Pickles and Humbug

Shane's family has been compiling all the stories that they can remember and creating a book to preserve the history. For those of you who don't know Shane's mom has 21 brothers and sister. Needless to say, it is a lot of history to preserve. I have been reading through the stories and found one I'd like to share. Has nothing to do with family history, but it gives you a bit of insight into the Griffin family.



. . . Pickles will kill you! Every pickle you eat will bring you closer to death. Amazingly, the "thinking man" has failed to grasp the terrifying significance of the term "in a pickle." Although leading horticulturists have long known that Cucumis Sativus possesses an indehiscent pepo, the pickle industry continues to expand.



Pickles are associated with all major diseases of the body. Eating them breeds war and communism. They can be related to most airline tragedies. Auto accidents are caused by pickles. There exists a positive relationship between crime waves and consumption of this fruitof the curcurbit family.



For example:

• Nearly all sick peolpe have eaten pickles. The effects are obviously cumulative.


• 99.9%of all people who die from cancer have eaten pickles


• 100% of all soliders have eaten pickles


• 93.1% of all juvenile delinquents come from homes where pickles are served frequently.


• 96.8% of all communists sympathizers have eaten pickles


• 99.7% of the people involved in air and auto accidents ate pickles within 14 days preceeding the accident.

Evidence points to the long term effects of pickle eating:

• Of the people born in 1839 who later dined on pickles, there has been a 100% mortality rate.


• All pickle eaters born between 1849 and 1859 have wrinkled skin, have lost most of their teeth, have brittle bones and failing eyesight - if the ills of eating pickles have not already caused their death.


• Even more convincing is the report of a noted team of medical specialist: rats force fed with 20 pounds of pickles per day for 30 days developed bulging abdomens. Their appetites for WHOLESOME FOODS were destroyed.

In spite of all the evidence, pickle growers and packers continue to spread their evil. More than 12,000 acres of fertile U.S. soil are devoted to growing pickles. Our per capita consumption is nearly four pounds.

Eat orchid petal soup. Practically no one has as many problems from eating orchid petal soup as they do from eating pickles.

Reprint from: North Dakota Cooperative Extension Services Newsletter June 1987.

This type of story would be told while sitting around a dinner table or camp fire, very convincingly I might add. Unbeknownst to the innocent bystander (namely me) every word that they all spoke being a complete farce, but you are strung along right until the very end.

I hope you found this bit of history as amusing as I did, stay tuned for my own contributions recounting my first and last blind date and my first trip ever to Kansas.