A year or more ago, I read an article about bananas. About a fungus that was attacking the root systems of the banana plants, killing them. How there was no cure, and there was a very real threat that bananas would disapear. I remember thinking how awful that would be. I have lived my life eating bananas----and find it difficult to even imagine what it would be to not have them in my future. I would imagine if that were to happen, at least for a few generations, we would be offered banana flavoring, or some kind of substitute for the distinct taste----maybe with a substitute texture that would remind us of what we no longer have. We would no doubt, suffer their loss. My first reaction was that no---that is not possible. It will never happen---there will be a cure, or a variety that will prove resistant----life will go on like normal. My second was to go off on a tangent, thinking of what it must have been like before shipping, transportation, made it possible for anyone who lived in a climate where bananas did not grow--to have them in their diet. What it would be like to have never eaten a banana creme pie---to have peeled a banana half way down and holding it, jump around like a monkey. How easy it is to take for granted so much of what we have in our life----to assume that what we have was always there for everyone, and would be forever. What a rude awakening it is, to realize that is not so. We human beings have one long history of meeting, sharing knowledge, sharing the benefits of our different cultures---sharing the discovery of how we have been blessed with the wonders of this Earth. Not just in bananas, but in art, in music, in government, in the grace of what it is to be civilized---and molding that into what we assume is our unique life style. Perhaps we have found it too easy, to assume that we have no affect on what happens on this earth---that we can sit and eat our banana and ignore the fact that our unique life will be affected by what we, and our fellow monkeys do. Like it or not, we are one people, living on one earth, there is no place to run, no place to hide.......how lucky we are, to know that.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 18:24:05 +0000
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