Area Farm Types, Cow Pokes And Fugitives From The Law Feverishly Cram For Grueling National 'Farm/Ranch Entrance Exams'

In an annual ritual that has area recent high school dropouts and people with murky criminal records hitting the coffee pot and sweating bullets, budding area farm/ranch folk have been hitting the books in the hopes that an 'appropriate' test score will catapult them into a largely thankless and oftentimes degrading job as a 'farm/ranch hand' or, should their scores be in the proper 10th percentile, they might possibly qualify for the highly coveted and dubious 'Bovine Maintenance Technician' dream job title!! (although the pay, when they can actually get it, is still theoretically minimum wage - yet that enhanced job title oftentimes entitles the bearer to an actual bowl of soup during the daily 10 minute lunch break). "Well, in order to get on with one of the spreads in these parts, a man has to know what he needs to know and not know what he doesn't need to know!" said Wilber Festoon, an area farmer/rancher who is currently under investigation by the Department of Labor for multiple counts of not paying his employees for all the hours they worked. "I mean, one of the good things about being a farmer/rancher is that we can be downright lazy, but regardless of how lazy and shiftless we are as a group, some genius in the 'Hollywood Dream Factory' keeps pumping out movie after movie extolling the hard working natures of people like us in the Heartland of America! How sweet is that! Just look at Lamont, for instance! The place has been surrounded by a finite number of farm/ranch families for over 100 years, and just look at the work we managed to avoid for all that time! It takes real planning to put off basic assignments like that for decades on end!" he sighed wearily while wiping his forehead with a decades-old yet still spotless handkerchief. "Sure, we in the Lamont area are unusually gifted at doing nothing, but I am sure some of this has to apply elsewhere, doesn't it!" he beamed modestly. (although incorrectly!)

"Anyway, regardless of how much we just sit around doing as close to zip as possible, the greater society at large still thinks we are out there in the cold, 'busting our humps' for the American way or whatever. What silly sheep the American people are! How sweet is that, though?" he chuckled. "So, needless to say, what work a modern ranch does require is usually contracted out to 'farm hands" who normally lack basic math skills so they will never know when we consistently pay them less than is their due! But even this is not easy! Of course that requires the farmers/ranchers themselves, thru sheer civic duty alone, to sit on the area school boards to ensure that all the money goes to sports programs and not education so that the average 8th grader does not go getting all uppity after they drop out and go demanding a full paycheck or whatever! So, needless to say, the national "Farm/Ranch Hand" aptitude tests are given, not to select the most knowledgeable, but to weed out the smarty-pants know-it-alls and those rabble-rousers who know something about their 'so-called' rights and all of that. A good thing for us now, though, is that the 8th grade drop-out rate is so high and the average overall scores are so low across the board that we can even now save a few bucks by cutting back on the dern test! That means more money for us to spend in the gift shop on our annual farmer/rancher dream vacations to Dollywood, for crying out loud!" he gushed while making a fake lasso motion! "And while we are gone, just think of all of those 'Farm Hand' hours worked that we can avoid paying thru shameless hook or crook!! Oh, the life of a farmer/rancher is sweet, indeed!' he concluded before rushing off to watch a re-run of Gunsmoke (for the 37th time!!) while his downtrodden 'farm hand' shuffles off to grab him yet another cold beer before he gets yelled at for inattention to vital job responsibilities!!

(Editorial Note: This poorly crafted article is about the hidden American 'caste system' - and should not be taken for a literal interpretation of the Lamont area in particular. If, however, you are of Lamont farmer/rancher stock and feel anger and/or guilty outrage after reading this article, and you know who you are, then it might be prudent to beg forgiveness from the Lord, modify your predatory world view as it relates to your neighbors and turn over a new leaf, for crying out loud! Why continue with such a failed lifestyle where nothing good ever gets done (certainly at the Town level! Whoa! Judge a tree by its fruit!) and others often get damaged so you can stuff a few ill-gotten shekels (all 30 of them, ironically!) into your malodorous overalls, for Pete's sake? Sheesh! Thank you!)