Different people take different things away from the same observation. For me, seeing a boat disappear hull first isn't just watching something go over a curve, it's watching the curve itself prove the earth isn't flat. It's one thing to hear about it, it's another to sit there and watch it happen with your own eyes. Your mileage may vary, but that moment of watching something drop below the horizon has a way of shifting your whole view. It's more of a 'huh, I guess that makes sense' than a sudden 180.

Drove home that a lot of that old seasoning isn't really about flavor anymore, it's more like a protective layer that's been building up since the 1950s. My buddy Mark tried restoring an old Griswold he found at a garage sale, went at it with a wire brush and it turned out great, but his grandma nearly had a heart attack when she saw it. She told him he scrubbed off seventy years of family meals and good luck getting that back. She did help him re-season it with lard on the stove, and six months later he said it cooks even better than before. So I guess the sandpaper crowd isn't wrong if you know what you're doing, but stripping off that old patina is like throwing away a journal that was written in butter and bacon grease.