Irwin 'Irb' Richardt - W2VJZ of Liberty Corner

Irwin Richardt was a modern-day Don Quixote. The 76-year-old maple farmer's 22 acres of woodland and ponds is surrounded by $750,000 homes on ¾ acre lots, yet he lives in a small, dilapidated 18th century house without running water or central heat. He went to jail for refusing to buy compulsory auto insurance, which he sees as a violation of the slavery amendment (he's used a bicycle ever since). According to Irwin, the American Revolution was fought, and the US Constitution written, to destroy empires. Whether it's big government (from his town to the FCC), big business or organized religion, he feels that modern-day Americans are far too willing to cede our rights to large entities for the sake of convenience, fear or both. Liberty Corner depicts the struggles that one man endures to live his life according to the letter of the Constitution as he perceives it to have been written in 1787. Irwin is at his gentlest as he shows a class of first-grade children the art of maple sap farming, imparting his Constitutional and Christian wisdom in child-size portions as he drills, gathers and boils. During maple season, he's all business at the farm, working round-the-clock for 6 straight weeks. Maple syrup is his only cash crop, but it is hardly subsistence. It provides him with the meager receipts he needs to demonstrate "farmland" status to the Tax Assessor. Irb became a silent key in December 2006.