The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Everything has started a movement to compel cooks to put their vegetables into boiling water as this kills them quicker than the barbarous method of putting them into the cold and letting the water come to a boil.
Lewiston Evening Journal Maine, January 20,1917.
A late joiner of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Everything, I admit to countless cruelties in this lifetime. This is, of course, one pre-requisite to Society admission and takes guts. Who wants to fess up to facilitating the slow death of vegetables in the cold, much less how deeply one could relish dramatic childhood enactments of the most horrifying fairy tales, juicy roles (I liked best) like Bluebeard, or the witch in Hansel and Gretel , as unsubtle excuses to justify throwing a sister into a closet or oven. Admitting my wanton vanity in the thefts of mother’s lipsticks, the torn phosphorescent tails of lightening bugs for bling, the violence of our laughter, as my naughty friends and I vandalized cars with silly string, and our fearless leader tripped over a low fence and tore up her ankle. The times I neglected to recycle my plastic water bottles, used poison to kill weeds. I’ve been cruel to my siblings, my mother, the bugs I sacrificed, and more strangers than I’ll ever account for. Cruel to the cars we festooned, their owners, my friends, the other children who may have been blamed. Cruel to the planet, the squirrels I’ve run over, the baby robin I kept in a shoebox but could not keep alive. Good thing the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Everything is a compassionate group.
My sponsor tells me most anyone can belong and the likelihood of slipping up is guaranteed. It’s a slow movement, he tells me: “A few steps forward, a few steps back. We seek a net gain on kindness and are glad if the scales tip steadily in that direction”.
Early Morning Poems 