Little boxes...

I had a great moment the other day as Tom and I were driving through some of the western suburbs of the Twin Cities. Tom was talking about how, although it's great to see so many people prospering here in MN, it's hard to see all the family farms down there that have been turned into strip malls and housing developments. As he was talking about the houses looking so similar and being packed in right next to each other, I started singing, "Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes made of ticky tacky..." And as I sang, Tom joined in. We sang all the way through and then laughed at our impromptu duet.

It's nice to be able to share those light moments on the trips, but this also served as a poignant reminder of the terrible situation facing family farmers here in the upper midwest. It's time for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party to come back to its roots and remember the core groups of people who have made Minnesota great over the decades. It's been the family farmer and the hard-working union members who have built this state up, and sometimes it feels like that part of our state is getting left behind. Big Agro-businesses don't live in their local communities and positively affect the lives of those around them, but our small family farmers do. Let's remember to take care of them after everything that they've done for Minnesota.

Little boxes...