"A Grain of Truth"

Have you ever looked at a piece of toast and suddenly thought to yourself, “how many people were involved with this one piece of bread?”

Let me tell you something, you can get decent whole wheat bread from the store, but oh is it not the same as homemade. Unfortunately, with our living situation is such as it is, store bought bread has been a staple in our diet; toasted to be exact.

The toast

The farmer who grew and harvested the grain… (this probably included more than one person)

The driver who took it to the mill….

The flour mill workers….. (lots and lots of workers)

The factory with all the workers who made it into bread….(lots and lots of workers) I wonder what their day was like? Let’s just pull one out of the line and imagine that he woke up with a toothache but he took medicine and went to work anyway. Maybe because his two year old has an upcoming surgery and he needs to make sure they can pay for it. It’s just a thought.

Grain isn’t the only ingredient in bread, so think of all the other factories and workers who made the other ingredients. We’re talking about a lot of people.

Another truck driver takes the bread to a big distribution warehouse….

Yet another driver picks it up from the distribution warehouse and delivers it to the local grocery store…

Stock boys (it might have been a girl, a man, or a women, but a boy sounds so much more old-fashioned and cute)

One time I knew a cute lobbyist, and for some reason I always thought of him as someone who would have been a “bag boy” at the grocery store. It makes me laugh because he was a lobbyist for a grocery organization. I don’t think he would have thought it was funny. He would have been a cute bag boy. If I had owned a grocery store, I would have hired him. It would have given a good old-fashioned, all American feel to the store. I think about these things.

Back to the toast.

I wonder how many people work at an average grocery store in order for it to open and serve us every day?

One of us had to select the bread, and then there was the cashier that checked them out, and probably, well, for diversity sakes, we’ll say a bag girl put it in bags.

But backing up a little bit, somebody had to be the breadwinner (ha,ha!) in order to pay for that – bread!

So it comes home, in car that was manufactured by how many hands? It waits in a house with doors and windows, and a woodstove, and just think how many people had something to do with that house? It is then toasted in an oven (imagine that whole process) and then handed to me, all crisp and buttery. Should we go through the butter? Rubber boots, dairy barns, cows, all sorts of things come to mind.

I take a bite and stare at the bread, suddenly thinking how much was started with just a single grain.

Never think you’re insignificant.

T.W.

(Putting a damper on my imagination, I think that actual piece of bread came from a warehouse store, so adieu to the bag boys and hello to the “box people.” Oh, well. )