Water Parks and Silos

Yesterday, I was at the water park.  I am roped into going every year to take my kids, I don't particularly enjoy it.  As I have grown older, I have developed a fear of being in enclosed spaces and I have never liked being in the dark.  So as you can imagine hurdling down a small, enclosed tunnel, in the dark does not in anyway sound fun to me.  So I sit frying in the sun at the wave pool.  An overcrowded, murky 0 depth entry pool.  It disgusts me and there are lots of unknown floaties floating around.  I try not to think about what is floating and what is causing the water to be so murky and I quickly cool off so I can go roast in the sun some more while I wait for my kids to be finished.  I would have preferred a spot in the shade, but all the shade spots are gone, so I am adding more unsightly "age" spots and moles to what's all ready there.  My sunscreen has proven to be ineffective.  I guess it's time to toss it.  How many years have I had that tube?  I probably don't want to know. 

So I am sitting immersed in the unnatural, man-made monstrosity that is the water park.  Surrounded by throngs of people, cement, unnaturally bright plastic tubes, and loud music that is piped all over the park.  I am pretty good at shutting out stuff and am trying to read one of my three books I brought (one never and I mean never wants to be without reading material).  Putting my book down, I gaze out of the water park and look longingly across the farm fields when I spy I silo.  You still see old falling down silos dotting the  horizon.  They were built back when farmers could still make money planing crops and raising stock.  The silos held the silage that cattle ate.  Farmers now days, can't make money raising a small herd of cattle, so the silos stand unused and falling down.  Cattle are now raised on giant industrial farms and the family farmer is struggling to make ends meet, banking it all on how well the next season of corn and soybeans will do.  So, I sit having 'fun' frying in the sun and cooling off in the murky water, thinking about how sad it is that the days of being able to make a good living off of a small farm are long gone.   There will be no more silos, no more barns, no more small family farmers quietly making a living.  Sure their are still farmers, but it's all about being big now.  More acres, more heads, until it is nothing more than an industrial machine.  We no longer build silos.  Now we have to look forward to more unnaturally bright water parks.