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Greetings!
Welcome . . .
Chewin' the Fat is a publication from
The Complete Bear designed for the bear
community. It is published on the 2nd and 4th
Tuesdays of the month.
Chewin' the Fat will offer up the best
of the bear lifestyle - casual, cool, or woofy.
Whatever it takes to complete the bear.
For the bear, his cub and their den . . .
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Chewin' the Fat
So we were sniffin' around for a name for the
newsletter, when we were drawn to the old
colloquialism - "Chewin' the Fat."
There are a few theories about the origin of Chewin'
the Fat:
- Perhaps it's a derivative of "Chewin' the
Rag" - In the late 1800's, soldiers would chew a
piece of cloth ("the rag") when they ran out of
tobacco. Naturally, they'd be bitchin' about the
absence of tobacco at the same time ("ragging?").
- Elizabethan lore that farmers kept a haunch
of smoked pork hanging by their kitchen hearths. On
rainy or snowy winter days when no fieldwork could
be done, the family and visitors would sit around the
hearth talking, and slice off slivers of pork to "chew
the fat."
- In the far North, it is suggested that the
term has to do with the preparation of caribou hide.
Native women used to chew the scraped and smoked
hides to increase the flexibility of the garments made
there from. Since it would take hours to soften an
entire hide, this became a social pastime involving
several women in their "spare" moments.
- Another guess is that this expression was
originally a nautical one: Sailors working their jaws on
the tough salt pork rationed out when supplies ran
low constantly grumbled about their poor fare while
literally "chewing the fat."
Seems there are two themes that continue to
emerge: chatting and bitchin'. Hey - wait, that's us!!
We will continue to look for ways to enhance the
bear experience, keep you abreast of all that is
Ursine and offer some amusing insights along the way.
Talk to us - we may occasionally growl, but we'll
never bite - WOOF!!
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Sincerely,
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