I FOUND OUT SOMETHING COOL ABOUT SOMETHING HANGING ON YOUR GRANDPARENTS’ WALL

Growing up in rural Minnesota I was no stranger to living in and going to friends’ houses that had rural art on the wall. Art that reflects where we live and many people’s roots. Whether it be paintings of deer or livestock, or prints with Holly Hobby or Norman Rockwell scenes we all felt the comfort of seeing them. We all know that familiar painting of the old man praying over his meal and who had it in their house. But there was one photograph that many people had hanging either on their walls as a portrait or calendar picture, or seated on their desk in their office at the feed co-op, tack store, or the bank. You know it as soon as you see it and you never cease to be amazed at how perfectly a picture of two toddlers is captioned: “You Been Farming Long?” It’s perfect because they are standing in poses that you’ve seen a hundred times as two farmers talk about their trade in any manner. Well, if you grew up in a rural community anywhere in the United States that is. Their clothing, their facial expressions, the fact that their hands are in their pockets, and even their postures are perfectly fitting to the picture. It was maybe the first instance of “when you know, you know” or “tell me you’re a farmer without telling me you’re a farmer” in history. Could it even be the first recorded meme? Maybe. While it was pretty centralized to a certain demographic and regions you really could not escape it. Why did I bring this up? You can imagine my joy this weekend when I was scrolling through Twitter and came across the fact that both of these now grown boys are on the app! Matthew Jacobs goes by @RedCapFarmer and his brother, Chris goes by @bluecapfarmer and they both live out in California. They’ve only been active for the last year or so, but I thought how cool and just plain random it was to find them. So if you’ve ever seen that picture at your grandparents’ house or a friend’s after it has been handed down from one generation to the next and wondered, “Where are they now? Are they still farmers? Were they ever REALLY farmers?” you can now put those questions to bed with the answer of “yes” to them all. You also have to give respect to your grandparents because their meme game was strong before the internet ever existed.