Blogs by Robert A. Mills
HATTERS ARE MAD
7/10/2010 5:39:32 AM
Everyone who has read Lewis Carroll’s delightful “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” knows the author never referred to the Hatter as the “Mad” Hatter. Of course, mad he most certainly was, emphatically proclaimed by the Cheshire Cat who constantly reiterated the phrase common back then that he was “mad as a hatter.”
Carroll, an Englishman, lived near the town of Stockport, known as the center of hat making. The process of curing pelts used in such cranial craft involved quicksilver known by its more generic name: mercury—consequently many employees became mentally and physically impaired by prolonged breathing and ingesting of the hazardous poison.
Carroll’s irascible Hatter, quite naturally then, will forever be pegged by the nescient bourgeoisie as “The Mad Hatter.”
What may be currently more interesting, though, is that BP (and all its major competitors) still use humongous globs of quicksilver to lubricate their giant drill bits while searching the ocean depths for crude oil deposits.
All of them have been polluting the Gulf of Mexico and scores of other such sites around the world for decades. Generations of sea animals, which Americans habitually digest, may well be saturated to the brim with mercury, accounting for a host of maladies with which science is contending: dementia, memory loss, balding, pitiryosis rosea, halitosis, shingles, birth defects, gout—the list goes on and on.
Among the more common afflictions are “excessive timidity, diffidence, increasing shyness, loss of self-confidence, anxiety, and a desire to remain unobserved and unobtrusive.” All of which I, for a certainty, am stricken.
This preamble leads up to my abject admission I was concerned for the welfare of the Louisiana fishermen and shrimpers long before the BP debacle. For uncounted moons, I have eschewed, whenever possible, the delicasies of marine life from regions plagued with deepwater drilling. Within the boundaries of human culture, I try to devour seafood I know to be solely from the frigid waters of Alaska, the North Sea, Antarctica, the Scandanavian fiordes, et al—anyplace, actually, where I am reasonably sure Exxon, BP, Conoco-Phillips, Shell, etc. have not dipped their filthy bits.
My annual expenditure of $37.43 has not, admittedly, crippled the fishing complexs of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, and for that I am delightedly exuberant. In fact, many years ago I was so concerned over the “mercury scare” besetting the seafood industry that I came up with a solution to the problem vexing our anglers. And it was so simple, it was mindboggling!
Because mercury is an element that reacts instantly to temperature variations, I suggested that all fish caught be instantly hung up by the tail and—flash frozen! That way, the mercury would plunge and coagulate in the lowest extremity: the fish’s head. Once there, simply, as the Queen would say, “off with their heads!” and—voila!—no more mercury!
To my surprise, very few outside the immediate family applaued my stupendous innovation. I wrote to Julia Childs and other prominent chefs, went on my TV and radio shows with intricate demonstrations, and even aproached the Nobel Committee in Oslo.
I sent reams of material to the Four Seasons, the Tavern on the Green, even Commander’s Palace. The only response I ever received was from a BBQ in Roswell, the Swallow in the Hollow, who said, “You gotta be kiddin’! Ain’t no poison in pulled pork, you dumb Yankee!”
None of this diminishes the fact that the Gulf of Mexico is being shafted by BP and its cohorts. As a former “regular” at Carillon Beach on Florida’s Panhandle near Panama City, I already miss the meals I never had at Castaways and Pineapple Willy’s.
Back in the prehistoric mid-90s we were introduced to Carillon by Dave and Patty Roberts at a cottage called “Gift from the Sea.” I remember it well because it was there I began my first novel, The Better Angels. We were there, also, the night Princess Diana was killed, and we sat up watching a thunderstorm far out in the Gulf and listening to tragic reports on the radio from Paris, more than 3,000 miles away.
Unfortunatly, new owners of “Gift” eventually took it off the rental market, but luckily we found other homes at Carillon for memorable summers.
With the youngest daughter now married and gone from the nest, we have no immediate plans to reminenise on the Panhandle, especially in light of recent developments. Suffice it to say, if the oil spill spares Carillon’s pristine sand, we may look favorably to a 20th anniversary respite at this unique place of profound recollections.
Let’s see . . . in 2015 I’ll be only 84.
Copyright 2010 by Robert A. Mills
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