Pitchforks

As I prepare to move to our little 3-acre "farm" on Whidbey Island, I've been considering the purchase of a pitchfork. Is there a handier hand tool on a farm than a pitchfork? They have been around for at least the last millenium to pitch hay, dung, leaves and what-have-you. Pitchforks have also become a symbol of hard work and physicial labor, the kind most citified folks don't do much any more. The artist Grant Wood created the greatest tribute to the pitchfork in his famous "American Gothic" painting:

The more I study this painting, the more I realize how the lowly pitchfork has also come to be a weapon of mass destruction. Take a good look at the grim expression on the farmer's face, guarding the homestead with his fork's tines newly sharpened. No out-of-town jasper in a pinstriped suit from Citibank or BofA is going to foreclose on this farm. If he tries, he may receive a few holes in his well-stuffed gluteous maximus. The pitchfork has also served as a WMD for villagers seeking Dr. Frankenstein's monster and French peasants looking for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. And we've been hearing a lot of pitchfork references in the current anger over the economic meltdown.


The pitchfork does seem like an appropriate weapon to use against hubris, doesn't it? Why shouldn't those who ate cake while the rest of us were seeking bread be stuck in their rears with a big fork? At least metaphorically.