Say Cheese!

Over breakfast, my wife accused me of being unable to eat scrambled eggs without cheese. Rather than starting a nasty spat, I played the bigger man and conceded this one.

For starters, cheese is the perfect food. That aside, however, I don’t do simply scrambled eggs and cheese, I do ‘cheggs.’ Cheese with some egg in it.

On the morning in question, however, there were more than just eggs with cheese. I was also serving grits with cheese and toast with cream cheese.

Cheese on everything?

Hardly. The bacon was naked.

There’s an art to cooking with cheese. If you simply throw cheddar on every dish, you are going to be considered an unsophisticated rube. Ignore the haters. While this is elementary ‘cooking with cheese,’ you’re on the right track and should be proud of yourself.

You can never go wrong with cheddar on about anything. In fact, my rule of thumb is, if that dish is going into the oven, it can handle some cheddar. Including, but not limited to, apple pie!

I want you to get to know your cheeses and experiment some, so let’s cover the basic categories:

-String Cheese. What you serve your kids to make them shut up. And to start them on their way to coronary disease later in life.

-Easy Cheesy. These are easy-eating, everyday cheeses: mozzarella, Monterey Jack, etc. (Fresh moz should have its own category: cheese with no flavor, but there’s not enough time here to cover everything.)  Easy cheesy is cheese that don’t stink.

-Stanky Cheese. Cheese that do stink. This includes your blue – or bleu – cheese, gorgonzola, and others, like limburger, which you may never be exposed to. Stanky cheese is my favorite category.

Hard Cheese: Parmesan

Melty Cheese. Think fondue cheeses, like Gruyere, queso, Velveeta and chocolate.

Some will say because Velveeta is ‘cheese food,’ it’s not real cheese. Cheese is food, so hush up, and let’s move on.

I do recognize that chocolate is not technically cheese, but given that milk is the number one ingredient in both cheese and chocolate, and both make outstanding fondue, I thought it deserved inclusion.

Notice how cheddar is not in any category. That’s because, depending on the age of it, cheddar can fit into almost all categories. And that’s why everything’s bettah with cheddah.

Unless you use mild cheddar, in which case you’re just being a sissy.

Now, go cut some cheese.

The Great Lemonade Heist

I’m a sucker for a kids’ lemonade stand. The lemonade stand is a ritual of childhood, and I usually don’t pass one up.

Not only will I buy their lemonade, I’ll make sure the kids make a little money.

“How much? A quarter? Well, I only have this dollar bill, but you just keep the change. Having this cold lemonade on such a hot day is worth it!”

Something like that.

I pulled into my friend’s driveway as her kids were setting up shop on the side of their neighborhood street. I had gone there to talk a little business, unaware that this other business was in its start-up stage.

A sign was being made and a table was being set up. Lemonade was being prepared by other children in another house. This was going to be big. In all, five or six kids were involved in this operation. A real citrus syndicate.

My friend’s oldest son was making the plywood sign. He was struggling with the spelling of ‘lemonade,’ but I could see that, as usual, a cup of cool refreshment would be a quarter. Some things never change.

Our conversation was interrupted by her 6-year old son.

“We’re going to tell them it’s a quarter, but if they don’t have a quarter, we’re just going to give them some, anyway.”

His mom hugged him and said, “Of course you are, because it’s the right thing to do.” She kissed him on the top of his head.

It was a sweet gesture, but the capitalist in me bristled. Lemonade is not expensive, but it’s not free. The table you dragged out of the garage, the plywood for the sign, the markers used to letter the sign, the pitcher from which the lemonade will be poured… all bought and paid for at some point in the past.

I held my tongue and smiled. It was a sweet gesture. And it didn’t surprise me. This is a very open family with very liberal values, and I would have expected nothing less.

Still, I wanted to grab both mother and son by their collective collars and holler. “Nothing is free! You hear me? It may be free to you, but somewhere, somehow, somebody paid for it!”

But I knew I’d be back. “Text me when the stand is open for business,” I told her as I left.

An hour later, my phone dinged. I had a few errands to run, so dropping by to support the team was happily added to the agenda.

On the way over, I hatched my plan for helping them. In the truck with me I had a larger cup, and I would ask them to fill it up. That would be more than a standard cup, and I’d simply give them a dollar for their trouble.

Trouble began as soon as I pulled up.

“What happened here?!”

The mom laughed. “There’s bit a bit of inflation since you left.”

I’ll say. Spray paint has been used as Wite Out, and a cup of lemonade was now up 300% to a dollar!

Furthermore, her feisty 4-year old red-headed girl-child that never – never – speaks to me had decided to break her silence. “If you don’t give me a dollar, you won’t get any lemonade.”

Extortion as a sales pitch. Clever.

