The Ham

Once upon a time, a newly wed couple sat down to their first real Sunday dinner together. The husband noticed that his wife had cut the ham in half and cooked it in two pans. He had never seen a ham cooked that way. He asked her why she had done so. She thought for a moment and replied, “That’s the way my mother has always cooked ham.” The husband thought this was strange but he soon forgot all about it.


Until the day they found themselves at his mother-in-law’s for dinner. There in the middle of the table was a large ham, cut in two pieces. “Mom, I’ve never seen a ham cooked like this. Can you explain to me why you do it that way?” She looked perplexed and replied, “Well, dear, my mother always cooked the ham this way.” Now he was intrigued. During the week, he and his wife made the several hour trip to visit Grandma.

He explained his quest for knowledge, “Grandma, my wife cuts the ham in two, places it in two pans and puts it in the oven to cook. She says it’s because her mom cooks ham that way. When I asked Mom why she cooked ham that way, her answer was that you always did it. Grandma , why did you cut the ham before you cooked it?”

He was unprepared for her response. She began laughing! It took her a few minutes to compose herself enough to blurt out, “My dears, I never owned a pan big enough to put the entire ham into. I had to cut it to make it fit.”

There are those of us in this world that will always question why the ham is cut in half. I shudder to think where the world would be without them. What I can never understand is the fact that the people that are content to cut the ham in two, generation after generation hate the people that question, “Why do you do it that way?” And they do hate them.

History is full of examples- inventers, artists, teachers, writers. The list is miles long of those who looked for a better way and those that hated them for it. We can go all the way back to the inventor of the wheel. Can’t you hear the complaints? “Ooga, meega, dooga, humph!!” (translation- carrying these stones up the hill was good enough for your father, his father and his father before him. Why do you always have to make waves?”)

I say thank god for the wave makers- we’d still be lugging those rocks up the hill! That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?