --> 0:07:25.596 A week later, George and Ann decide to get engaged. 0:07:26.116 --> 0:07:28.436 This is where I want to be, this is who 0:07:28.476 --> 0:07:31.476 I want to be with. It was instantaneous. 0:07:31.876 --> 0:07:35.076 It was just a knowing that he's my partner, he 0:07:35.116 --> 0:07:38.476 should be my partner, and we should do life together. 0:07:39.676 --> 0:07:42.116 Just before Christmas, the square that kicks off play on 0:07:42.156 --> 0:07:45.036 the game board. They tell Anne's parents they're getting married. 0:07:45.756 --> 0:07:50.196 They were not overly excited about George. 0:07:50.236 --> 0:07:52.236 Her parents were horrified. 0:07:52.436 --> 0:07:55.196 But George and Ann won't change their minds. Sometimes you 0:07:55.356 --> 0:07:58.956 just know. The weeks passed by in a haze. Lucky Roles, 0:07:58.996 --> 0:08:03.476 only sixes classes missed, exams, taken papers, and poems written. 0:08:03.596 --> 0:08:06.756 Ringing round the board till it's June, George graduates and 0:08:06.796 --> 0:08:10.556 he and Anne get married. It's theme of nineteen seventy. 0:08:12.916 --> 0:08:15.156 They decided to take a trip around the country just 0:08:15.156 --> 0:08:17.676 to see where and who they wanted to be. George 0:08:17.716 --> 0:08:20.196 comes from a family of doctors and academics and always 0:08:20.196 --> 0:08:23.876 figured he'd be a professor, but plans change, and had 0:08:23.916 --> 0:08:25.756 been working as a cleaner, and they had saved up 0:08:25.796 --> 0:08:29.476 one thousand dollars. They loaded up George's purple Dodge pickup 0:08:29.476 --> 0:08:33.236 truck and set off. They drove through thirty seven states 0:08:33.316 --> 0:08:36.196 over the course of ten months. As they wandered, they 0:08:36.196 --> 0:08:39.156 got fascinated by a new movement of going back to 0:08:39.196 --> 0:08:39.636 the land. 0:08:40.636 --> 0:08:45.356 We had gotten interested in the dream to the degree 0:08:45.396 --> 0:08:49.396 that we decided, well, neither one of us has ever 0:08:49.556 --> 0:08:53.916 lived in the country, maybe we want to do that. 0:08:55.276 --> 0:08:58.556 In the nineteen seventies, the environmental movement was coming of age. 0:08:59.116 --> 0:09:02.636 The First Earth Day, the founding of the EPA, the 0:09:02.676 --> 0:09:06.076 most substantial legislation to protect our natural environment, came all 0:09:06.076 --> 0:09:08.876 in a rush. People weren't just worried about what we 0:09:09.116 --> 0:09:11.796 put into our rivers in air, though they were worried 0:09:11.956 --> 0:09:13.636 about what we put into our bodies. 0:09:14.276 --> 0:09:17.276 I think that a very great, great deal of sickness 0:09:17.436 --> 0:09:19.836 is because of the refined foods. 0:09:19.836 --> 0:09:21.036 I think we're literally at the. 0:09:20.996 --> 0:09:23.836 Mercy of the people who take all the minerals and 0:09:23.876 --> 0:09:25.676 vittems out of the sugar, out of the flower. 0:09:26.436 --> 0:09:29.436 The organic food movement took off. Between that and the 0:09:29.436 --> 0:09:32.396 mounting feeling that we were killing the earth, a lot 0:09:32.436 --> 0:09:36.196 of people, especially young white college students, started looking for 0:09:36.276 --> 0:09:38.316 a way to reconnect in. 0:09:38.316 --> 0:09:42.356 Our uncertain nuclear future. The homesteading movement is once again 0:09:42.436 --> 0:09:43.516 gaining ground. 