"Elmo," said Boweaver, "all my life I've heard people talk about chitlins.
"Now, I know they are something that some people ~ but not all ~ eat, because I remember that whenever that word came up around mama and daddy, they always would say ~ 'Ugh!' ~ and quickly change the subject.
"Well, 'chitlins' came up the other day, when I was invited out to lunch, and ever since then the topic ~ which never before bothered me in the least ~ has had me thinking.
"I'm wondering ~ what really are chitlins? What is there about them that causes some people to say 'Ugh!' and some other people to say 'Umm'?
"Boweaver," said Elmo, "I have to tell you this. If you never have known what chitlins are, then you really don't want to know now."
"Come on, Elmo," said Boweaver, "sure I want to know."
"Boweaver," said Elmo, "I repeat. You really don't want to know."
"Come on," insisted Boweaver.
"Boweaver, chitlins are pigs' intestines," said Elmo, yielding against his better judgment.
"Hog guts, to put it another way," put in Clem, who was sitting by the window in Seba Underwood's barber shop in Murfreesboro reading The Hertford County Herald.
"Ugh," said Boweaver.
~~~~~~~~~
"Well, Boweaver," said Clem, "chitlins really aren't all that bad.
"Particularly if they are cooked right ~ and if they've been 'slung'."
"Slung? What do you mean, 'slung'?" pursued Boweaver.
"Boweaver," said Elmo, "again you don't want to know."
"Aw, come on," said Boweaver, "what's the difference between chitlins that have been 'slung,' and chitlins that haven't been 'slung'?"
"Well," said Clem, "hogs eat a lot of old corn, and sometimes the grains get down in their intestines and don't decompose. They just sit there, getting harder and harder.
"So, before you cook 'em, you cut open one end and twirl 'em around over your head several times ~ to sling the old, hard grains of corn out."
"You know, fellows," said Boweaver. "You were right all along.
"I really didn't want to know."
~~~
Barnes Bros. Barber Shop, Murfreesboro 2001
Sometimes you'd learn more at barber shops
than you really needed to know
