When I think of ham, whether it's Green Eggs and Ham, or just any old ham, I think of how my mother paid for my eye surgeries with Christmas hams. And by letting the doctor use my eyes for his research. I was, she said, a good specimen.
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Ouch, This is intense. Reverberative. Or is the word reverberatory? (The latter, I learn, is a specifically metallurgical term, employed in engineering, short for a kind of furnace, or possible satanic mill.)
(Do they still say "resonant" in writing school?)
Anyway... one of those pinging depth charges. But ham-shaped. And green.
Evokes a profound subjective ethical dilemma.
I'd hate to think a pig (or for that matter a cow) paid for my eyes.
Live and Let Live: Cows and Pigs.
(But no, my eyes wouldn't be worth their weight in tadpoles.)
My grandfather (my mom's father) owned a small jewelry store in a small town in Iowa. During the Depression of the 1930's, people weren't buying much jewelry, but they wanted to make sure their watches were running, and he was able to make an adequate living fixing watches.
On a few occasions, people paid him in goods (usually food, grown on their farms or in their home gardens) rather than cash. Once a woman gave him a sack of potatoes as payment. Another time a man paid him with a chicken. (The farmer had slaughtered the chicken, though he may not have plucked or "cleaned" it.)
That kind of thing was common in those years.
I always enjoy the complete unexpected paths I'll find myself on when I'm cruising the blogs. "Satanic mill." Such delicious resonance of William Blake.
I don't know if people still say "resonant" in writing school, but I definitely say "resonant" in my writing school. :)
Paying for eye surgeries with Christmas hams. That's remarkable.
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