0:09:44.556 --> 0:09:47.476 They wanted to be self sufficient. They read magazines like 0:09:47.556 --> 0:09:50.796 Mother Earth News and Whole Earth catalog books like Buckminster 0:09:50.836 --> 0:09:54.236 Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth and Adele Davis's Let's 0:09:54.236 --> 0:09:57.276 Get Well. They ate vegetables raw from their gardens and 0:09:57.316 --> 0:10:00.756 cook Gypsy soup from the Moosewood Cookbook. They sang songs 0:10:00.916 --> 0:10:03.476 like Joni Mitchell's Woodstock, I'm going. 0:10:03.396 --> 0:10:08.076 To camboat on the line, I'm gonna try and get me. 0:10:13.676 --> 0:10:16.156 Americans have been going back to the land since the 0:10:16.236 --> 0:10:20.356 nineteenth century, but those early movements were typically a response 0:10:20.396 --> 0:10:24.716 to economic crises. The settlers were romantic, but also practical 0:10:25.276 --> 0:10:28.516 living off the land, subsistence farming. That was one way 0:10:28.516 --> 0:10:31.836 to be sure you wouldn't starve when the next panic came. Also, 0:10:31.996 --> 0:10:34.316 it made for a lot of good books, movies, and 0:10:34.476 --> 0:10:37.756 of course old timey radio shows like The Grand Bees, 0:10:37.836 --> 0:10:38.876 Green Acres. 0:10:38.876 --> 0:10:42.156 Martha Martha. Let's face it, the price of food wouldn't 0:10:42.196 --> 0:10:44.076 be any problem to us if we'd done what I 0:10:44.116 --> 0:10:46.396 wanted to do five years ago and bought a farm. 0:10:47.116 --> 0:10:49.996 But the nineteen seventies back to the Land movement was different. 0:10:50.556 --> 0:10:52.876 It wasn't a response to an economic crisis like the 0:10:52.876 --> 0:10:56.276 Great Depression. It was the expression of an ideal. The 0:10:56.316 --> 0:10:58.956 back to the landers wanted to make things and live 0:10:59.036 --> 0:11:02.796 in sustainable communities. Some people just wanted to live in nature. 0:11:02.916 --> 0:11:05.916 But George and Anne wanted to farm, and all of 0:11:05.916 --> 0:11:10.356 a sudden an opportunity fell into their laps. A friend 0:11:10.396 --> 0:11:13.636 of Anne's parents bought a duck hunting club in Washington State. 0:11:14.116 --> 0:11:16.836 They needed a caretaker, the club, not the ducks. 0:11:17.196 --> 0:11:20.236 Basically, it was four rooms, a bathroom, a bedroom, a 0:11:20.236 --> 0:11:22.996 living room in the kitchen opened the door the place. 0:11:23.356 --> 0:11:27.556 It was full of dead bugs and mosquitoes. 0:11:27.916 --> 0:11:30.716 The house and the duck club was a shithole. 0:11:30.316 --> 0:11:32.356 And it was hot, and it was miserable. 0:11:32.676 --> 0:11:35.476 There's really no other way to describe it. 0:11:36.356 --> 0:11:37.436 What the hell, We'll take it. 0:11:37.876 --> 0:11:40.116 The club was in a town called Toppin'ish in the 0:11:40.156 --> 0:11:43.476 Yakima Valley. The Yakima is some of the most fertile 0:11:43.516 --> 0:11:51.356 farmland in the United States. It can grow asparagus, apples, hay, corn, wheat, barley, mint, grapes, peaches, pears, 0:11:51.436 --> 0:11:54.236 and cherries. The kind of land it takes eons to 0:11:54.276 --> 0:11:57.196 make warm by day and cool in the evening with 0:11:57.276 --> 0:12:01.636 plentiful sunshine. An American Eden, George and Anne started a 0:12:01.636 --> 0:12:04.076 garden off the shack near the creek and got jobs 0:12:04.076 --> 0:12:06.676 in town. George is a teacher and is a bank 0:12:06.716 --> 0:12:09.956 teller on the weekends. George helped out to cattle ranch 0:12:10.076 --> 0:12:13.196 and learned about taking care of livestock and riding horses. 