Imagine going to buy a car and being told, “If you don’t give me $30,000, I’m not going to give you a new car.”

Then, to top it all off, the little socialist who was perfectly willing to give away his product brings me half a cup. A paper cup, half full.

In my case, half empty. I had to give him another dollar to fill it up.

There’s a lesson here, and I’m not sure what it is. But I think I’ve figured out how Bernie Sanders was able to buy a $600,000 summer house after he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race.

Random Thoughts

I saw a lady wearing a tank top with the colors of the American flag. It read “free and proud.” I thought that could be pretty funny if she was braless.

Any time I see a donkey, he looks sad. Is that how Eeyore got his personality, or do I emote Eeyore on all donkeys? Maybe they’re sad because people like me yell, “Jackass!!” every time we pass a donkey. I even roll down the window to do that sometimes.

When people ask, “Where has the time gone?” I always want to say, “To your butt, it appears.” But I usually don’t.

 *

I quit saying, “Makes you want to slap yo’ mama” when my Mama said she’d slap me back. She said it like she meant it.

*

If your last name is Screws, does it really matter what your first name is?

It’s not that I hate carrots, it’s just that if I’m going to put that much effort into chewing something, it ought to taste better.

*

When I saw the car tag, HVN SNT, ‘heaven sent’ didn’t immediately occur to me. Perhaps because the car was parked in the hospital parking lot, my initial thought was ‘HAVING SNOT’.

* 

If I ever get my own state, I’m gonna call it Potato. When someone asks me where I live, I think it would be fun to say, “North Potato.”

* 

Ever notice that when someone is telling a story, and they say, “Anyway, to make a long story short…”, it’s always way too late for that?

 *

My wife tells me that a half pound bag of Peanut M&Ms before I go to bed is not good for me. There’s a good chance I may never know if she’s right.

A Man Needs a Maid

I lost my glasses. They are somewhere on a golf course in North Carolina. Since I don’t need them to play golf, I never intended for them to leave the cart. But that’s history now. So are my glasses.

 This will be highly amusing to my eye doctor’s office staff. I think they have a running pool, betting on how long it will be before I lose my glasses again.

 The doctor took his entire staff to New York City recently. I got a thank you note.

My brother-in-law, playing golf with me on the day I lost them, told me I needed a life caddy. He knows me well enough to make such a statement. He knows that after a round of golf, he can drop me off at the house, and I’m liable to get out of the car and just walk away.

 “Wanna get your clubs?”

 Oh, yeah, I might need those again. Thanks.

 “Don’t forget your hat’s in the back seat.”

 Oh, yeah.

 “Don’t forget your shoes are on the floorboard.”

 And so it goes.

 I don’t think anyone would describe me as flighty, but it’s probably fair to say that I don’t pay much attention sometimes. And by making that statement, I know I have just given my wife a little more ammunition for the next time I lose something.

 Some of you will know that the title I used for this piece is the title of an old Neil Young song. I don’t know that I would call her my maid, but yeah, I could use one. A life caddy. A Girl Friday. A personal assistant. Someone whose sole job would be to tend to the details in my life.

“Where are my glasses?” I would ask.

 “They’re on the kitchen counter, I’ll go get them,” she would say. “While I’m in there, would you like me to make you a martini?”

 Question: does your assistant need to be a female?

 I think so. While that’s a bit sexist, having a female assistant will make me feel a little like James Bond. Especially if she’s making me a martini. I would have my very own Moneypenny. (Yes, yes, I realize she was the secretary for Bond’s boss. Literary license.)

 Question: what would your wife think of this?

 Honestly, I think she would feel like she’s done the job long enough already and be happy to let someone else take over.

 So I’m giving my (thus far) fictitious assistant the name, Sara.

 Sara would go to the golf course with me, making sure I’m wearing sunscreen and that my cooler is properly stocked. She’d make sure I have enough tees and balls, and that my shoes are tied. And she would carry a ball marker, because I’m forever forgetting to put one in my pocket.

Away from the golf course, Sara would remind me to keep my doctors and dental appointments and not to forget I’m getting my hair cut at 11:00 tomorrow morning.

You know why your doctor’s office smothers you with calls, then emails, then texts about your appointment? Because of me. I forget stuff. I do a lot of apologizing.

But not anymore! Not with Sara! And I think we can see that Sara would have a pretty easy job most of the time, so she should be happy.

“Sara, would you make me a sandwich?”

 “I’ll be happy to,” she would say. And why wouldn’t she be? It may be the only thing she has to do all day.

 Question: how much would Sara make?

 I’m thinking I’d pay Sara about $50,000 year. That’s more than the average teacher’s salary in most states, and Sarah would only have one snotty nose to look after, not a whole roomful, so I think I could attract some quality applicants with that pay level.

