(from interview — lyrics by R. C. Curtis and Paulina Logan)

[Female,  thirty-six years-old]

I grew up in the Midwest

In a rural and very small town

We always ate meat and I knew quite well

Where it was from.

It was just part of life,

In the Midwest

In a rural and very small town.

As time went by

It bothered me

That they had to die —

But what could I do?

You think you need meat to survive

And I hardly knew

An example of what it was like

To be vegetarian –

Well, there was this one girl

A junior high friend

Who  didn’t like meat

Didn’t care for the taste of it,

Which I found kind of strange

In the Midwest

In a rural and very small town.

I struggled with my conscience for a long time

Then  when I was twenty-two

One day I felt sure

I didn’t want  meat

and I thought,

Let’s  see what happens

Let’s just see what happens . . .

Thus began my great experiment

I’d be the first girl,

Okay, the second Midwestern  girl,

To live without eating meat.

So I gave it a go, one day at a time,

No big commitment, just give it a try.

The first day: okay, I didn’t die,

Then the day after that and the day after that

And on the fourth day

I awoke to discover – that I was still alive!

And I was a vegetarian!

And soon after that I looked at dairy and I looked at eggs,

And I didn’t like what I saw —

All the abuse, the suffering and cruelty—

Was just as bad, maybe worse

What I had to do became very clear to me.

You can probably guess the next verse:

This girl from the Midwest

From a rural and very small town . . .

Went vegan!

My family did find it all a bit odd

But over time,  they saw that it wasn’t  a phase

And you’d be amazed how supportive they are

It’s  part of my life, you see,

It’s the right thing for me.

When my sister gets back from the Peace Corps

She plans  to become vegetarian

Even my mom is thinking that way

And my father and brothers . . .

Well, who knows, maybe one day, maybe one day.

Anymore it’s easy to separate

What you eat from what came before,

You don’t see what the animals had to await,

When it’s so nicely packaged there at the store,

I mean, I’m not a militant, not out to convert,

I’m not out to scare,

I just plant little seeds here and there

And one day, maybe one day

All those seeds of compassion  will take root and  grow

And it will be part of life everywhere, all around – – –

Even in the Midwest, in a rural and very small town.

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