THE GREATEST Generation is getting up there in years. George Laur is in his 80s, but when he was 23 years old, he was the captain of a 12 man crew and flying his B-24 bomber deep into enemy territory. He led that crew on 35 bombing missions in World War II, and still has photos of his plane and crew.

Among the photos George Laur has of those days are shots of the airplane with damage from catching flak while making its bombing missions, with huge chunks of the airplane’s skin gone. There is also the photo taken just before their 35th and final mission, and the one taken just after they returned from that last bombing mission. You can imagine the difference in those young men’s faces.

GEORGE IS a farmer in Missouri (say Miz-ur-ah), living in a home his father’s family built in 1901. It looks exactly like the wonderful house in the Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams. His family has been farming that land continuously for over 100 years, which means they’re very smart farmers.

One of George’s favorite jokes is about farming. The farmer went on a TV show and won a million dollars. They asked him what he was going to do with the money. He replied “well, I guess I’ll just go on farming until it’s all gone!”

George will grin and tell you that for farmers, it’s always raining too much, or too little. And if it’s just right, everyone has a bumper crop and that drives the prices down! His good sense of humor has kept him grounded and gracious his eight plus decades on this earth.

George is my former father-in-law, so I stayed with him at his home many times, and we have had many wonderful discussions. One winter when it was bitterly cold in northwestern Missouri, he came home from going to town and said “Jim, it was so cold in Tarkio today that I saw a lawyer walking down the street with his hands in his OWN pockets!” You can’t buy that kind of humor.

HIS SON DAVID is in the farming business with him. David adds “I guess y’all heard about the farmer whose wife ran off with the tractor salesman?” We reply “no.” David responds “yeah, he got a John Deere letter.”

My ex, Linda, recently returned from the family farm in Missouri visiting George, David and all the Laurs in northwest Missouri, and she brought me some of George’s special white sweet corn and tomatoes, which he grew in his personal garden. George’s sweet corn is the best corn in the world. It’s so good I had to share it with friends and relatives, who all agreed it’s the best corn they’ve ever tasted. Those big, fat vine-ripened tomatoes were delicious. I have to admit, my son and I didn’t share them. We ate them all in two days.

George Laur, youthful hero, good neighbor, and gentleman farmer, I salute you.

© 2008, Pappy Moore, All Rights Reserved.

Pappy Moore is a humorist, a native son of East Texas who still makes the piney woods his home. oaktreefm58@hotmail.com