Redemption In A Walnut Orchard

Last weekend I watched the Errol Morris documentary from 2003 on Robert McNamara, The Fog of War. I followed this up with listening to a podcast interview from 2022 with his son Craig McNamara, which was produced not too long after Craig’s memoir of his difficult relationship with his father came out, entitled Because Our Fathers Lied after a line in a poem by Kipling.

Craig’s journey landed him not very far from here. In fact his interviewer, Michael Dimock, is somebody I have worked with: Michael is a regenerative food system activist who leads a group called Roots of Change. Craig became an organic farmer who has a walnut orchard near Winters, about 25 km west of Davis. Craig’s response to the Vietnam War as a young adult was in 1969 to wander south: he spent several years traveling through Latin America, working on subsistence farms, eventually ending up staying for a while on Easter Island. Agriculture got into his bones, and he returned to California and enrolled in UC Davis to get formal training in the agricultural sciences. He later bought the land and orchard near Winters with his father coming in as a financial partner.

This is one of these stories whose arc is multigenerational. After Robert left (or was fired from) his position as US Secretary of Defense he becomes president of the World Bank for 13 years, and meets with many heads of state all over the globe. Such travel does not make for a grounded life, but his son discovered such grounding on a bit of land near Putah Creek. The generations continue on there: Craig’s children Emily and Sean are both partners in the organic farm.