Pork Day: A Peculiar Annual Ritual in the Ashleyverse

Yep, another freakin' early Saturday morning post. (It seems like I have a lot of those.) Anywho, I'm headed down to Albion, Illinois, with my mom and possibly sis for Pork Day '09. It's a time-honored family tradition that takes place every Saturday after Independence Day. It's basically a celebration of America, Southern Illinois, agriculture, and family values. We gather at my 91-year-old great-grandma's house in the morning and sit out in the front yard and watch a parade. Then, we stop by the local fairgrounds to procure our annual meal: porkchops, corndogs, baked potatoes, bread 'n' butter, etc.-- everything a figure-conscious gal loves! The rest of the day, we hang out and shoot the breeze. It's a good ole time, let me tell ya. In order to commemorate this occasion, I will share an excerpt from William Blake's Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793). (Albion is an ancient name for England, and Albion, Illinois, is a very English settlement-- in more ways than one.) Actually, this poem is about the repression of women in a Puritanical society. Trust me, if y'all knew my mom's upbringing, you'd understand. I know the women in my family, especially my mom and Aunt Cindy, will get a big ole kick out of this. So, here goes:

Visions of the Daughters of Albion

ENSLAV'D, the Daughters of Albion weep: a trembling lamentation

Upon their mountains; in their valleys. sighs toward America.

Source: Blake, William. Visions of the Daughters of Albion. 1793. Excerpted from The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Volume 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries, p. 198. Ed. by Damrosch, David and Kevin J.H. Dettmar. New York, San Francisco, Boston, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, Madrid, Mexico City, Munich, Paris, Cape Town, Hong Kong, and Montreal: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006.