The youthful face looks to be fresh out of high school having originally hailed from Northern California, yet is face, voice, and actor of a well-trained virtuoso in his thirties. Six years ago without any training in German, nearly six-foot tall, handsome, golden-eyed, fair-skinned performer headed for Germany to hone his craft on stages of several smaller opera companies. According to producer and promoter TR Cutler, Damkier will make his recital debut in South Florida.

Visit Brent L. Damkier at www.brentdamkier.com or email e-mail e-mail protected from spam bots.

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I have discovered through my own research that agricultural tourism is on rise, as well. It used to be that if you wanted to visit a farm, you had to have a grandma and grandpa or an aunt and uncle who owned a farm. Now all you have to do is go to Internet, type in "farm tours" on Google, and websites come up that direct you to farms which have been converted to bed-and-breakfasts, farms that conduct tours of their day-to-day operations, farms that have been made into museums, and farms that give hay rides and have pumpkin patches and corn mazes.

Through a series of political, cultural and social decisions, Americans created an atmosphere that forced small family farmers to go out of business. Although now that family farmers are all but gone, Americans have decided they are interested in knowing more about life on farm.

What's next? One-room country schools? Or how about little white country churches?

Be that as it may, increased interest in farming could mean new life for small farms still in existence. Perhaps adult children who left because there was no future in farming will return -- not to farm land and milk cows, but to turn those farms into bed and breakfasts, museums or to grow pumpkin patches, construct corn mazes and give hay rides. *********************