Today I was thinking a lot about my aunt. You will see her in the comments as "Aunt Rose". When I think about her, I always think about Garst Seed because her family worked in that organization. The town they live in was so saturated with Garst that it was impossible to visit without noticing that the company and it's various offerings were mostly responsible for keeping food on everyone's table.
I don't remember much about Roswell Garst as I was young when he passed away but he was a fascinating man. He developed a hybrid seed corn and later went on to sell seed corn to Russia at a time when we weren't friendly with Russia. He hosted Nikita Khrushchev, then leader of Russia, at his Iowa farm and helped open communications with the Soviet Union. That's pretty cool for a guy who was really just a smart and opinionated farmer.
There is a family story involving me, a snake and Roswell's son, Steve Garst. I barely remember it but every time it is told I think "Wow, I've pretty much always been unafraid to approach anyone for any reason." No guts, no glory I guess.
Another neat thing about the Garst family is how they give some of their wealth back to conservation effots. You can read more about that here if you are interested. Every summer I want to take the kids for a weekend trip up to the area now known as the Whiterock Conservancy. Maybe this summer we can finally do that. I spent a lot of time roaming around there when I was a kid and wouldn't trade those times for all the money in the world.