There are people upon whose shoulders the rest of our culture sits. They are not people who seek out thanks and they are even more rarely celebrated on screens. And yet when we meet people like Calvin, many of us recognize we have met a person who keeps the world as we know it- firmly in place.
Calvin’s family has been farming the land in Hampshire County, West Virginia since before the Revolutionary War of the 1770s. And remarkably, every single generation of his family has served in the U.S. military since that time. So when our world was shaken on 9.11.01 Calvin, 18 years old, joined the Marine Corps and put his life on the line. Combat. Near death. So that we could live in our comfortable homes, watch our funny movies, share a meal out with friends. Thanks Calvin. And when he returned home after multiple deployments he decided to serve his community as his family has for centuries, by growing food and selling it directly to his neighbors and the community at large. Thanks again.
Over the years, have had the privilege to work with many military veterans, many of them farmers as well. Make a point to ask rarely about that past. It will come to the surface whenever it feels right for them, or not at all.
Met Calvin at a fateful conference of the Farmer Veteran Coalition about 10 years ago and he became one of the stars of Leave It Better’s last documentary Farmers for America. Travelled to his farm probably a dozen times over a three or four year period, in every season and in most weathers. He graciously welcomed me into his home as a guest, and even got the chance to camp out on the surprisingly red clay of his land and look up at the inifinite. It’s a magical place, a place where everything feels like it fits. After four centuries of the same people/family farming the same land, it makes sense.
Am very proud of the work our team did to make Farmers for America, however, in the process of making a film of national scope about our agriculture, an incredible amount of important, even vital footage got left out of the final cut of the film. For instance, there was a moment during one of my first visits to the farm, when Calvin shared a story on camera about how he had almost made a disastrous decision at a routine highway construction stop. While he was serving overseas, whenever his unit approached a road block, this usually meant that something serious was about to happen. So years later, back home in West Virginia, he was approaching a construction stop. Something triggered inside him, and he did not want to stop. He almost floored the accelerator and blew threw the intersection. Eventually, after taking a deep breath, and with support from his wife, he was able to settle down and wait for the traffic interruption to happen. That little story has stayed within for over ten years. Realize just how much our veterans have given the rest of us. And those are the ones still here. For various reasons, this story was not a good fit for Farmers for America- and we left it out to allow for a smoother flow in the larger storytelling of Calvin’s remarkable farm Bigg Riggs. It stung to leave it out though.
Last summer, we made the decision to create a new anthology film and multimedia project, Farming - a four-part film (for now) with longform portraits of farmers inspired by Studs Terkel’s book Working. One of the great joys of this film has been the creative license to go back and revisit people we’ve filmed with, and really let the footage we filmed breathe, and getting to share these extended interviews with people like Calvin.
Enjoy the free scene of Calvin above.
If you currently subscribe to a monopolist like Disney, Apple, Amazon or Netflix, please consider supporting our totally independent production company Leave It Better. It means the world and allows us to continue producing stories about people like Calvin who are literally keeping us safe and fed.
best thoughts,
Graham
p.s. We initially shared this video in October of last year, however it was accidentally deleted when we tried importing it to Substack. We’ve gotten a new members to our community since then and wanted to repost it for them and for those who may have missed it the first time around. Also, this essay is new.
p.p.s. Happy Easter :) and sending lots of love out to my mom who is getting better fast. Please send positive healing prayers and vibes.
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