0:12:13.636 --> 0:12:17.676 There was something that struck a cord inside me that said, 0:12:17.916 --> 0:12:21.516 this makes sense. Well, it's like you eat something new 0:12:21.556 --> 0:12:25.156 and it just oh, that was really good. 0:12:25.876 --> 0:12:27.876 He left his teaching job to work more with the 0:12:27.916 --> 0:12:30.556 farmers in the valley, learning all he could about farming, 0:12:31.316 --> 0:12:33.916 and stayed on at the bank. They got cattle and 0:12:34.076 --> 0:12:35.396 ate the food they grew from their garden. 0:12:36.836 --> 0:12:39.956 We not only like it, but we're doing well at it. 0:12:40.596 --> 0:12:42.916 I think this is how we want to live. 0:12:43.276 --> 0:12:46.156 I came home one day from work and George said, 0:12:46.916 --> 0:12:48.556 I found a farm. 0:12:49.116 --> 0:12:51.676 It was twenty seven acres in the Yakima Valley on 0:12:51.836 --> 0:12:54.596 sale from an improbably named widow. 0:12:55.076 --> 0:12:56.836 Her name was Leifa Fields. 0:12:58.596 --> 0:13:01.716 They bought Leifa's place, and over the years their farm 0:13:01.756 --> 0:13:05.196 did so well. They got bigger and expanded. They had 0:13:05.236 --> 0:13:08.516 walnut trees and apricots in their garden, mint and alfalfa 0:13:08.556 --> 0:13:11.716 in the field. Their conquered grapes went to Welch's Juice 0:13:11.876 --> 0:13:14.996 and their sweet corn to del Monte's. They worked eighteen 0:13:15.036 --> 0:13:18.036 hours a day, seven days a week at the farm, 0:13:18.076 --> 0:13:21.116 at the bank, at the feed lot. They were rediscovering 0:13:21.116 --> 0:13:22.916 a whole way of life that was new for them 0:13:22.996 --> 0:13:25.276 but old hat to a lot of their neighbors, and 0:13:25.356 --> 0:13:28.116 the community helped them find their way. They had their 0:13:28.116 --> 0:13:31.516 first child, a baby boy named Blake, and they were happy. 0:13:32.076 --> 0:13:36.196 And basically since we left the Duck Club, we had 0:13:36.236 --> 0:13:38.956 been on a roll where things were getting better and 0:13:39.036 --> 0:13:40.196 better and better. 0:13:41.676 --> 0:13:44.756 The early nineteen seventies, those back to the Land years 0:13:45.076 --> 0:13:47.116 were amazing for American farmers. 0:13:47.396 --> 0:13:51.196 I didn't know any farmer who had gone broke. Gone 0:13:51.196 --> 0:13:53.236 broke is back in the dust bowl era. 0:13:54.036 --> 0:13:57.516 That stretch of farming prosperity. It happened under one man, 0:13:57.556 --> 0:14:03.956 in particular, Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Rusty Butts, Indiana born, 0:14:04.436 --> 0:14:07.676 raised on a farm in the nineteen tens. Here's Butts. 0:14:08.156 --> 0:14:10.036 I don't want to go back to good old days. 0:14:10.396 --> 0:14:11.756 I only want to go forward. 0:14:12.356 --> 0:14:15.436 Whether Butts was really taking the country forward or backwards 0:14:15.716 --> 0:14:17.836 was something people would come to argue about. He was 0:14:17.876 --> 0:14:21.356 a friend to big agribusiness, also to Republicans. He kept 0:14:21.396 --> 0:14:24.396 a wood carving of two elephants having sex in his office. 0:14:24.556 --> 0:14:27.996 Why because he said he was trying to make Republican 0:14:28.076 --> 0:14:31.196 voters multiply, and he had a terrible sense of humor. 