World Beginnings

Long ago, in a land far away, nope, such a place never existed. Yet it did and still does in my memory. This morning I saw this picture posted by my Lakeside friend, Charlotte Donaldson, of freshly shelled peas and snap beans, and I was transported back in time to my Aunt Janis’s farm in Poplar Creek, MS. That was a simpler time, much like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone. Kids never back-talked, and when we told to come and shell some peas, we did it. Bushels and bushels of them sitting on the porch, shelling and talking. Purple hull peas stained my fingers purple, and I hated when the butter beans came in; they seemed the hardest to shell and made my fingers sore. And if someone stopped by, seeing folks gathered on the porch, they were given a big bowl too and joined the conversation and shelling. There was a predictable urgency to farming back then. The fields had been plowed, made ready for planting, and at just the right time, the seeds went into the soil. And then the waiting fo...

  Cairo, in 1997, was primitive in so many ways, especially in what we would call grocery stores. It wasn’t until about ten years later that a big European supermarket opened up. While there was a store that had frozen chicken, that was what I was on the hunt for, I could tell the meat had been thawed and refrozen numerous times. Often the dirty sliding casing door was left open for who knows how long, coupled with frequent power cuts, guaranteed to melt everything in any freezer. Asking around, I learned of an area that had fresh chicken, so off I went with my minimal Arabic to buy a fresh bird. When I asked for a fresh chicken, the proud shop owner reached behind the counter, pulling out a live chicken, squawking like crazy. I just nodded my head and, in my terrible Arabic, said I would come back when it was ready, the butcher just grinned at me. Thirty minutes later, I picked up my fresh chicken, holding it gingerly at my side. While crossing the street, I touched it and almost ...