This topic, however, brings us to just the tiniest of problems with Sara: I ain’t got that kind of money.

Today, on the way home from golfing, the solution hit me. I stopped and bought a lottery ticket. Because what better way to get money than to play the lottery, eh? I figure in another week or so I can start advertising, so keep an eye out if you’re interested.

But if being Sara interests you, there are a couple of qualifications you must meet. Sara needs to be in good shape, because while grabbing me another cold beer while I rock on the porch isn’t all that hard of a job, at some point, I’m going to need to take a walk, and she’ll have to do that for me.

 Sara also would need to be fairly attractive. James Bond wouldn’t have it any other way.

#fatamerica

I am at the beach. If there’s one take-away from this visit, it’s that the bikini body is gone. Dead and buried.

I know that term implies a woman’s body, but it’s all of us, men and women. All ages, too.

We are a nation of people who have decided to adopt the Michelin Man as our role model for the perfect body.

It probably doesn’t help that I’m on the Gulf of Mexico. In another life, I lived here for a while. It has the most beautiful sand on the face of the earth, but I know that most of its visitors are from South Georgia, Lower Alabama, and the bottom of Mississippi.

Deep south and chicken-fried, we are.

Look going there… big mama, fat daddy and their three little penguins waddling behind them. A family of roly-polys. Not really sure why they are expending energy walking when they could just fall over and let the wind roll them down the beach.

Hey, you can pick up these rocks and throw them right back at me. My 6-foot frame weighs a full 50 pounds more than it did when I graduated from high school. Even in the last 3 years, I’ve put on 10 pounds. I am not part of any solution.

I also know what I’m having for dinner tonight. Seafood. Fried.

I like it,

I love it.

Bring it,

And I’ll shove it.

Into my face. After I’ve ladled more tarter sauce on it.

I do think we’ve all gotten way too comfortable with being large. There is no other explanation for why she would be wearing that two-piece. Ain’t nobody wanna see all that.

Men, too.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why women can’t go topless, if they choose to, when you could put a t-shirt on that dude, hose him down and if size was all that mattered, he’d win any wet t-shirt contest on this beach. That he isn’t required to wear a shirt is surely evidence that men write the rules. Or that there are not yet enough women writing them to overturn ‘em.

If that lady’s bosom is more offensive than my Italian bread loaf-sized love handles, could somebody explain to me why?

 I’m tempted to make a comment about tattoos here, but I really should save that for another day.

Or not.

I think I’m the last man standing in the anti-tattoo camp. Besides, if you’re walking around with a back the size of a drive-in movie screen, I suppose you might as well have a show playing on it.

I must admit that I wonder sometimes about the procreation process of the Fat Family Robinson (no offense, if your name is Robinson). There would seem to be a lack of, shall we say, visual appeal.

Maybe that’s why we’re using less energy today. “Turn off the lights!!”

A lot of pundits want to blame the fast-food industry for the super-sizing of America. I don’t. I think the fast-food industry follows more than it leads. We want more, they give us more.

Because it is so bad for my already-bulging waistline, I virtually never eat fast-food. When I do, it’s usually Chick-fil-A. Two reasons: Number one, agree with their CEO’s stance on gay marriage or not (I don’t), that company is a great company that invests in the communities where they do business.

Number two, fried chicken, y’all.

My favorite all-time fast-food indulgence, though, is the Hardee’s mushroom and swiss burger. Other chains have them; Hardee’s is better. I used to allow myself to eat one once every couple of years or so. No more. The last time I pulled in will be the last time I pulled in. The reason is because like a lot of Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. burgers, it comes in two versions: 1/3 pound and ½ pound.

Hello? Does anyone remember when the quarter-pounder was the biggest kid on the block? Introduced in 1972, it was all the rage. A fourth of a pound hamburger! Wow!

In fact, Burger King upped the Whopper to ¼ pound in 1985 because their competitors were having more success selling larger burgers. Again, don’t blame the industry, they’re following the trends.

Fast-forward to today, Hardee’s doesn’t offer the mushroom-swiss (and other burgers) in versions that small.

I’m all for capitalism, and I’m all for Hardee’s or anyone else serving what sells best for them, but every time I stand on the scale, I’m shaking my head and wondering what I can do.

Lacking the will to diet, I’ll simply back away from the half-pounder you’re serving. With fries. Because you gotta have fries, eh?

For the life of me, I cannot remember what restaurant I was in recently where the quarter-pound burger was offered only on the kids menu. No wonder our kids look like beach balls.

 

I hate to get all socially-conscience on you, but if we’re ever going to have a real discussion about soaring healthcare costs, maybe everyone involved should gather in the room naked.

