Mine eyes have seen the glory

Pork rinds, pig skins, scratchin's, cracklin's

Scratchin's was, more precisely, pork scratchings, or pork rind fried in lard with the fat attached. Like the skin on an orange, pork rind is the skin of a pig. Some called them pork skins or pig skins, others preferred pork rinds. I always thought there existed an actual distinction. By that I mean the larger, curled ones were pork rinds or pork skins, but the smaller pieces were the scratchin's, or, again another word preference, cracklin's. The commercial, bagged kind were passable, homemade they were delicious. A few stores sold them in clear cellophane bags as prepared by local farm families. An unbeatable treat. There was no quality control with those though and a few of the corner cuts were as hard as granite.

He knows my every thought, He...

The head of Christ, where he is bearded, with long hair and stilled at a three-quarter angle with his eyes and line of vision tilting slightly upward. There is a sort of glow around his head and he is wearing a simple, white garment. I will never be able to conceive of Jesus as looking any different. A copy of the familiar painting hung on a wall in my aunt Audrey's living room alcove. It appeared no different than the one hanging on our living room wall, or the one on my aunt Verna's, or aunt Margaret's, or any of the others I had seen regularly in homes and businesses.
"No, look," my cousin Linda insisted. "Its eyes follow you around the room."
"What if I go through the doorway?" I asked.
"It'll follow you there, too."
"When I'm outside the doorway?"
"No, while you're going out. As long as you're in the room, its eyes follow you."
It became apparent to me that Linda was telling the truth, that they had purchased or otherwise obtained the standard work of art but with trickery added to the eye portion to make it appear the eyes are always upon the viewer. I walked from side to side looking at the picture all the while. I finally had to admit I couldn't make the distinction but I would accept her declaration and that I understood the gist of the novelty -- that Jesus really is watching your every move.
"I don't know why you can't see it," she said.
"Maybe I'm not a true believer," I replied.
"Just joking," I assured her, afraid to leave it at that, seeing the makings of family lore hatching for future tellings. Clearly, she was either not capable of recognizing my form of humor or had chosen to ignore it in favor of darker implications.
It was obvious she thought it creepy, no, scary, as if the supernatural Jesus really was supernatural right there in her presence.
It never caught on, as far as I could tell. Not even a little bit. I don't recall anyone ever bringing another such of the pictures with the altered eyes to my attention.
...