Barbara J. Hamby

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More Creative Writing

After I finished yesterday’s article, I came across another variation of a sugar pseudonym: “organic evaporated cane crystals.” Perhaps that’s what’s left after you extract “organic evaporated cane juice,” who knows?

Years ago, when I was a child, our family lived near a sugar beet factory in Woodland, California. My nostrils have a vivid memory of the smell of decaying sugar beet pulp that accumulated in a field behind the plant. I was told it was later picked up by farmers to feed hogs. A school field trip toured the factory, so I saw the whole process of refining sugar from beets. I imagine refining cane sugar would be quite similar.

Enough about sugar and its many disguises. Reflecting on creative descriptions brought to mind a story I heard many years ago and was never able to verify. The story was that the man who wrote the words “Raid kills bugs dead” took a suicidal walk into a body of water when he realized he made more money for those four words than anything else he ever wrote. I searched the web today to see what I could learn.

A side trip took me to a YouTube rendition of Raid Kills Bugs Dead, with a warning of its graphic nature. The lingering death of a cockroach is shown with The Londenderry Air for background music. If you are curious, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdW9Hpniofc&feature=related

According to Google, that phrase was allegedly written by “beat poet Lew Welch” during a stint in advertising, although it was never verified. Welch did, in 1971, leave a suicide note and disappear with a rifle, but his body was never found.

The Google information that really blew me away, was a list of several hundred writers who committed suicide. I wonder how that compares with other occupations. Possibly more research is warranted.