There would likely be a whole lot to look at but probably not much you’d want to see.

Free Beer

I like beer. Tom T. Hall wrote a country song with those words as its title. I know it by heart.

But something has changed in the last few months, and I don’t know why. When it comes to beer, my taste buds have either grown up or been replaced.

For all of my adult life, when I enjoyed a beer, it was your average brew: Miller Lite, Bud Light, Coors Light… nothing fancy. I’ve never been opposed to trying something else, but given the choice, I went with the popular brands.

From time to time, beer-snob friends have chided me for my choices, but I say, you drink what you like, I’ll drink what I like, and what say we both shut up about it.

Drink your chocolate porter; I’ll have a Corona, thank you.

It’s all different now. My taste for beer has flip-flopped. The question is, what happened? I wasn’t trying to change. I didn’t need to change. Nor did I hope one day I would change. But change has come.

A year ago, I didn’t care for IPAs. Now, I prefer them. Did I fall on my head? Get struck by lightning? Have a vision? (I do have visions, but they are typically associated with tequila.)

So accepting that our tastes in food and drink are ever-evolving, let’s talk about what this change has really meant. Better beer – if that’s what we’re going to call it - is more expensive.

Yep, it’s all about the Benjamins. Or in my case, the Jacksons or Harriet Tubmans or whoever else is about to be on the twenty-dollar bill.

Twenty dollars will typically buy a 30-pack of Miller Lite. But twenty bucks will only buy two 6-packs of the good stuff. I’m a man on a fixed income. Snootery costs more.

I have found a solution. To understand it will require you to know personal details of the financial set-up at our house.

When my wife and I married, we were well into our 30s with established careers. We were used to having our own money. As a means of dealing with who pays for what, we decided to each maintain separate accounts, but we would both contribute to a joint account to be used for household bills.

Translated, that meant she would pay for the house, I would buy the beer and pay for my own golf, and the ‘house’ account would pay for groceries and utilities. A more fair arrangement, you could not hope for.

Enter now the problem with my newly-discovered taste for expensive beer. I pretty quickly found out that I can’t afford it.

It is a simply, though unwritten, economic principle that one’s spending rises to – and possibly through – the level of one’s income. Put another way, you spend what you make (and then some, usually).

So I’m already tapped out, pardon my pun. I got no more to spend. Now what? A bank loan for beer? 

“Collateral? You want collateral? Sorry, ma’am, I drank the collateral.”

This is a problem in need of a solution. Critical situations require critical thinking. That’s when the tough get tougher, the strong smell stronger, the brilliant get brillianter.

I’m stepping up to the plate and swinging for the fences!

Taking a cue from government accounting, I have simply moved the beer to a different budget. No longer will I be responsible for buying the beer. It will now become a part of the grocery bill. And why not? After all, doesn’t the grocery store sell beer?

Yes. Yes, it does.

I have yet to determine what to do with all of this money in my personal budget, now that I have one less expense. I’ll mull it over while I enjoy what I call a ‘free beer.’

Gay Turtles: Conversations From Happy Hour

The following are actual excerpts from happy hour on May 5^th, 2016. Except where I interject, the two gents involved are senior citizens. While it was indeed Cinco de Mayo, use your own judgement as to whether alcohol was involved.

“Why is so cold? One of those Roberta clippers or something?”

“Alberta clipper.”

“I need a hoodie or something.”

“I can get a plastic bag and put it over your head.”

“Reckon that’ll work?”

“We could find out.”

“Why did you paint that rock black?”

“My granddaughter’s pet rabbit died, and I told her I’d make a headstone for it.”

“Why did you paint it black?”

“So when I put the rabbit’s name on it, it would stand out.”

Me: “When did it die?”

“Two years ago.”

Me: “You think she’ll even remember she had a pet rabbit?”

“She will after I show her the tombstone.”

“I had a pet turtle once. Before I let it go, I painted its name on its back.”

“Why did you do that?”

“So if someone found him, they’d know what his name was.”

“What was his name?”

“Louie.”

“Isn’t that the name of your cat?”

“Yeah, I name all my pets Louie. That way, you don’t ever forget what to call them.”

“Do you know for certain the turtle was a him?”

“No, I don’t. It could have been a her. Or a gay turtle.”

“Is there a such thing as a gay turtle? How would you know if it was gay?”

“Turn him over, I reckon.”

Me: “Turning the turtle over doesn’t prove whether or not it’s gay. You have to ask him.”

Stupid old men.

A Dog's Tail

Dear Human:

Thanks for choosing these people to leave me with while you are gone.

It’s been most satisfying being with another guy, something I don’t get living with you and the other female dog in our house. There’s another word for her, but I’m way too polite for that. Although, that sometimes makes two of you. Just sayin’.

