In these tough times
One sometimes feels a little weak,
What one gets to eat
Is usually not very good.
Today our meat ration
Is so microscopic,
So it is understandable
That we are sometimes lifeless.
Our landlord had read
An adventure book
About a North Pole expedition
And courageous men who,
During a lack of food,
Boiled shoes till they were soft
And those who had such a steak
Received new strength.
He remembered it well
As a very remarkable fact,
And so bought a pair of shoes
As a savory snack.
We started to protest,
We are not Eskimos
We are not at the North Pole
And we almost got mad.
Finally, after much talking
We came to the decision
The shoes had to be exchanged
The landlord was instructed
To quickly take them
To Henk and Ans’ house
Maybe it would work there
And they saw a chance.
They gave them to Jopie*),
Who took them on a journey,
It took weeks, months,
We sometimes found it weary.
It just wouldn’t work
The size **) was sometimes too big
And sometimes way too small
For such a farmer’s foot.
They made every effort
With all “hands on deck”
They obtained for the shoes
Some butter and some bacon
We lost the shoes,
We finally got rid of them,
We have bacon and butter
With which we are delighted.
It may seem strange,
I am a food lover,
Although I am not Aryan,
I still enjoy bacon.
You can see that with exchanging
You can still do a lot,
It was, as they called it,
A truly “fat” leather shoe.
This is the “Bacon Ballad”
I am giving it as a gift
As thanks for taking good care of us
To
Jopie, Ans, and Henk
*Well understood not Pi-jo
** It was size 46
Post-Editing: Robert Saunders, Hanny Veenendaal
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