Recently a writing friend told me of a plot premise that she'd thought of. It involved a woman going to the store to pick up a chicken, but she picks up the butcher instead. I thought of the sources for chickens these days and realized that a place where I would be most likely to buy one would offer no opportunity for meeting the butcher, let alone picking him up.
When I was growing up, even in New York City, we had a local grocery store. The proprietor's name was Mr. Lovelock. The worn floorboards were covered in sawdust. Every customer had to negotiate around the black and white cat who always occupied the center of the space between the door, the counters, and the shelves. When my mother had chosen what she wanted, we would go home to await a delivery by a lad who must have been about fourteen. There's not much of that sort of customer relationship around these days. I'm eager to see how my writer friend's story will develop, and where it will be set.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
To be at the far end of your life tends to make you think backwards perhaps more than is good for the morale. So many changes that happened in the last century and this one have come about at the speed of a 100-yard Olympic sprint, and many are of marvelous consequence for those who have lived to see them. On the other hand, that pace has exacted a price, which is the leisure to contemplate details. Those details are of personalities, eccentricities, individualities, and the most obvious pleasures of the natural world which are rapidly becoming a backdrop. When using the word "leisure" I imply the time and freedom for appreciation.
I'm distressed by the fact that I miss half the birdsong around us because it's being drowned out by diesel eighteen-wheelers. I can barely see the mountains because of air pollution, and I have to watch my dog to be sure he isn't getting into some area treated with chemicals to discourage weeds. As for buying the chicken, I have to pick one out from twenty others so encased in shrink-wrap I can't tell them apart except for the weight indicated on the labels. Nowadays, if I'm willing to pay over $10 a pound instead of under $3, I can get a "free-range organic" bird, but even then I won't have the feet available for broth that would be like what I imagine mothers hand out to cold sufferers.
Real chicken soup is a thing of the past. I mind having to pay extra to get carrots with tops, lemons one-by-one, local tomatoes in August. A can of baked beans isn't even just a can of baked beans; now I have to choose among several different versions for use with different accompaniments. I admit it's nice to be able to get "ethnic" and "gourmet" foods, but where's the cheese wheel from which you could get a slice cut to order and so sharp it made your tongue sting when you tasted the sample offered on the blade of a knife half the size of a machete?
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