It’s tough being the only guy in the house.

I gotta tell you, you’re way too hyper, wanting to play with me and take me on walks all the time. Maybe I didn’t realize that sooner because you’re about all I’ve ever known, but these people you left me with are flat-out slugs.

I’m learning it’s a lifestyle that suits me just fine, thank you. If I could get that guy with the large nose to bring my food and sit it down in front of my face, I wouldn’t have to move all day.

Except for bathroom breaks, of course.

I have especially enjoyed being with a man who appreciates that you don’t just ‘poop in the woods.’ You must first frolic amongst the ferns until you come to just the right spot. Fortunately, none of the neighbors have been around this week, so as I have visited their yards, I have been the gift that keeps on giving.

I feel like I have enriched the lives of these people you left me with. They have this retarded cardinal that visits every – and I do mean every – morning starting promptly at 6:30 a.m. He makes a lot of racket jousting with his reflection in the plate glass doors. This goes on all day!

I have taken it upon myself to investigate his behavior, and I see fear in his eyes when I approach the door. He keeps coming back, but as I make an appearance, *poof* he’s gone. Meantime, he makes a real mess on the glass doors. We haven’t got all that figured out yet.

So you’ll know, expect some changes as we reunite.

To start with, I no longer wish to be called Scruffy. From the day you rescued me from the shelter, I’ve thought that name was just a little too cute. You have several options I like better. There’s Scruffarious, which combines my name with ‘nefarious.’ Makes you think I might be up to something (besides eating and sleeping).

I also like The Scruffinator. Sounds tough. But I actually prefer to be called by my ‘rap’ name, Scruff-nacious.

Specifically, Scruffnacious D. The ‘D’ is for dog, of course.

Finally, I will no longer be your “little guy.” I’m part husky, for heaven’s sake. I am not just a dog, I’m a dog with a mission. Right now, my mission is to take a nap.

Later,

Scruffnacious D

Stuff, Part 2: No Souvenirs?

It was almost a conspiracy. Packing for a big trip, we’d think of some clever way to bring treasures back home.

It started with us trying to put most of our clothes in one suitcase, leaving the other almost empty. That eventually morphed into cramming an old soft-side bag in the suitcase. An extra bag for all the things we would buy, of course.

Then, we’d bring nothing home. Almost never.

I’m not so sure that bringing something home from a trip isn’t some sort of proof that you were actually there. Because that picture of you standing in front of the Eiffel Tower isn’t enough, you’d better buy a 3-inch replica of the tower for your mantel.

Many years ago, I bought my wife a new dress in Mexico. It was festive, colorful, and asked (very loudly), “Hey, guess where this dress came from?!”

She wore it once. That it still hangs in her closet after all these years is my little victory.

It’s completely understandable that you want something to remind of the good time you had on your trip, but what do you need? Or what can you actually use once you get home? Even, ‘what do I want to display?’ is a fair question. That’s the tricky part of buying memorabilia.

The way we overcame packing an extra bag ‘just in case’ was to get more practical: shot glasses. They’re cheap, small, and shot glasses actually get used in our house.

My most recent purchase was from Disney World. That Disney World even has shot glasses seems a tad unnatural? Yes, it is the ‘happiest place on earth’ but not because people are standing around shootin’ tequila.

Still, once in a while, I grab that Magic Kingdom and fill ‘er up. I’ve found that my personal stopping point is when “It’s a Small World” becomes “It’s a Crawl World.”

After all.

I also have a green M&M shot glass. While most shooters are 1.5 ounces, Miss Green is 3 ounces, making her a popular lady ‘round here. “Tonight, I’m dancin’ with the big girl!”

Through the years, though, acquiring shot glasses has become a little pointless. Not that it doesn’t still occasionally happen, but we’ve got a hundred of them and only a few friends that will use them with us.

I recently found a box filled with shot glasses I had forgotten we had. My wife had boxed them up and put them away. I wanted to fuss at her for putting my favorite pewter shooter from Germany in the basement, but honestly, I hadn’t missed it, so why start a fight?

About the only other memorabilia we buy anymore is a refrigerator magnet. I’m big on those. “Hey, y’all, I went to Ireland. Look! Brought back a fridge magnet!”

We were fortunate enough to be able to visit Cuba a few years ago, before the current thawing of relations were taking place. What do I have to show for it? It’s on the fridge.

(It’s entirely possible that a person could have brought back cigars and rum, but since that’s technically illegal, let’s say that did not happen.)

But you need something, right? How else will you remember your trip? That’s why tourist stores are filled will all that crap. It sells.

In the end, though, you’re just collecting stuff. And don’t we already have enough stuff? We do. Because of that, these days, about all we possess at the end of a journey are a few photos.