0:14:31.916 --> 0:14:35.356 In the post war decades, increasing farm productivity had already 0:14:35.436 --> 0:14:38.596 driven down the number of farms and increased their average size. 0:14:38.916 --> 0:14:41.956 Now Butts wanted to take the trend even further. He 0:14:42.036 --> 0:14:46.036 wanted to supersize American agriculture, and he got the chance 0:14:46.236 --> 0:14:49.076 in the early nineteen seventies, just as George and Anne 0:14:49.116 --> 0:14:52.396 were buying their first farms. The Soviet Union had just 0:14:52.436 --> 0:14:54.756 gone through a patch of terrible weather. If they were 0:14:54.756 --> 0:14:57.636 going to eat, they needed to import crops. The Soviets 0:14:57.716 --> 0:15:00.716 bought up a quarter of the American harvest, billions of 0:15:00.756 --> 0:15:05.276 dollars in US grain and soybeans. Wheat prices rose enormously, 0:15:05.796 --> 0:15:08.836 farm income hidden all time high. Butts had found a 0:15:08.876 --> 0:15:12.156 glos mobile market for American crops. He told farmers to 0:15:12.236 --> 0:15:15.876 get big or get out. Agribusinesses thrilled to the spike 0:15:15.916 --> 0:15:19.956 in demand for their new herbicides, machines and fertilizers. Bigger, 0:15:20.076 --> 0:15:22.556 modernized farms meant bigger sales. 0:15:23.276 --> 0:15:26.356 Our challenge is not to go back to more innffacient ways. 0:15:26.716 --> 0:15:29.716 Our challenge is not to put more people back on 0:15:29.756 --> 0:15:32.276 the land. Our challenge is to adapt to the change 0:15:32.316 --> 0:15:34.196 in situation which we find ourselves. 0:15:38.836 --> 0:15:41.876 Butts's vision was part of the reason farming knowledge began 0:15:41.956 --> 0:15:45.276 to ebb away. The emphasis on efficiency of growing as 0:15:45.356 --> 0:15:48.236 much as you possibly could came at the cost of older, 0:15:48.556 --> 0:15:53.396 more sustainable practices like crop rotation and plant diversity. Instead 0:15:53.436 --> 0:15:56.636 of small amounts of several crops, you got thousands of 0:15:56.676 --> 0:16:01.836 acres of just soybeans. Another farm all corn. Butts's vision 0:16:02.116 --> 0:16:04.796 was not exactly the back to the land dream, but 0:16:04.996 --> 0:16:07.876 George and Ann still benefited. A lot of farmers did. 0:16:08.036 --> 0:16:12.396 At least at first, the value of farmland skyrocketed. Farmers 0:16:12.396 --> 0:16:15.556 were living well, The family farm was becoming more like 0:16:15.556 --> 0:16:18.716 a factory, and the family farmer took out loan after 0:16:18.796 --> 0:16:22.476 loan on easy credit to expand, which is why when 0:16:22.556 --> 0:16:26.836 George saw a thousand acre ranch for sale, he thought, why. 0:16:26.636 --> 0:16:32.036 Not fourteen miles out of town, four miles from the 0:16:32.076 --> 0:16:36.036 next door in Ahror and you can see the Milky Way, 0:16:36.436 --> 0:16:39.756 and it just felt just absolutely right. 0:16:39.836 --> 0:16:43.396 And we said, this is where we want to raise 0:16:43.396 --> 0:16:43.916 our kids. 0:16:44.796 --> 0:16:49.036 The thousand acre ranch was surrounded by canyons ninety five 0:16:49.156 --> 0:16:52.116 miles away from their old farm, across the Sadus Pass, 0:16:52.836 --> 0:16:55.716 fringed by timber, off the Cascades Mountains, at the breaks 0:16:55.716 --> 0:16:58.436 of the clickatat river where the rocky land pulls away 0:16:58.436 --> 0:17:02.356 from the water. They called it the Break's Ranch. The 0:17:02.476 --> 0:17:05.516 day they saw it, they made an offer. The next 0:17:05.596 --> 0:17:06.916 day they got a call. 0:17:07.596 --> 0:17:08.756 So the house burned down. 0:17:09.316 --> 0:17:14.476 It is one hundred percent gone electrical fire. Consider that 0:17:14.556 --> 0:17:17.476 this place is ten times the farm. George and Ann 0:17:17.556 --> 0:17:20.956 have ever worked. Consider that the farmer's selling it or 0:17:21.036 --> 0:17:24.876 doing so because they've fallen on hard times, and consider 0:17:25.196 --> 0:17:28.236 that the house is now burned down. This I think 0:17:28.516 --> 0:17:30.916 was a sign from the universe about what was to come. 0:17:31.596 --> 0:17:33.796 George and Ann had the chance to fold up the 0:17:33.796 --> 0:17:37.116 board and walk away, but that's no way to play 0:17:37.116 --> 0:17:37.476 a game. 0:17:37.876 --> 0:17:41.596 And we've been rolling fives and sixes since today. We 0:17:41.756 --> 0:17:45.396 got off the bus. I said, Uh, well, hell, let's 0:17:46.036 --> 0:17:48.996 let's go for the place and we'll build a house. 