To buy that land, it had a house, and it had a farm, had cleared fields,
and a pond. It was a nice little farm to start with. He wanted $60,000
for it. It was over fifteen years ago. It was a good deal, it was a low
price. It was a good price I could afford. I had a job, I was working as
a community organizer, not making great dollars, but I had a steady job.
I could make a case for being able to pay that loan back. Of course I
was going to try to pay it back with farming eventually. So, the
district director overturned the decision. I never found out exactly
why. He changed his mind, he changed the
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organization's mind, changed their direction, and said now I was
eligible for the loan. But that was only one step. That was only to
determine my eligibility. Once that was established, then the county
director said to me, "That only means you're eligible, that doesn't mean
I'm going to give you the loan." So I said, "What I need to do to get
the loan." He said, "I have to be convinced that you're going to be able
to pay this back. I can't just be giving out loans and not getting any
money back. I represent the federal government, you know, I can't be
just throwing money away." So, okay, well, "I'm eligible. Here's my farm
plan, I'll walk through the farm with you, I'll show you what I'm going
to do." I never did know—I thought maybe because I worked for
Rural Advancement Fund and we were already causing problems and having
some victories, including having congressional hearings in various
districts, congresspeople coming and having a hearing to find out about
Farmers Home Administration policies and how they were working on the
local level, which was making democracy work, that's what we were doing.
I think it could have been that that caused them to change their minds.
And it also could have been that this guy just had a little bit of a
heart in there somewhere. He wasn't a bad guy. His name was Kenny
something, I can't remember. He was just a nice fella, but he wasn't
about to rock the boat. He wasn't about to try to get himself in trouble
in order to help me. He had to still go by the book. As long as he could
see that what I was doing could be supported by his book, so to speak,
he was willing to go along, and he did.
But meanwhile, this doctor had to wait about six months for all this to
happen before I ever got a check. How many people would be willing to do
that? It was amazing, but it all worked. He said, "I'd given up on that
loan," when I finally got the check and was able to write him a check.
"I was about to give up on that, and if you hadn't bought that farm, I
was going to turn it into a trailer park." Mobile homes, that's what he
decided he was going to do.
So in 1984, I started the farm. Actually, before I even got the loan, I
had heard it was approved, before the money came, I started working. I
started clearing brush and burning. I hired another guy, actually, and
then I rented the place out for just a few months to a guy who had a lot
of cattle. And those cattle got in there and cleared a lot of bushes,
they ate a lot of grass. This was while I still lived in town, I lived
in Pittsboro. This farm was two and a half miles south of the Pittsboro
courthouse. Do you know where the courthouse is? Have you been down
there? You go two and a half miles south on 15/501, down that way,
that's where it was. I named it Whippoorwill Farm. Whippoorwill is a
kind of bird that sings at night. I heard it singing one night while I
was clearing that brush, I heard the whippoorwill singing. So I said,
"That reminds me of where I came from, back in the mountains of
Virginia. I'll name it Whippoorwill Farm."