Our most recent trip was to Italy. It was a most memorable vacation, but we left the country empty-handed. No shot glass, no fridge magnet. Nothing.

I did buy a new pair of tennis shoes there, but since I left behind the pair I had completely blown out, I’m calling that even. Besides, I think they also sell New Balance shoes in the states. A good shoe but not exactly fine Italian leather.

On second thought, though, maybe I did souvenir-shop in Italy. We visited a small village winery and at $8 a bottle, I declared it the best value in all of Italy! I must have some! Ship me a case of this stuff, and do it now!

Cost to ship one case of cheap Italian wine: $110, more than doubling the price. So much for the ‘value’ argument. (Note to self: two-hour wine tastings are hard on your pocketbook.)

Besides, aren’t souvenirs something you keep? Wine is hardly a ‘lasting’ memory.

Not around here, anyway.

A Man and His Underwear, Part 1: Undies To Go

I won’t lie, I was bragging. Having just completed a two-week trip packing only a carry-on, I was detailing the contents. Mentioning that I had packed only three pairs of underwear, it took no time at all for someone to ask the obvious question:

Do whut? (Tranlated from Southernese, that’s ‘do what?’ It means, ‘what the heck did you just say?’)

Obviously, this person wanted to question my personal hygiene. At first blush, three pairs of drawers for a fourteen day trip seems an indicator that a person might think they poop sunshine and roses. I get it.

Allow me to explain.

First of all, I am the prime minister of packing. Not only did I pack clothes, the same suitcase contained my wife’s cosmetics, a CPAP machine, and since we would be visiting a country where wine is dominant, I packed a bottle of good bourbon.

There are tricks to packing. Let’s start with the bourbon. Glass is dead weight and breakable. A plastic flask is light and flexible. I take the additional step of wrapping the flask in a gallon-sized baggie in case there’s leakage.

I will confirm that with this amount of liquid, a carry-on cannot be carried on an airplane. It becomes checked luggage.

So if you’re going to check it, why not pack a full-sized suitcase, then? This trip would have many stops, and I didn’t want to lug around any more baggage than necessary. Plus, being an international flight, the bag was checked for free.

You’re asking the right questions, though.

Having been involved in the 4-H program for many years, my wife learned – and taught me - how to ‘pack for camp’ (roll clothes instead of folding). You can fit a lot of tightly-rolled clothes in a suitcase. In fact, I didn’t wear all the clothes I took. I still over-packed!

Helpful hint: you can always pack less. I re-learn that every time we travel.

But back to the underwear thing.

I am an underwearist. An expert in the subject. The original Captain Underpants. In my underwear is how I spend most of my time. I suspect that’s also the cause of several failed relationships, but that’s getting off the point.

I quit college because they didn’t offer an undie-ology degree. So I set out seeking knowledge on my own.

For the uninitiated, there is truly such a thing as travel underwear. They are made of fabric designed to dry quickly and, in some cases, actually wick moisture away from the body. (Leakage, for now, is confined to the flask. Assume that moisture is sweat.)

Two brands I can recommend and own myself: ExOfficio and Magellan. They are two different kinds of fabric, but both wear well. The Magellan brand is a micro-fiber. A traveling companion on this trip complained about his micro-fiber undies. I didn’t get it. They are oh-so-soft and offer good support for… uh… the, uh, things that might need supporting.

(Side note: if you wear regular boxers, stop. Yeah, you may look cooler sitting around the house than you would in briefs, but hear me on this: gravity isn’t just for women. Consider yourself warned.)

While traveling, every couple of days, grab your underwear from the day before and, perhaps still wearing the pair you wore today, hop into the shower. Soap or shampoo does a nice job of cleaning clothes, when required. Hang them up and the next day, you’re starting all over, fresh for the next few days.

Note that it is important to get all the soap out. Failure to do so, along with air-drying them, will lead to owning undergarments you can use as a night stand.

That’s it for now. Keep ‘em clean, smelling sweet, and happy travels, everyone!

Full disclosure: I wrote this while sitting in my underwear.

Tabloids: Exposing the Truth

DUCK HUNTER ACCIDENTALLY KILLS ANGEL!!*

It was that headline many years ago that started my love affair with tabloids. I don’t buy them, mind you, but they make standing in line at the grocery store more tolerable. I mean, am I the only one that wonders if ducks and angels look alike when they’re just flying around?

(Quick side note, Jennifer Aniston is pregnant. US Weekly said so back in 2013. If she doesn’t have that baby soon, man, that’s gonna be a really painful birth!)

A friend recently posted a story about how a 200-year old letter predicting World War III has surfaced, also predicting it will be a war against Islam. My friend posted it, all sarcasm intended, giving his social media followers a heads-up that the story was out there and to expect conspiracy theorists to share it.

