I make periodic sweeps of my previous writing, webpages, etcetera. The oject is to improve the site structure or update some of the ideas or facts. For the last week I have been taking an hour per day out to work on my “best selling” Real Man’s Cookbook.
I hit one particular article about bean soup. It is loaded with thinly, very thinly, veiled references to a particular scatological subject variously known as tooting, beeking, and cutting the cheese. At the time I thought it quite comic. Now, I still find it mildly funny. But that is human nature.
I remember a long time ago, while I was in college. I received a letter (yes, it was that long ago) from my brother. The whole thing was about fishing and the various words and expressions available for “dropping a load”, “taking a dump”, “pinching a loaf” or what have you. At the time, I laughed until water came to my eyes. I laughed some more, until water spilled over. I laughed so much that my stomach hurt. I thought this missive such a classic bit of humor that I tucked it away the way and preserved it the way a monastery preserves the bones of a Saint.
About a year ago, I had leisure to dig up this epistle from my hallowed files. I reread it expecting the laughter to come again. Yet looking it over left me rather flat. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Perhaps my juvenile sense of humor has been left behind. I don’t know. I do know that my sensibilities have changed somewhat.
On rereading the article I had written for the Real Man’s Cookbook, I debated on whether I should remove it from the website. (I can’t remove it from the book, it is published.) Then I decided that even though the harsh winds of change may blow, that something should remain behind, a mere whiff of vital essence to remind us of those days gone by, ephemeral as the passing of gas.
