An Open Letter to Genetically Modified Foods

Dearest raspberries, strawberries, assorted meats and vegetables, I find it alarming how fake you really are. Oh, but alas! I do not wish to bestow any of the blame on you, my friends, you just bear the brunt of the trickery ruining our nation. I am not ignorant enough to forget about the sly chemist or manufacturers conjuring up these atrocities. I find both the creator, and the suppliers pitiful, disgusting, and manipulative. They are not happy with the size of a natural raspberry, you are constantly undergoing test after test to make you appealing to the human eye. The fact that I can now purchase raspberries the size of my big toe, watermelon sized grapefruit, and “whole wheat” bread the color of a blank sheet of paper is appalling to me. The natural look is simply not the style any longer.

Every orange is seedless and “made for little hands.” They are admitting to us right in the commercial that you are not real! You were engineered in a lab! You are a fake! A counterfeit! I do not know how to escape the mayhem! I wonder what I am really eating, because you are not the produce God intended for this Earth. It has come to the sad truth that I would rather eat a Jolly Rancher, because it is not trying to trick me with some empty health claim. I know that it is bad for me, I know what I am getting into. When I eat a strawberry, I have no idea what I’m putting in my body.

Sincerely,
Sharon.

*If you too are deeply troubled by the abnormal size of fruit lately, or have a take on genetically modified foods in general, share or comment on this post to let me know.

Trinidad: Lakes filled with water? How boring.

Have you ever heard of a Pitch Lake? Nope, neither had I. Here’s a little historical/science knowledge for you then. The Pitch Lake is an enormous natural deposit of natural asphalt bubbling and building its way from the Earth’s core. Imagine this, in Trinidad, an insanely tiny island which I didn't think I would ever go to, is the world’s largest pitch lake! And that was one of our day trips during our visit to Trini and Tobago a few summers ago. 

After walking for a few minutes on worn paths and through tall grasses, the Pitch Lake began to appear. The area seemed more like an enormous playground black top than a lake, but nobody planning on living through the experience would try and play kick ball on it. There were areas that were completely liquid, and insanely dangerous. Our guide told us the story of a local farmer’s cow who wandered onto the Pitch Lake at night and accidently walked into one of the areas of fresh pitch and was swallowed alive. We had to be careful. Most of the lake was hardened, or hard enough to keep us from plunging into the Earth’s core, though we do have pictures of depressions our flip flips made in some areas of softer pitch. It was absolutely sweltering hot, but I can’t remember if it was humid or just dry. It felt like I was frying in a cast iron skillet. Wow, there’s so many great similes I could use under that comparison…

A few times through the tour, the guide took a long wooden rod and pulled up fresh, liquid, pitch from the open areas of the lake. It looked a bit like melted chocolate, or pancake batter if you let it ooze from your spatula to the pan. 

At one point a group from a local girl’s school walked past, we made room for them, waiting on the edge of a path. The girls walked one in front of the other and were probably only 10 or 11. As they walked past, every one of them said hello to us, complete strangers, happily and politely. They didn't look up when they greeted us, but kept their heads down and smiled. At home, a group of children on a field trip would never be walking in a straight line, more like a huge clump washing through an area. Second, children are taught to be weary of strangers, especially adults, and never address them. In Trinidad it was the opposite, and seemed natural and expected. Just an interesting cultural difference. 

The Pitch Lake was a really neat experience…much cooler than posing stiffly in front of some monument somewhere. Not to say that we haven’t done our fair share of that though!

Why the chicken crossed the road

Let’s admit it; we've all wondered from time to time, what was it that motivated a simple farm-raised chicken to haphazardly cross a road one day? And why in the name of Pete did someone decide to make a joke out of it?

The sun was setting, slowly oozing behind the flat horizon here in Kansas. It was summer; most people avoided leaving their homes all together. It’s not like there’s much to do even if they did leave, its Kansas after all. But even if they did, it was simply too hot to do much other than sit and hope their faces didn’t melt off or crisp like a pie crust.

 Needless to say, I didn’t get out much in the summer, except to the pool maybe. But of course, since this is intended to be a page-turner, there is a twist.

That summer of ’09 was the first time I went down to the Kettleump’s farm. I have always hated nature and there I was stumbling around a muddy farm pretending to be useful.  I mean, dogs bite, bees sting, and it makes me sad. But when I tried to remember my favorite things, I realized that I was standing in a pile of manure with a farmer’s tan that could go toe-to-toe with any redneck, and I didn’t feel any better. Thanks for that Julie Andrews.

Anyway, I think nature just brings out the worst in me, so let’s redirect this story in a way that will eventually lead to the chicken that so fatefully crossed the street.

On my third morning at the Kettleump’s, raking seemed like the job that required the least work, so I started  pushing  dead leaves  scorched from the sun around the front yard in a sad attempt to accomplish something. Then there was a sneaky crunching noise from behind me. I gripped that rake for dear life and swung around, expecting to heroically knock out a bear. Though I don’t know if bears even live in Kansas, maybe a muskrat or prairie dog would have been more accurate. Either way, that wasn’t the case.  Instead, the little Kettleump boy, Ronald, had collapsed, unharmed, but in a mound from sheer fright.

Good thing Ron was the quiet one; if it was Stacy I would have heard an ear-full from Mrs. Kettleump the next morning. I apologized at least 11 times. And then I saw the most interesting thing I’d seen the whole summer. There was a fat, squawking chicken projectile crossing the coop in midair.  I felt that it was my job as a dutiful farm hand who always sought to provide help, to go investigate.  With another sorry, I dropped poor Ronald again, and took off like Usain Bolt toward the coop. Just as I was starting my powerful scolding about child-like behavior to the group of chickens, I realized that the one I was addressing was gone. Taking a sweep of the land, I saw him, waddling like the wind through the field.  “Oh Jesus that chicken can run.” And so I followed him.

That chicken ran until he got to Haymarket road, which was just a gravel back road that only tractors and cows used. But of course, the one time a run-away chicken from the Kettleump’s was trying to cross the street, an enormous John Deere tractor was barreling down the road like it had somewhere to be. Just as I extended my fingers to grab the little chicken, he hit the gas and bolted forward. That’s when I saw it. A beautiful coppery-gold chicken waiting for him on the other side,  wing feathers perfectly clipped and daintily pecking at some old sunflower seeds on the road. “Well okay, now I got it” Somehow he made it to the other side of the road, I guess the poultry gods were shining down on him that day. Ever since that life-changing day that little chicken was named Romeo, and I enjoyed working at the Kettleump’s, because I knew something no one else did about why the chicken crossed the road.