What I noticed, though, was that it was from a British source called the Express. Knowing that the Brits are famous for their tabloids, I decided to see what else might be news according to Express. So I logged on.

The top story that day – or week, maybe: a sink hole developing in a yard in Berkshirehamptonshireworchestershire… some ‘shire’ place is all I remember. Regardless, a family had discovered the sink hole and in it were steps leading down. I think we all know what that means: Lucifer is using the yards of ordinary British citizens to go back and forth while doing his dirty work on Earth. That’s what that means.

However, I was more taken by the other major headline of the day. It seems a news reader (we’d say ‘news anchor’) in Albania was showing off a little of herself during her news programs, and there were allegations her newscasts were enhanced. Literally.

Not so, she says. All of her parts are real.

I have a tiny bit of reporter instinct and a whole lot of manly curiosity about all of this, not to mention I also know a little about Albania from having watched a 1993 episode of “Cheers.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_tT-q8EF0

The reporter part of me wants to know why a newscaster flashes any personal skin during her nightly news. OK, if I were being 100% honest, I’d admit I also wondered what she/they looked like, but let’s keep this professional.

Turns out, this is a local station with some huge audience numbers for its news, thanks largely (I’m guessing) to the fact that the reporters are all attractive females and deliver the news with their blouses completely unbuttoned.

That do get your attention.

The news reader singled out of this Express story was above average in that region just below the chin, and there were allegations that what she presented (other than the news) wasn’t real. That this was making the news indicates a pretty slow day in tabloidism.

But wait, there’s more (to the story)!

This station in Albania was the center of major British tabloid attention last fall after they fired a presenter who went on to pose for Playboy. The irony of that story was that the fired anchor was, herself, the very reason this station presents news as they do.

Enki Bracaj was fresh out of college and trying to (ahem) stand out during auditions for the news job at the station, so she unbuttoned her shirt and started reading. Her name may have the word ‘bra’ in it, but her shirt did not.

The bosses were impressed, and she was hired on the spot.

In fact, claiming they were looking for a new approach to interest viewers, they decided to use that look for all of their news presenters. No bra, shirt open. Oh, and yes, all women. And to make sure viewers understood the nobility of their reasoning, they claimed it would give viewers, “the naked truth” as it pertained to news.

As I said before, the concept has been a hit.

So what happened? Why was the original news reader fired?

I don’t know.

I’ll guess that the station thought her posing completely nude compromised her integrity as a partially-nude news anchor, but I don’t know. My research lead me to stories with pictures of the reporters, and I sort of got distracted.

The end.

Probably why I never got a job with a major news network.

Probably.

*I recognize that Mitch Albom has a book with a similar title. I’ve never read it, but I’m sure it’s not the true story I read over 25 years ago waiting in line at the Piggly Wiggly.

Stuff, Part 1: Collectibles vs. Stuff

Almost everybody collects something. It starts early, and I’m still waiting to see how it ends. Pause here for a moment, and let your memory fill in the blank:

“As a kid, I collected_____.”

Baseball cards, dolls (perhaps a specific kind of doll), coins, books, stamps, rocks, Beanie Babies… action figures, perhaps?

Later, we leave this childishness behind and move on to more grown-up toys: dishes, cars, spouses, vintage jewelry, pewter, pottery… anybody else ever collect matchbooks?

Hard to find matchbooks these days. I suppose that’s because of the perception that they promote smoking. Forget the fact that you light candles, incense, fireplaces and have an old recliner in the yard that needs burning. If you have a book of matches, you are going to go straight to the store to buy cigarettes, and we ain’t having none of that.

I’ll use our matchbook collection to get us to where we’re going by asking, where is your collection now?

Our matchbooks are in a large jar in the basement. The. Basement. That’s where we keep things like mattresses and broken chairs and doors. Doors?

As a kid, I collected coins. My collection is pretty small, and I doubt there’s much of value in it. Lots of pennies and nickels. I keep it in a vintage suitcase that has broken hinges and will not lock, and it’s… somewhere… in a room, under a bed, under a chest, in a closet. Maybe in the basement. No, probably in the basement.

Do I get it out occasionally? No. Do I have any hankering to actually check and see if I at one point stumbled onto a truly valuable coin? No. Do I share its contents with anyone? No.

Hey, I can’t even tell you where it is!

So I submit to you that at some point, depending on how you treat your collectibles, they just become stuff. And stuff tends to become clutter. And clutter is useless.

I was going brew my own beer, so I started collecting flippies. Flip-top bottles. That was 20 years ago. Still got the bottles. They hang out… say it together…”in the basement!”

