Was listening to Van Morrison late last night and got caught up in memories when the said track played.
When he first started his practice, my father often accepted barter when his patients couldn’t afford treatment. One man brought in a couple jars of Tupelo honey from his own beehives. Naturally, when I heard this story a couple years ago, I asked my dad how it tasted. “Sweet,” he said.
When my pal T’s father opened a cram school thirty years ago, many of his students came from poor families, so he also accepted fresh produce or other various goods as payment. That’s so cool.
When I think of how impersonal and insignificant office jobs are in the modern world, it makes me fucking sick.
Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Great song, isn’t it? I posted about that very song today too.
there’s a really funny van morrison album
that includes unreleased tracks that he recorded for Bang! records, allegedly to get out of a crappy contract.
the funniest (I think) is “You Say France And I’ll Whistle”. you may have heard these already, but if not, they are super funny.
also, re: barter. working for broke non-profits & educational institutions, we have to describe bartered exchanges when we write up grants as “in-kind donations.”
actually, they’re all pretty funny!!
The tupelo trees in Florida are in big trouble, so that honey was a rare and prized commodity back then. I cannot imagine being able to purchase such a large jar of that mild, fragrant honey today…..a sidenote, a few years ago, there was a great movie with Peter Fonda (murder mystery, backwater killers, and a girl) which featured tupelo honey as a supporting star…..