0:17:49.916 --> 0:17:52.876 They negotiated the price down and bought the land and 0:17:52.916 --> 0:17:55.556 also fifty head of cattle. A neighbor lent them a 0:17:55.596 --> 0:17:58.156 trailer to live in, and George started to solve the 0:17:58.156 --> 0:18:00.356 whole house situation in a very George way. 0:18:00.596 --> 0:18:03.836 Well, it's like the fringe jacket, you know. And there 0:18:03.916 --> 0:18:07.836 was a contractor in Yakima who was actually building two 0:18:08.036 --> 0:18:10.316 geodesic dome at the top. 0:18:11.036 --> 0:18:14.636 For the uninitiated. A geodesic dome is a structure popular 0:18:14.676 --> 0:18:18.076 in the sixties counterculture, involving lots of triangles fit together 0:18:18.436 --> 0:18:19.596 in the shape of a dome. 0:18:20.116 --> 0:18:22.956 And you can put the walls in tior anywhere you 0:18:22.996 --> 0:18:25.676 want them because they're not holding up the roof. The 0:18:25.756 --> 0:18:27.156 roof is holding up the roof. 0:18:28.236 --> 0:18:31.516 George was a dreamer. He believed everything could be done, 0:18:31.796 --> 0:18:35.156 and he was right. He was right most of the time. 0:18:36.196 --> 0:18:40.036 They bought the dome Easter weekend of nineteen seventy six, 0:18:40.316 --> 0:18:42.916 with their one year old looking on. George and Anne 0:18:42.996 --> 0:18:46.476 put up the forty five foot structure triangle by triangle. 0:18:46.556 --> 0:18:49.676 With a bunch of friends. They moved into the basement, 0:18:50.156 --> 0:18:53.396 plywood ceiling, concrete floors, with a drain in the middle, 0:18:53.756 --> 0:18:57.036 a hose to draw water from the spring, and absolutely 0:18:57.596 --> 0:18:58.116 no heat. 0:18:58.756 --> 0:19:02.196 You talk about back to the land, we're. 0:19:01.996 --> 0:19:06.796 Back only six years earlier. They'd never farmed in their lives. 0:19:07.316 --> 0:19:10.756 Now they own one thousand acres miles from the nearest person, 0:19:11.036 --> 0:19:17.476 surrounded by mountains. Spiritually, geographically, financially, they were way out there. 0:19:23.756 --> 0:19:26.196 The trouble with games of chance is when they go 0:19:26.356 --> 0:19:29.556 your way. You think it's all about you. You're lucky, 0:19:29.716 --> 0:19:31.996 or you're special, you've got the hot hand or the 0:19:32.036 --> 0:19:34.956 midas touch. But if you roll the dice often enough, 0:19:35.356 --> 0:19:38.876 your average moves towards the middle, and if you've started high, 0:19:39.276 --> 0:19:40.596 you're gonna get laid low. 0:19:42.036 --> 0:19:46.196 Well, all of a sudden, a place that normally gets 0:19:46.316 --> 0:19:50.876 twenty five to thirty inches of rain. We got four 0:19:50.916 --> 0:19:51.716 inches of rain. 0:19:52.716 --> 0:19:55.676 There wasn't enough hay to feed the cows, and instead 0:19:55.676 --> 0:19:58.796 of thirty five bushels of wheat per acre, they made ten. 0:19:59.716 --> 0:20:02.876 It was nineteen seventy seven. Something like this was happening 0:20:02.876 --> 0:20:07.316 to farmers across America. Prices were down, costamerizing with inflation, 0:20:07.876 --> 0:20:10.276 and farmers were having to take on more and more 0:20:10.356 --> 0:20:11.636 debt just to survive. 