From the Journal of a Buffet Ham

                Lamentations at a Sunday Brunch

Ah, the indignity of it! Scorned, by-passed! - I the glory of a West Virginia

buffet- ham, fat-rimmed, and smoked with hickory.

Oh, they let me sit here still, but a patriarchal throne is a lonely place.

Touch of color, that’s what I am! These young things raid the fruit bowl,

the totally unamended, crudely chopped stuff! Only requires an

eight-year-old to prepare it, not ancient, long-revered progress from hog

to table.

And syrup - maple syrup! - left to languish in its lovely server.  Too much

sugar?! Are they serious? The love and labor that go into this exquisite

abstraction, rewarded by very high prices, when its purity, like mine, has not been tampered with. Occasionally they allow honey, but the common bees do all of that automatic preparation.  No art at all. Plunk a collector in the middle of a field of clover, and there you have it.  

The whole race seems to be reverting to the gatherer mode. Gads. You know how far back that takes them. At least that appears to be

the road of cognoscenti, who used to dote on fine distinctions

in woods used to smoke hams and discuss at length

the best temperatures at which to tap maple trees. Now, indeed, both

of us, ham and maple syrup alike, is consumed in large quantity, where

we’re superb or attenuated by large men who care little about our finer qualities.

Oh, society has veered from precious defining cultural icons before, abandoned them. Women’s girdles are gone, and the lacings that produced wasp-waisted figures.  But I digress.

Butter is half hidden, real cream has not been at my side in years. 

I saw an old lady almost teary-eyed as she resignedly poured

“half and half" into her cup.

Half of what, indeed.  But- life is change