Monday, August 25, 2008

The Refrigerator Spoke to Me Today.

As I was shuffling through the crisper drawer, I started thinking about how global my refrigerator is. My cupboards, as well. We've got something from pretty much every part of the globe sitting around in my house and it's hard to recognize that when I am so used to simply having these goods at the local grocery store.

I could not imagine being limited to what grew in Nuevo or the immediate surrounding areas. So many fruits, vegetables, spices ,and even animals are not indigenous to this area, and yet we have most of them within reach. I also think about times before globalization of crops, seeds, animals, fabric, metals, wood, languages, ideas, inventions, news, races, and people in general. Things are so overlooked and underappreciated, but I feel like if we lost a lot of these little items, we would notice quickly.

Salt. Something seemingly simple like salt (sorry for the alliteration) was once a prized possession and commodity. Even the origin of the word salary has connections with salt. In Rome, a soldier's salary was originally salt. Who could imagine getting paid in salt? A nice big bag of salt for working all day. History has a funny way of giving you perspective. It's easy to lose it.

Yep. We've got a lot and I hope we can realize how fortunate we are for the wealth we have. Most of us live and eat better than old kings. We've got the whole globe at our disposal.

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I am recent graduate just looking at the dirt, writing about it.