Remembering Jerry Litton

A strange thing has happened to me lately. I have fallen in love with my own writings. Isn’t that weird? I have been practicing everyday for 24 years, so I must have improved, perhaps more than I thought. Back in high school I didn’t like English class, and I got my worst grades there. My only good grades were in Vocational Agriculture. This makes me think of Jerry Litton.
Litton was a farmer. When he was running for Congress I heard him say that he wasn’t in it for the money; he claimed that with a little extra effort he could make more money as a farmer than as a congressman. With poor farmers all around me, I wondered how anyone could make a lot of money farming. I heard my businessman uncle, Uncle Ned; say that, “Farming is no way to make a lot of money. It is more of a way of life.” I know the answer to that now. Education is the key to success in any calling. The Littons raised purebred Charolais cattle. Jerry had a B.S. from the University of Missouri. They published a magazine. I saw one of those magazines once; Jerry had written almost every article in it. I have no doubt now that Jerry could have earned a lot of money running that farm. He served in Congress, and then got the Democratic nomination for the Senate. Unfortunately, as he and his family were flying off to accept the nomination, their airplane crashed and they were all killed. If he had lived he probably would have served in the Senate; and who knows? he might have been a U.S. President.