Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
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204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
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Thursday, May 24, 2012
WEDNESDAY’S WORD was hypnagogic (hip-nuh-GAH-jik). It means of, relating to, or occurring in the period of drowsiness immediately preceding sleep. “People who play lots of computer games sometimes experience ‘screen dreams’ as they fall asleep, in which they see vivid images of the game they have been playing. These screen dreams are also products of the hypnagogic state.” — From Paul Martin’s “Counting Sheep,” 2002
THURSDAY’S WORD is menagerie (muh-NAJ-uh-ree). The Alpine-themed restaurant had a curious menagerie of cuckoo clocks on the wall of its dining room.
The Southside Chapter of the American Red Cross will hold a Bridge and Rook Tournament for Saturday to benefit the Southside Chapter, which includes Martinsville, Henry and Patrick counties. A spokesperson at the Red Cross said the response had been great, with 62 players signed up to play so far. The competition will be from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Frith Hall at Patrick Henry Community College. Prizes, food and beverages will be available. Tickets at $1 each still are available for Saturday’s drawing for numerous prizes that include furniture pieces, jewelry and two tickets to the Oct. 28 race at Martinsville Speedway. The drawing will be done at 3 p.m. Saturday at Frith Hall and you do not have to be present to win. You can buy a book of tickets for $20. Call or go by the Red Cross Office on Spruce Street to purchase tickets.
Here is a story on “Slopping the Hogs in a Technological Society,” written by Kenneth Hermann, who teaches an online course on culture and technology at Kent State University. He wrote the story for “Perspective, a Journal of Reformed Thought.”
Anyone today remember the days of slopping the hogs?
Hermann recalls when his grandparents homesteaded in Minnesota in the early 20th century. “Grandpa’s land patent has President (William Howard) Taft’s signature scrawled on it. They scratched out a living for three children from the tall pine forest and poor soil with a few cows, horses, chickens, and hogs,” he wrote.
“Grandma always kept her slop bucket next to the woodbox in the kitchen. All vegetable scraps and food waste went into it. Whenever we were all together, my cousins and I would jostle to be the one to ‘slop the hogs.’ Out we would go, hauling this heavy pail, ‘slop bucket’ to the pigpen. Right on cue, the pigs would come snorting up to the fence for their dinner. Pigs are wonderful omnivores: they will eat almost anything. Months later those hogs would be mature and fat enough to be butchered right on the farm. Grandma’s kitchen slop had been transformed into pork and bacon.”
“They practiced ‘recycling’ and ‘composting’ every day without knowing these terms.
“The norms and laws of the Great Economy were embodied in their life practices. All they knew was that what they were doing was necessary, practical, and, above all, what worked to keep farm and family alive.”
Hermann wrote that “the two subsequent generations know neither intuitively nor theoretically why slopping the hogs is good stewardship practice. Our industrialized food production system has freed us from the cycles of life and given us pork whenever we want it. We are now free to live in an abstract linear world of industrial food products. What freedom!
“That freedom, however, is a very heavy burden and is purchased at a steep cost to our culture and the environment.”
The annual Jim and Martha Foley reunion will be Saturday at Jack Dalton Park. The Delia Foley Massey family will host the reunion that will start at 11 a.m. Lunch to be served at 1 p.m. Bring a covered dish and two-liter drink. Paper products will be provided.
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