Right now, I'm waiting for the jars to sterilize, and waiting for the vinegar to come to a boil; I'm making pickles.

I like doing that kind of thing - but these are what you call, "short brine" pickles, since the acid arrives on the scene in a vinegar bottle (compared with "long-brine" pickles, in which the acid develops as the brined cucumbers ferment). It's much quicker.

But I like doing all that - not boasting, you know, but just laying out my credentials, I know how, and have abundant experience in: brewing beer, making wine, making cheese, making bread, making soap, and many other small skills of that sort (making articles of clothing and other useful things, not to mention - okay, I'll mention it - decades of experience in the kitchen learning how to make pretty much anything, and being a certified master gardener…). I've come to the conclusion that I have the ideal CV for being deserted on an island, as my tribe (in the Lord of the Flies scheme of things) would be clean, well-fed and groomed, have nice drinks at the table, and would settle down to comfort and security in short order.

Once, those skills - making all those domestic things, like beer and soap - were part of everyday life. People often made their own, but in little villages (such as the one in which I now live), there was one fellow shoeing the horses, and another fellow who was the baker (or two), and so on.

You knew who these guys were, as we called them by what they did: Jerry Smith (or maybe even Jerry Farrier, busy doing the horses), Martin Baker, Mike Thatcher… Even the barrel-maker's name endures - Skip Cooper…

But how come I never heard of anyone called Thim Pickler?

Pickles have been around a long time - they're basically a way to let something rot and keep it for later - like lutefisk, and anchovies (both of which are dear to me). Beer showed up early on, and pickles...

But I never heard of anyone being called Pickler.

Now, I know who was making the beer - right, the Brewer. But who was making the pickles? It occurs to me that not only is there not a record of anyone being called a Pickler, but that evidence of who is actually making them is spotty, at best. Who's doing it? This is important work - making and selling pickles - so wouldn't you think that they'd want to be proudly named after what they do? Wouldn't you think maybe they had a guild, even?

Ah, maybe that's it - maybe it's a long-kept secret, some underground, ancient, world-spanning guild of picklers…

Now, I imagine that in former times, pickling was probably attributed to - well, look on the shelf in the grocery store. See, right there, bold as brass, on the label? "Kosher dills"? Is there any kind of pattern, here? I mean, I'm just saying, is all.

Still, I don't think even the Jews are the secret pickle-meisters of old - no, I imagine it runs deeper and older than that - all the way back to Seth, the forgotten brother of the Book of Genesis, no doubt the first pickler, and -

that's right -

the founder of the Freemasons.

How proud I am, to have this wonderful venue - the internet, for that's the medium in which a screed of this nature is best published - to posit [that's right, posit, not post -- we know what we're doing here]another (thinly) plausible theory of Who the Fuck is Fucking Running Things, Really.