It was Feb. 3, 2013. The year that "The Harbaugh Bowl" took center stage. The year that a power outage suspended play for over 30 minutes. The year the Ravens beat the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII. That was also the year that Dodge debuted their powerful So God Made a Farmer to an estimated 108 million viewers.
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For two minutes, we sat and listened to a poignant speech about hard-working American farmers across the generations.
The commercial features a powerful narration by legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey. "So God Made a Farmer" was the name of a speech Harvey gave at a 1978 Future Farmers of America Convention. The speech was originally published in Harvey's syndicated column in 1986; however, it contained some phrases Harvey first wrote in an article for the Gadsden Times in 1975.
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The message of the speech still rings true still today. It's one that captivated the nation with passion, value and truth. Football, for those two minutes sat quietly on the sidelines.
Here is the full text of the speech:
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a farmer.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon -- and mean it." So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain'n from 'tractor back,' put in another seventy-two hours." So God made a farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five-mile drive to church.
"Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life 'doing what dad does.'" So God made a farmer.
