On the way back from Mexico Beach to Columbiana late this past Saturday afternoon, we stopped at a small service station somewhere between Troy and Montgomery to let everyone relieve themselves and grab a drink. As I was at the counter paying for our stuff, I noticed off to one side a box full of small bags that appeared to have white sand in them. Each bag had a cardboard label on the top which simply said "White Dirt."
"What is this," I asked the lady at the counter as I picked up a bag of it. It had the consistency of slightly wet clay.
"It's White Dirt. People eat it," said the lady.
"So it's like a sugar candy?"
"Naw, it's dirt, with like clay or something in it."
I wasn't really sure how to take this, so I set the bag back down in the box and finished paying. After I got back home of course, I immediately set out to find out more about it via Google.
Apparently White Dirt is just Kaolin sold in powdered form. It's pretty similar to what you'd find in Rolaids or Kaopectate. You can even order White Dirt online if you want to. Most of it seems to come from Georgia. I wonder why Wilfred never told us about it while he was living it up down there?
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'wA-w&rd - adjective
1 : following one's own capricious, wanton, or depraved inclinations : Ungovernable
2 : following no clear principle or law : Unpredictable
3 : opposite to what is desired or expected : Untoward
5 comments:
This reminds me of the story about the guy who went to study while people in this rural part of Georgia were eating dirt. Turns out it was to replenish iron deficiencies because of hookworms. Why hookworms? Because almost no one could afford shoes. Found it: http://www.archive.org/stream/ruralschoolhookw00ferruoft/ruralschoolhookw00ferruoft_djvu.txt
I went to high school in Sandersville, GA. Kaolin capital of the world. Worked for 4 summers with Thiele Kaolin. 2 of those summers involved driving a front-end loader to put the white clay into a hopper so it could be washed. "Washer Mill" they called it. Never ate it though.
I guess I was in the wrong part of the state cause the only dirt I ever saw was red, or the people that lived next door to us.
Wil Harrison.com
White Dirt. There's a joke in there. Nah....
I love white dirt. I am anemic so I crave it constantly.
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