A Musing About Bread...
Tonight, having worked, played football, watched a movie, and changed for bed, I decided to make a sojourn to that lovely oasis of debauchery more commonly known as the Tesco Metro. Having missed my lunch and having forfeited my customary second serving of vegetables to the wrath of the "vegetable machine" (question: Should vegetables actually be processed in a machine?), I decided to undertake a quest for some form of late-night sustenance.
With my travelling party which included James, Jamie, and Stuart, I walked on through a surprisingly warm night until our destination was overtaken. Going through the bakery, I picked up an approximately 300 gram French baguette and an equally-sized loaf of wholemeal bread. Total cost: 10p (it came to 98p with the peanut butter, though). As I snacked on the baguette (now finished along with a goodly portion of the peanut butter), I walked along South Street and marvelled (aloud) at my good fortune: I had acquired a reasonable helping of bread (enough to constitute a meal) for one minute's wages...
As I think back through history, my limited knowledge of World History reminds me that skyrocketing bread prices was one of the primary catalysts of the French Revolution. In other words, people working twelve hours a day in mills, mines, and marketplaces were finding it difficult or perhaps even impossible to feed themselves on their wages, and this in the richest portion of the world in just the past few centuries. How could so much effort turn offer them so little in return? Thomas Hood, a contemporary poet, wrote (from the perspective of a female mill worker),
My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of staw,
A crust of bread - and rags.
Her story is not unique: all throughout history, men and women have suffered the scourge of hunger and often have suffered and died simply for want of foodstuffs that I so easily acquire through a minute's worth of stuffing envelopes.
What have I done deserve such affluence? Nothing. If, by some chance, I had been placed in a different part of the world or a different time period, poverty, misery, and hunger would be my constant companions. In his overwhelming generosity, the Almighty saw fit to place me in that narrow window of time, geography, and class that allows me to enjoy the most sumptuous luxuries every minute of my life. Abraham Lincoln, speaking to a nation that did without automobiles, telephones, television, the internet, and millions of pounds worth of spending money, noted that the American people enjoy, "the choicest bounties of heaven". Truly, such is my lot.
How Blessed, How truly Blessed I am...
Praise Be to God.
-Douglas
With my travelling party which included James, Jamie, and Stuart, I walked on through a surprisingly warm night until our destination was overtaken. Going through the bakery, I picked up an approximately 300 gram French baguette and an equally-sized loaf of wholemeal bread. Total cost: 10p (it came to 98p with the peanut butter, though). As I snacked on the baguette (now finished along with a goodly portion of the peanut butter), I walked along South Street and marvelled (aloud) at my good fortune: I had acquired a reasonable helping of bread (enough to constitute a meal) for one minute's wages...
As I think back through history, my limited knowledge of World History reminds me that skyrocketing bread prices was one of the primary catalysts of the French Revolution. In other words, people working twelve hours a day in mills, mines, and marketplaces were finding it difficult or perhaps even impossible to feed themselves on their wages, and this in the richest portion of the world in just the past few centuries. How could so much effort turn offer them so little in return? Thomas Hood, a contemporary poet, wrote (from the perspective of a female mill worker),
My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of staw,
A crust of bread - and rags.
Her story is not unique: all throughout history, men and women have suffered the scourge of hunger and often have suffered and died simply for want of foodstuffs that I so easily acquire through a minute's worth of stuffing envelopes.
What have I done deserve such affluence? Nothing. If, by some chance, I had been placed in a different part of the world or a different time period, poverty, misery, and hunger would be my constant companions. In his overwhelming generosity, the Almighty saw fit to place me in that narrow window of time, geography, and class that allows me to enjoy the most sumptuous luxuries every minute of my life. Abraham Lincoln, speaking to a nation that did without automobiles, telephones, television, the internet, and millions of pounds worth of spending money, noted that the American people enjoy, "the choicest bounties of heaven". Truly, such is my lot.
How Blessed, How truly Blessed I am...
Praise Be to God.
-Douglas
posted by Doug at 4:03 PM
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