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It seems the further North you go the better the bacon tastes. I don't know why, but it does. I had a friend down in St. Croix, in the U. S. Virgin Islands, who complained bitterly about not being able to buy decent bacon. After listening to his grousing for several months, I finally bought five pounds of the best northern bacon I could find and sent it to him. It had been smoked by a little old man in the back woods of Vermont over maple-wood and hickory. At the same time, I bought some for myself. The kids and I enjoyed this bacon more than any other I had ever bought. Funny thing, though, I never heard from my friend in the V.I. again. He never even thanked me for the bacon. Now, living here in Mount Perry, Florida, not far from the great snow capped mountain which graces the center of our beautiful town. I can see now where heat is quite possibly the problem. The bacon here simply can’t be smoked properly because of the heat, it just doesn’t taste as good as it did up North. I know it isn't the quality, because I have bought the same brand here as I did up North. Still, I was only to be disappointed in the taste. As of this day, the search goes on for the ideal bacon - bacon which tastes as good here as it did up North. Being single and a writer, I am not only charged with the home making but the food shopping also. This works out nicely. I often shop up in Tallahassee when I go to see my publisher. The publisher takes sadistic delight in bleeding red ink all over my works of art. The final insult was the time they wrote on one of my masterpieces, "Please translate into English and resubmit!" As a general rule, after these encounters I go to a super-market and take out my frustration on the fresh produce, squeezing tomatoes and other fruit in the same manner as I have seen so many ladies do. I assume they, too, were venting pent-up hostility. One fine day on the way home from Tallahassee, I noticed there was a new shop open on the border between the town of, Third Way There, and Mount Perry. They specialized in pork products. The store had a huge sign advertising that they did their own smoking in the traditional Vermont style. Nothing would do but what I had to go in and see if they really had good bacon. I did an instant stop and U-turn in the middle of the crowded State Routes19/27 causing traffic on both sides of the road to slam on their brakes and head for the ditch. If I remember my TV correctly, what I did was called a "Bud Turn." For those of you who have never seen Bud Man on TV, he would deploy a parachute from his car and pull a complete 180 on the spot at any speed. On TV, in a controlled situation, it looks great, but on a crowded highway, when your fellow motorists are not expecting it, the maneuver has a somewhat more profound effect. Warding off the evil looks of my fellow motorists, as they crawled from their crumpled and overturned cars with a cheerful smile, I pulled into the parking lot of the pork store. I was surprised to find it was the same little old man who I had bought bacon from in Vermont. I introduced myself to him and told him of my previous visit to his store up North in Vermont. As we talked, a large crowd began to gather outside. Seeing this, the old man suggested we have the rest of this conversation at some other time; it might be in my best interest to sneak out the back way and go quietly home. Following the old man's gaze, I saw the crowd of people were not in the best of humor. I decided to take his advice and beat a hasty retreat. Continued On Next Page (bacon, Page 2) ... AUTHOR: Robert P. Herbst  TAGS: Literary Work story Home time living life BOOKMARK: Digg it | Add to Del.ICIO | Add to FARK ACTIONS: Comment Save Print Register free acount  |
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