How I Found Out About Cannibalism

When I was in first grade in the late 80's, our excellent teacher (who I remember fondly) would routinely sit the entire class in a circle and give us all copies of some small booklet.  One student would read a page and then we'd progress around the circle with each student reading another page until we had completed the entire booklet.  

There were probably 20 pages in each booklet with no more than 5 words on each page.  And they were of the same series.  Very age appropriate.  

But I remember early in the school year thinking something that was not very age appropriate when I read the title of one of the booklets.  I can't remember the exact names in the three-word title, but I sure remember the verb between the names.  It was something along the lines of "Joe Meets Sally."

And despite the picture of two kids shaking hands on the cover, my blood went cold.

I knew what the word "meat" meant - although I probably didn't know how it was spelled - and I thought "Wait a minute...  Is someone being turned into meat here?  Is someone actually being cooked?  And are we reading about it in the first grade?  That would be rated R and we're little kids!  We're too young to read about that!  That can't be right!"

Trusting that there's no way such a gruesome topic could possibly be a part of first-grade curriculum, I decided not to panic and to just wait and read along with everyone else, even if I worried that the happy pictures might suddenly turn macabre at any moment.

Well, as we progressed through the book, it became apparent to me that this version of the word "meet" just meant seeing someone for the first time and had nothing to do with transforming anyone into an entree.  So I ended up learning the idea behind cannibalism at the same time I learned a very elementary word in the English language.

Of course this experience only taught me the theoretical idea of cannibalism, not that cannibalism actually existed.  When I found out it actually was a real thing much later it left no impression on me that I can recall.

I figured somebody somewhere might find that story to be of interest, but I'm not sure.  There also was a time in community college I was challenged to an arm-wrestling contest by an old fellow who appeared to be over 90 and who many times informed me he survived the holocaust and even showed me his evidence of this by rolling up his sleeve and showing me a tattoo of a number on his arm.  His wife was in my evening art class and I saw him at the college all the time.

It's weird that since I can't confirm these experiences directly with anyone in my life today that they both seem almost like a dream, but I remember them very distinctly as being quite real.  My actual dreams are far too incoherent when compared to these experiences.