A Gingerbread Man's Dream | Chickens in the Road

Dec
14

I am happy to address you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of gingerbread men.

Five score years ago, a great cookie, in whose symbolic shadow I stand today, declared all dough to be created equal. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of cookies who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.

But one hundred years later, the gingerbread man still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the gingerbread man is still sadly crippled by the manacles of sugared icing and the chains of ornament hooks.

One hundred years later, the gingerbread man lives on a lonely branch of inanimate balls in the midst of a vast forest of pine needles. One hundred years later, the gingerbread man is still languishing in the corners of cookie society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So I have come here today to dramatize the shameful condition of the gingerbread man, baked to be hung on trees and discarded.

Now is the time to lift our frosted arms from the quick sands of injustice to the solid cookie jar of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s cookies. This frozen winter of the gingerbread man’s discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating spring of freedom and equality.

I have a dream that one day this recipe will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident–that all dough is created equal. I have a dream that one day in ovens across America gingerbread men and snickerdoodles will be stacked together in the cookie jar of brotherhood.

I have a dream that my little crumbs will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the shape of their cutter but by the content of their measuring spoons.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every baking sheet and every mixing bowl, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s cookies–drop cookies and shaped cookies, pinwheels and bars, chewies and snaps, will be able to join spices and in the words of the old cookie spiritual, Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Clover: “GET IN MY BELLY!”

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Comments

31 Responses | RSS feed for comments on this post

12-14
1:16
am

Gotta go make some Gingerbread men!! thanks Suzanne , that was cute.

marymac

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12-14
1:21
am

Gingerbread dough is in the freezer waiting! made the drunken rum logs tonight, very YUMMY!!!!!!!! thank you for the recipe, now its on to the Gingerbread men. Samuel said ” thats the most amazing thing I have read all week” on the Gingerbread Men! We love it!!!!

lizzie

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12-14
1:41
am

Late at night – I’ll go to sleep with marching gingerbread men in my dreams! What a delightful post – I’m still smiling as I tiptoe over the keyboard!!! Now I’m hungry. No cookies in this house….wahhhhh – Clover, help! Send me some cookies!!!

Nancy in Iowa

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12-14
1:52
am

Clover has the right idea!

Sheila Z

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12-14
2:00
am

Battle lines are drawn. Clover and her ilk on one side, spiced and iced cookies on the other. Where is YOUR allegiance?

bonita

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12-14
2:01
am

Sorry to say all cookie dough is not created equally! Dough from this kitchen is sadly inferior to mixtures born in other domiciles.

Miss Judy

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12-14
4:29
am

Loved it! He met the end of all radicals, he was eaten.

Darlene in North Ga

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12-14
5:59
am

heh heh heh…Looks like they’ve all been shot between the eyes….

Joann

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12-14
7:56
am

Ellen: GET IN MY BELLY!

hee hee.. I am in Clover’s Camp!

ellen mcbryde

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12-14
8:30
am

Great post today!

Langela

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12-14
8:45
am

Suzanne, You have such a Gift. Thank You for using it so well…what more can I say…

Mary

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12-14
8:45
am

[email protected]”Get in my belly!”

BTW, I made gingerbread ornaments for our tree(moons and kitties), and our 9 months old (lunatic) puppy ate EVERY SINGLE ONE off of the tree! So now we have twig star ornaments, orange slice/cinnamon ornaments, and cinnamon stick ornaments. And that is it! Lol! Crazy dog!

Beth

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12-14
8:50
am

Get in MY belly!

Larissa

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12-14
9:03
am

Too funny! You could have been a politician, or a spiritual leader, or at least written speeches for one!

Tina

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12-14
9:04
am

Awww! I have some gingerbread men that I made. I wish I could come share some with Clover!

windspiritwhimsies

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12-14
9:10
am

I say we vote Suzanne McMinn a National Treasure. Sorry Clover, she’s an enabler and provider of COOKIES. Your turn maybe next year.

Norma Jean Remick

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12-14
9:31
am

aaaauuuuggghhh….the coming cookie revolution!!!!! noooooo

IowaCowgirl

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12-14
9:41
am

This post really made my day! Suzanne, you are an inspiring speech writer!(But a bit of a plagiarizer I must say)
This is surely one of my favorite posts.

brookdale

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12-14
9:49
am

brookdale, that is Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, of course! (Was assuming everyone knew that!)

Suzanne McMinn

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12-14
10:06
am

What a fun post, they look delicious and I’m sure clover can not wait till the tree comes down so they can all be eaten;)

Carmen C.

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12-14
10:22
am

Clover, get that cookie!

Ramona

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12-14
10:49
am

Hey, I’m not prejudiced against cookie dough – it all gets equal space in my tummy.
Suzanne

Window On The Prairie

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12-14
12:12
pm

Hmmm, that has a very familiar ring. Delightful parody, Suzanne, good job; That must have taken a good deal of thought, or, maybe it all came in one big flash/splash of inspiration. Delightful either way. MLK is probably turning in his grave… but with grins and chuckles… At least we do remember. And, while we celebrate the true meaning of Christmas is the perfect time to be reminded, thank you. And, love to everyone everywhere on earth regardless of your beliefs, and to all the chickens, all ducks, donkeys, sheep, goats… well, you get the picture.

Barbee'

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12-14
12:43
pm

I like an outspoken cookie!

patrice

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12-14
2:50
pm

Got to love that Clover, her idea and mine of a balanced diet are the same–a cookie in each hand!

JOJO

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12-14
3:54
pm

Love Clovers face in that last picture. I like your speech too! Animals are so wonderful they always put a smile on my face, gotta love em!

Michele

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12-14
7:20
pm

That picture with the tree in the back ground is GORGEOUS! Now I want to go have lots of little babies so I can teach them traditions like putting cookies on trees and stringing popcorn for the birdies!

LisaAJB

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12-14
7:21
pm

Suzanne, this is my first post. You are a HOOT and I enjoy reading your posts. Hoosiergal

hoosiergal

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12-14
8:21
pm

And not all Cookie Monsters are the color blue….sometimes they are tan.

Mother of a ROCKSTAR

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12-15
2:33
pm

Poor gingerbread men! To further their civil rights cause, I (who don’t really know how to bake anything) am going to make a point of baking some of these fellows, and I won’t take them anywhere near the tree — wait, I take that back. I may eat them while gazing at the tree so they can celebrate their freedom from the injustice.

Jodie

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12-16
7:42
pm

Wow, I’ve never seen so many gingerbread men all together in one place. But they don’t look unhappy and oppressed: they all look pretty happy.

Shoot, now I’m craving gingerbread…

Whaledancer

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