0:20:12.716 --> 0:20:16.116 And the pitomized stomach, the bottom is falling out. 0:20:17.636 --> 0:20:20.396 They had their second child, a boy named David. 0:20:20.636 --> 0:20:25.516 And so year seventy nine kicks in, we get two 0:20:25.556 --> 0:20:27.076 and a half inches of rain. 0:20:28.036 --> 0:20:33.516 Disaster, The crop failed, the farm was failing, and took 0:20:33.516 --> 0:20:36.316 a job far out from the ranch, and things were 0:20:36.316 --> 0:20:39.596 going badly for everyone. George could sense it in the 0:20:39.636 --> 0:20:41.316 local store at the feed lot. 0:20:42.276 --> 0:20:46.196 About the middle of May, and she gets out of 0:20:46.196 --> 0:20:50.316 the car and I've just come in for dinner, and 0:20:50.756 --> 0:20:55.076 she lets the kids loose in their room and she 0:20:55.516 --> 0:20:59.956 comes up to me and she says, honey, I'm pregnant again. 0:21:02.196 --> 0:21:06.356 We both knew that it was a slim chance. We 0:21:06.356 --> 0:21:09.876 were staying that this we were gonna have to mith 0:21:09.916 --> 0:21:12.836 the experiment failed and we were going to have to 0:21:12.876 --> 0:21:13.436 give it up. 0:21:14.556 --> 0:21:17.556 Anne and George owed more in interest on their debts 0:21:17.596 --> 0:21:20.236 than they could make in a year. They were living 0:21:20.316 --> 0:21:23.076 in an unfinished house with two kids and a third 0:21:23.116 --> 0:21:26.396 on the way. The spring turned to summer and it 0:21:26.436 --> 0:21:29.556 was time to cut the hay. George bailed by moonlight 0:21:29.636 --> 0:21:31.556 when the dew came up and the dried out crop 0:21:31.636 --> 0:21:35.956 had a chance of sticking together. On July seventh, nineteen 0:21:35.996 --> 0:21:40.276 seventy nine, he got up at three am and stepped outside. 0:21:40.316 --> 0:21:43.956 There's no other lights other than starlight above and the 0:21:44.036 --> 0:21:50.916 lights of my tractor. And I'm as a lone as 0:21:50.956 --> 0:21:58.036 a man can be, crushing pressures, no way out kind 0:21:58.076 --> 0:22:04.116 of pressures. I am at fault for this disaster. What 0:22:05.196 --> 0:22:12.156 can I do? And for some strange reason, I have 0:22:12.236 --> 0:22:17.396 no idea how or why this blanked into my head. 0:22:18.636 --> 0:22:21.556 This problem I'm in would make the hell of a 0:22:21.676 --> 0:22:23.276 subject for a board game. 0:22:24.636 --> 0:22:32.076 We'll be right back. It's nineteen seventy nine. Family farms 0:22:32.076 --> 0:22:35.876 across America are in trouble. One farmer in particular is 0:22:35.916 --> 0:22:37.036 taking it pretty hard. 0:22:37.476 --> 0:22:40.236 Crop prices are just total shit. 0:22:40.996 --> 0:22:45.916 George Robrocker, farmer in trouble crushing debt, failing farm baby 0:22:45.956 --> 0:22:48.396 on the way. It's three am and he's out in 0:22:48.436 --> 0:22:52.716 the field, not asleep, but still dreaming about a board game. 0:22:54.076 --> 0:22:58.196 I finally get done, baileyen Hey, eat breakfast, go down 0:22:58.236 --> 0:23:00.836 in the basement, get a scrap of sheet rock and 0:23:00.956 --> 0:23:06.716 a framing square, and drawn myself a game board picture. 0:23:06.756 --> 0:23:10.196 George alone in the basement of his geodesic dome, surrounded 0:23:10.236 --> 0:23:13.796 by thousands of acres of failing farmland, scratching out a 0:23:13.836 --> 0:23:16.916 board game on a loose piece of sheet rock. Here's 0:23:16.956 --> 0:23:20.956