Slouching Towards Veganhood

Here’s why, a lot of why at least, I’ll have both feet in the green world soon.

My father. Nope, he wasn’t a vegetarian. Pop, of the killer fabulous fried bologna and Swiss cheese sandwich (damn, I loved it when he made dinner!), was the patron saint , the protector of all beasties who somehow made it into our house. I’m talking about the creepy crawlies mostly since the old man’s overriding philosophy on pets would make Joy Adamson and Bob Barker look like big game hunters, toting AK 47s to off a lone and lame gazelle.

On more than one occasion when I was a small child, you know -- back when the earth was still cooling, spiders freaked me to the moon and back. We're talking major freakage. A glimpse of a small common house spider was enough to make me leap onto chairs or hide under my bed covers in fear.  The real deal spiders, the daddy long legs, inspired deafening, Maria Callas level shrieking, begging  “Daddy, come kill it, kill the spider dead, now, now, NOW!” 

Pop would have none of this, of course, saying ultra calmly “he’s just as afraid of you as you are of him.” Picture eight year old me there, arms crossed, eyes rolling back — thinking, but not saying — “yeah right, Chuck. Not bloody likely” or sentiments just like that anyway.

 Daddy would coax the spider into a jar, make us gaze upon the poor beast so that we could know  it was  nothing to be so afraid of (oh sure). Then he would have my sisters and I parade out to the yard with him where he would set “George” free. Sometimes he named them “Fred.”

In the early ‘70s we moved to a small western Pennsylvania town where school closed on the first day of hunting season -- everyone was out bagging Bambi’s mother. Driving home late one October night, Daddy accidentally hit and killed a deer. He was devastated and spent the next two days sitting in the car in our driveway overcome with grief and guilt. He couldn't even speak -- unusual for him to be sure. This made a huge impression on 13 year old me.

I didn’t give up four legged entrees right then and there but that’s when it all started. As time went on I felt increasingly queasy -- this being the cute and fuzzy bunny versus the environmentally pragmatic path to veganism.

Now, the prospect of eating anything with eyes, anything I can imagine staring back at me, squicks me into the next dimension.  I’m wicked bummed that Octopi have eyes -- I’m really gonna miss calamari.