I just watched a short piece on the internet on how donuts are made. Cake donuts, cinnamon rolls and bismarcks. When my grandson and I go to the farmers' market on Sunday morning, there is a booth where they make and sell minidonuts. They are made the same way the big factory makes theirs. A machine drops the dough into the hot fat and the donuts travel along, getting flipped over halfway and at the end they are golden brown and yummy. Donuts were originally brought here by Dutch settlers. They were balls of fried dough. Dough balls. Then someone had the idea that they would cook faster if they had the center removed. So they took out a little piece-a nut of dough-and the doughnut or donut was born. The documentary reminded me of field trips I went on when I was growing up. One trip was to a bank. We saw the big vault where the money was kept. One trip was to a dairy where we saw ice cream and cottage cheese being made and packaged. One trip was to the newspaper plant. We saw the papers being printed and bundled. When my daughter was a Girl Scout and I was her leader, we went to the bakery where the Girl Scout Cookies were made. They also made soda crackers there and I remember the big bins, like dumpsters, filled with rising tan dough for the crackers. Kind of icky. The cookies were on conveyor belts traveling all over the plant, into the ovens and out again, around and around, up to the ceiling and back down again. We each got a box of cookies to take home. Back to the donuts. When I was a college student, there was a local donut shop that had a sign We Reserve the Right to Seat Our Customers. Years later, I found out that meant no Negroes allowed. In code. This was in the early 60's. In central Illinois. The civil rights movement was just starting.