Some Celery for Samson

Ever wonder which of Earth's cultures is the oldest? Nobody can say with a certainty, with the possible exception of Al Gore. Or maybe Dick Clark, who rated the early Earth 3 stars ("it's got a catchy circadian rhythm, but it's hard to dance on"), or Strom Thurmond (during the Big Bang, he was serving his second term in Congress).

But one thing's for certain. Never has a world civilization risen to prominence based on a salad bar.

Now, normally, this is a discussion topic that would fall into my broad category of "whatever." Personally, I don't care if you eat beans, or bark, or boric acid, or Baltimore. But here's what triggered my interest. Recently, some group had some guy call me, to ask me if I would consider giving up meat.

No.

No, I will not consider giving up meat. I'm very close, however, to giving up answering the phone.

But give up meat? No. On this point, I'm going with my ancestors.

Despite all the endless attempts lately (by people I've never met) to manage my diet, there's one thing that's not debatable. Wherever we look throughout the broad sweep of history - from first rib to fig leaves - from mud to mating to mauling to monastery to mojo to motivational meetings - if there were people surviving, anywhere along the historical timeline, we can be sure of one thing: there was a sandwich involved.

There was meat on the menu.

We're guys. We go find stuff, we hit it, and if possible, we eat it. It's what we do. Maybe you've heard the term? Hunter-Gatherer? (current year's tax liability, addressed by lines 3-6b on the IRS Schedule C itemized deduction worksheet, assuming you're a non-clergy Hunter-Gatherer with less than four pairs of white patent leather shoes)

It's what we do. Nobody invented the spear so they could better bring down a graceful grapefruit as it bounded across the African Kalahari. Robin Hood and The Boys didn't tease a Sheriff's fury by lobbing arrows at apples in Sherwood. Ugh, son of Ugh, didn't bother to figure out how to get a fire started by rubbing two Boy Scouts together, just so he could heat up some chick peas.

We may never know, of course, which group of us was the first group of us. The Egyptian dynasty is certainly a candidate for "The Civilizations of Earth, Chapter 1." And so is the Chinese empire, as well as the "Dream Time" aboriginal culture of Australia.

In many ways, the Egyptians were ahead of their time. Egyptian men wore skirts, sandals and eyeliner. And Egyptian women, to prove some kind of neurotic Fertile-Crescent-Female-type point, would seduce foreign rulers and then run around grabbing poisonous snakes. Furthermore, from decades of movies, we know that all Egyptian women looked like Elizabeth Taylor and all Egyptian men looked like Yul Brynner. (Okay, there was that one guy who looked like Edward G. Robinson. But he was fed to the locusts because he refused to wear eyeliner.)

Since we want to be historically accurate, or at least funny, we should note the historical possibility that Egyptian men applied eyeliner to only one eye. We think. We don't really know. After all, all extant Egyptian art features Egyptian citizens looking to the left or the right - never directly ahead. For some reason, we never get to see more than one Egyptian eye at a time. So we can't ever be sure what they were up to on the other side of their heads.

It's as if all Egyptians had their portraits painted from a chariot in the next lane, or while in line outside a trendy Cairo disco.

In fact, everybody in ancient Egyptian art is standing around like a very young Barack Obama, back in the days when he could only afford one teleprompter.

Odd eyeballs notwithstanding, the Egyptians clearly foresaw the cinematic potential of wrapping dead guys in cloth, with the dead guys' teeth somehow grinning through the cloth, so that, two thousand years later, the understandably furious dead guys could come back to life, hit stuff and if possible, eat it. Just peel away the dusty wrappers, snarl a bit, lob a few million scarab beetles around, and co-star in Brendan Fraser movies. Maybe that's what they were all staring at: box office receipts.

Plus, all other historical contributions aside, let's not forget that it was the Egyptians who invented the pyramid scheme.

As challengers to the Egyptians' claim of primacy, the Phoenicians have been around for a while, too, but nobody can seem to offer a clear explanation as to how they managed to get to Arizona in the first place. Still and yet, they've been a fixture for some time, as evidenced by that classic Glen Campbell tune, "By The Time I Get To Phoenicia," and the many hilarious references in the collected pre-Catskills comedy scrolls of that Sodom-based stand-up comic, Sid "Uncle Miltie" Lot.

"I just flew in from Sidon, and boy, are my arms Tyre'd!"

"Take a pinch of my wife! Please!"

My point is simple: guys want protein. Always have. From the protean time before our species had even invented the word "time" ... or, for that matter, the words "protean" or "invented" or "iPhone Sudoku app" ... guys have looked past arugula and longed for all-beef patty.

But some people won't stand for it. "Tsk tsk. Meat is unhealthy," they say, although it's not really possible to say "tsk."

Some people are like that. Always in your business. Here's what I think happens to some people: after years and years of watching network television and eating products that spell "cheese" with a Z, they finally manage to construct a thought, and then they start to simmer. They can't stand it. They can't stop until everybody else has that thought, too.

I think the original Yiddish term was "Nosy Parker."

So, look. Stop it. Leave us alone. This is what guys do. At least we don't flit about the Sahara with only one eye made up, flirting with Roman emperors and leaping on adders. Do we? Hmmm?

And let's keep this in mind, too: we don't hear about Samson accomplishing very much with the "jawbone of a three-bean salad." Do we?

Hmmm?