A headstone in Goldfield, Nevada.*
Don’t eat the paste, or so I was told in kindergarten. They never said why. It was just: Don’t eat the paste!
Well, maybe now we know why.
This is a real headstone in the pioneer cemetery in Goldfield, Nevada. The story that goes along with it says that a hungry man down on his luck ate library wheat paste – which would have had enough wheat in it to provide some nourishment. Unfortunately, the story goes, the paste was mixed with some sort of compound that proved toxic, and the man died.
Is that story true? It’s certainly possible, particularly in the mining towns of the American West at that time that were often feast or famine. But the story has proven difficult to corroborate, so it’s difficult to tell whether it actually happened or it is some sort of joke.
Regardless, it’s a worthwhile lesson to remember: Don’t eat the paste.
Matt Hufman 