GUILT is about what you have done or not done. You did something wrong.
SHAME is about you as a person. You are something wrong.
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SHAME is about you as a person. You are something wrong.
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I am reading Harriette Simpson Arnow's Hunter's Horn. It's about a hardscrabble mountain farm family in the early 1940s Kentucky. There's lots of small things I don't understand, but one is driving me crazy. The family is going into their second winter without meat. This winter, at least, they do have plenty of corn, beans, and so on after having nearly starved the winter before, but due to various problems they will likely still have no meat until the next autumn. The mother and horde of children miss it terribly.
They define meat as pork, mutton, beef, and chicken. And that's pretty much it.
What's driving me nuts is why do they never think about rabbit, possum, or squirrel? Plenty of them around, and they can trap them, they don't need to use up bullets. What about fish? And if they can afford a few bullets, how about deer?
They train hounds to chase fox, and sneer at dogs who go after rabbits. I dunno - if I were starving for meat I'd pure-D appreciate a dog who brought home a rabbit every few days.
When I was in high school in the mountains, many of my classmates ran trap lines every morning before school, and I have eaten rabbit, squirrel, possum, and raccoon (raccoon was not very good) when I visited classmates' homes.
I don't get it. Every time some character in the book complains about no meat, I want to yell at them.
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3 comments:
Squirrels are scrawny. Even if you ate a squirrel a day a family of four wouldn't get more than a bite each. It think they could justly say the had no meat even if they ate a daily squirrel.
They smoke and dry meat, so you can build up a supply. Even five squirrels added to the beans every two weeks or so would be a major meat meal (the way these people are living), and way better than nothing. "Oh, it's only a squirrel" is something someone who HAS meat might say. By the way, I know from experience that two squirrels and a bunch of vegetables will make a stew that will feed five.
Uh, "scrawny" implies you eat only the skeletal muscle.
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