09/23/2025 Rod Tomczak, DPM, MD, EdD
A Short Allegory - Chapter 1
There is a town in Iowa called Agronomy’s Best, or
AB for short. It’s called that because the soil in
AB is the richest in Iowa, if not the whole USA
based on per acre production and value of the
crop. Besides that, during the winter of 1954, the
farmers were at the feed store sitting around the
three pot-bellied stoves dropping peanuts in their
soft drinks and complaining about government
oversight, the cost of farm equipment, seeds,
fertilizer and low reimbursement for soy beans and
corn.
The group came up with an investment idea. The
town was going to purchase all the TV shows they
had become fond of. They obtained the Rights to
the I Love Lucy Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and
Harriet, a number of soap operas, a show called
The 20th Century, Leave it to Beaver ,and the
like, and all in perpetuity. The town of AB sold
rights to some other small towns to show the
programs on a limited basis, and made a lot of
money. Well the town built a library, a museum, a
concert center, an athletic facility with a pool
for the town, subsidized the newspaper called the
AB News by advertising their crops, and all was
good.
The government subsidies came to Iowa and farmers
were paid not to grow corn and soy beans. Some
called it an environmental program and other
called it economic maintenance to keep the cost of
crops higher. But it didn’t always result in
higher prices. Corn and beans sometimes filled the
silos, the tallest building in AB for months. Some
farmers, however, discovered they could say they
were letting 40 or 80 of their 1000 acres of land
rest each year, but plant it besides collecting a
government check.
There were letters to the editor of the AB News
but the government did not act. The farmers that
planted all their fields felt justified because
farming was hard work and they weren’t getting all
they thought they deserved. After all, just like
Charlie Brown, they just wanted their fair share.
But some wanted more than their fair share. The
farmers didn’t know what to do with the extra
money since farming was all they really knew. One
farmer decided to develop, market and sell bag
balm for human use. He tied in with a local
pharmacist to compound udder cream with aloe and
sell it for 10 times it’s cost for rough skin on
the feet.
Another developed an attachment for a combine that
helped prevent amputations from “kicking the
combine” when corn husks got stuck during
harvesting. Another developed cushions to ease the
discomfort of long hours in the tractor seat.
Another had a computer program developed to keep
track of everything on the farm. One invented an
easier way to “pick rocks” before planting in the
spring.
These entrepreneurs made a lot more money. They
formed the AB Fine Arts Commission (ABFAC) to
update and colorize the TV serials and contribute
to the museum, concert center, library; everything
except the newspaper. These farmers became leaders
in the community and for the most part left
farming. They hired other young farmers to work
their land. They travelled to farming states and
spoke at meetings about their balms and products
under the aegis of the successful farming
community but seldom spoke about actual farming.
They were reelected yearly to run the town and
their closed circle kept the ABFAC under its own
thumb. The other farmers didn’t seem to care.
In 2025, Spectrum approached ABFAC and offered to
sit down with them and discuss the possibility of
buying all the old television shows, but the
citizens who were also shareholders in AB, were
not informed.
No one knew what the real offer would be. Would
there be an annual income to the city? Would AB
get the oldies channel for free? It was just a sit
down to explore Spectrum’s interest, nothing more,
nothing less. Spectrum got an unequivocal “NO!”
from ABFAC. A couple members of ABFAC let the
community know what had transpired. One of the
members told the ABFAC that having spectrum
involved would be the downfall of AB.
ABFAC’s reaction was incredible. You would have
thought that Spectrum was offering the town $5.00
for the entire package or that Spectrum wanted to
buy the town, when in reality there was no
disclosure, just an offer to explore. Of course
this offer to sit down would mean that Spectrum
would like to look at the books, the transactions
and the income from the TV shows, and maybe
discover ancillary income, power, or cheating the
government about planted land that was reported as
resting. Certainly, everything was above board
with every transaction ABFAC conducted. What could
there be worth hiding and why would ABFAC want to
conceal anything? After all, ABFAC had also taken
the oath of Demeter and Ceres, the god and goddess
of agriculture and they promised to respect the
land, each other and the teachers of agronomy.
The farmers in AB sat around the pot belly stoves
at the feed store and began to question this
decision by ABFAC to unilaterally dismiss the
opportunity to have a discussion with Spectrum.
ABFAC’s chief spokesperson was also the mayor of
AB. The mayor wrote a letter to all the citizens
of AB telling them that ABFAC was working in the
best interest of AB and was merely following the
mandate on what the citizens really wanted and
since ABFAC had been elected by the citizens of
AB, and their action in telling Spectrum the
townspeople of AB were not interested in even
having a discussion was what AB wanted because the
town had elected the ABFAC. It was circular logic.
It was an example of tautological reasoning. This
letter was published in the AB News whose motto
was, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of
evil is for good men to do nothing.”- Edmund
Burke.
Suddenly, the farmers spending their days tuning
up tractors and meeting at the seed store began to
realize that they had elected the individuals to
the ABFAC because they, themselves didn’t want to
get involved in politics. They thought being a
member of ABFAC didn’t really mean anything. Sure
there was an occasional uproar over who should be
certified an exceptional farmer. They were their
compatriots who enjoyed such diversions and since
they thought these people would do no harm (prima
non nocere) and they trusted these elected
farmers, let them argue about nothing.
They had let ABFAC be, but now serious letters to
AB News began to fly. Of course, the usual
contributors wrote their letters, but farmers who
had not contributed on a regular basis also began
to question ABFAC’s actions and wondered why they
feared a sit down with Spectrum and why they
didn’t want all the farmers of AB to have a look
see at where profits from other products and ideas
advertised by the ABFAC were going.
They knew, as President Eisenhower said, “Farmers
are the only indispensable people on the face of
the earth.” The farmers of AB began to wonder if
ABFAC was trying to put them out of the
indispensable category or worse, not advocate for
the newest discoveries. They reminisced about how
far they had come since they took the risk to
invest in those old TV shows and how they needed
to at least investigate Spectrum and what they
needed to do to change ABFAC’s decision or go
around it. They knew they had to internalize
Edmund Burke’s saying and shake up those pop
bottles and become involved in meeting with
Spectrum. One of the farmers reminded the group
they were all just as learned about fertilized as
the people they had elected to ABFAC and shouldn’t
be fooled again.
Rod Tomczak,, DPM, MD, EdD, Columbus, OH
