Smells like a pencil; tastes like chicken.

I spent a couple of hours splitting rounds of firewood this afternoon, and it brought back some of my favorite memories of first grade.  Nearly all of my firewood this year is Incense Cedar, and it always brings back memories of the fragrance of the pencil sharpeners in the days when we were given high quality pencils made of cedar.  Have you noticed that most pencils don't smell that way any more, and they break easily, and.....  Just unsatisfactory!  When I split the cedar I say to myself "smells like pencils."  Then I get sad when I remember that pencils don't smell that way any more.  I also wonder what would happen if a kid grew up without pencils but helped his folks split cedar firewood for several years.  Then if he encountered his first cedar pencil and got to sharpen it, would he say "Hmmm, smells like firewood?"

By the way, in the above photo, the top pencil is made of cedar and smells the way a pencil ought to.  The bottom one is made of some sort of composite, probably more adhesive than wood.  Very inferior product.  I think I'll get rid of all my crappy pencils so I can enjoy the good ones more.

My mind really wanders when I'm splitting wood, so it then jumped to another memory.  I went to college mostly in the Southeast and had occasion to eat frog legs, alligator tail, and rattlesnake.  When one person asks another "What do frog legs (or alligator, or rattlesnake) taste like, the answer is almost always "sorta like chicken."  So, I wonder if a Louisiana Cajun kid grew up eating frog legs then encountered his first chicken meal, would he say "Hmmm, tastes like frog legs"?  First impressions are often pretty durable.