BY JOHN MCLOONE

My wife and I toured the state on a recent Saturday, as we often do. I learned something on this journey that greatly upset me. In fact, I was downright mad.
We left our humble home at 4:45 a.m. and returned about midnight. In between, we mingled with a couple family members scattered across the map.
There was lots of driving. Early in the morning, while my beautiful bride was catching a few a z’s in the passenger seat, I had public radio tuned in. At that time of the day, you don’t get anything on the AM dial. I know, I’m aging myself, but I’ve always been an AM radio kind of a guy. When I was a kid, I’d go to sleep with my transistor radio under the pillow because at night, you could get radio stations from all over. I thought that was cool. Now, you just log onto the internet, and it takes you where you want to be. Anyway, the news from Across the Pond was upsetting, and I had all I could do to not wake my wife with my anger and disgust. Weird things happen in Europe, and that means it’s only a few years before weird things start happening here.
I’ll admit I just kind of caught a snippet of the news story. I had the radio volume down so as not to disturb the passenger. The gist of it, however, is that in England, apparently, there is serious talk about banning bacon. Bacon! They eat that pie thing stuffed with mutton and covered in gravy, and they’re going to ban bacon? I stewed on this all day. To me, this is something you’d have a Tea Party-sized revolt over. Sure, it may not be the world’s most healthy food, but frankly there’s nothing all-around that’s better than bacon. And it makes any meal a masterpiece. What are eggs without bacon? What’s a cheeseburger without bacon? What’s bacon without more bacon? You want to make a pork loin perfect? Wrap it with bacon. Chicken legs are good but wrap them in Bacon and they’re great. Having a bad day? Bacon is what you need to liven you right back up.
We stopped for a break on our trip, and I got sidetracked from my personal mission to make sure bacon is safe for future generations, at least in America. If not in America, then at least in my part of it. Some states have legal weed. We’re going to have bacon.
Unfortunately, I dozed for a moment or two after we switched drivers. We hit destination one, and my first mission was more coffee. Aside from bacon, that’s the other staple of life. From there, the day got busy. Twelve hours and a couple hundred miles later, we were nearing home. I told my wife I’d make breakfast in the morning. “I have bacon!” I proudly proclaimed.
And then it all came rushing back to me. I recounted that story I had heard in the morning. I told her about how the oppressive regime in England is, and the brutality that a ban on bacon would be. I was angry. I had found a cause I could be passionate about. Don’t Tread On My Bacon!
But my wife all those hours ago wasn’t really fast asleep after all. She ended my uprising before I even got my first militia member enlisted to help lead my crusade to save bacon.
“You need to get your hearing checked,” she said. “They didn’t say bacon. They want to ban vaping.”
Huh. I’ll be darned. They want to get rid of vaping. That’s not such a bad idea.