We have two collections of dishes. My wife collected Jewel Tea, and I collected Currier and Ives. Neither is terribly valuable nor hard to find. Do we use them? No. Display them? Nope. Any plans to do either of those things? Nay.

So recently, we decided to (using our word) dejunkify. If these collectibles had crossed over to just “stuff” territory, let’s shed ourselves of some of it.

Let’s start with the dishes. No, forget the dishes. Her collection connects her to her grandma that collected Jewel Tea. My dishes are the dishes I grew up eating on, so let’s keep those. Besides, if we free up all that shelf space, what’s gonna go there? Can’t just have empty shelf space, right?

But, hey now, those flippies. Yeah, I can get rid of those. In fact, the journey has begun. They are now in the garage. I know because I’ve seen them everyday for the last eight months since I moved them there. So, I’m doing my part.

My wife is not.

She tried. At one point in her career an entomologist, she has an odd collection of vintage sprayers. Yeah, bug sprayers, garden sprayers. They’re shiny, made of metal. But they are in a storage room taking up space and of no use to us. Nor the rest of mankind.

But you can’t just trash them. I mean, getting rid of them from the house is one thing, but you just can’t get rid of them! They’re antiques.

Aren’t they? Maybe?

Let’s just hold on to them for now until we can find someone who wants them. Perhaps one day we’ll be in a mall somewhere, and a gentleman will just walk up to us and ask, “Hey, by any chance, do you guys have some old bugs sprayers?”

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Now, if we can just find that man…

The Last Laugh (Ballad of Jim Hadaway)

Jim was a joker. Like a lot of older guys that think they’re funny, most of his humor made you roll your eyes and groan. Old man humor is its own animal.

Waitress: “And how would you like your steak?”

Old man: “Cooked.”

The server laughs, and you know she just wants to lean over and hug that old man for making her day with the funniest thing she’s heard all year! Before she kills him dead right there.

Jim and I were unlikely buddies, being a full generation apart in age. We became acquainted by playing golf as part of a large group that would gather almost daily for what’s commonly called a ‘dog fight.’

One day, after our dog fight, I wound up at his house to help him split some firewood. That’s where we bonded. We both shared the love of a warm fire, so finding and splitting wood became a thing for us. And we did it all year long.

Before his stroke a couple of years ago, we’d always split enough wood for the both of us and have enough left over to sell ten to fifteen truckloads. That was Jim’s thing. The old man was old school. He’d worked all his life, made and squandered a couple of fortunes, and like to tell me about it. I always figured selling a few loads of firewood every winter kept him feeling productive as he approached his eighties.

Over the years, we perfected a system whereby we’d have whole tree trunks delivered to his back yard by the dump truck load. Such a load would require several weeks of after-golf working to split and stack.

I imagine if we’d ever sat down to figure out how much it cost to keep three chainsaws and a splitter running, we’d probably have gotten out of that little hobby. But it wasn’t just the about the wood-splitting.

It was also about happy hour.

If golf ran until 3:30 or 4 o’clock, we could get a solid hour or so of splitting in until it was time for refreshments. Jim declared it against union rules to work past 5 o’clock, so really, what choice did we have but to quit and drink?

Even as Jim gave up golf, we would time our wood-cutting sessions to end at 5 o’clock and retire to his screened-in porch for tales and toddies. Drinks poured or beers popped, Jim would launch into his stories.

He’d always start with, “Have I told you about the time…” Yes, he had told me, usually more than once, but I always said no just to hear what embellishment was going to be added with this telling.

I never really thought of his story-telling as lying. Rather, I liked to think of it as him remembering some detail he had previously omitted.

Following his first stroke, Jim’s participation in wood-cutting sessions was as foreman, shouting instructions from his porch on where to stack wood and how high, because in the 10 years we’d been doing it together, I apparently hadn’t learned that.

By the way, the proper height for stacking wood is high enough that you can discreetly take a leak, and no one driving past your house can see you. I did learn that.

Through all of the years of our B-S sessions, Jim had repeatedly promised that when he died, he’d leave me his underwear and socks. Old man humor again. I mean, isn’t promising to leave your buddy your socks and underwear hysterical?

I think my biggest fear was that he might actually do it. I had played golf with him enough to know that his underwear was the very definition of hazmat.

Two years after his first stroke, Jim had another one. I lost a friend, but he left me with plenty of warm, silly, dumb, idiotic memories and stories to last me for a while. Plus, I got his PBR.

Jim drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. Post-stroke, he required help, and his wife needed whatever participation he could offer in getting him dressed, bathed and going about the business of the day, so she tried to keep in on a two-a-day limit. Given that, a few cases would last quite a while.

Upon his passing, there were two cases of PBR that I felt needed a home. I knew his wife had better taste, so I just loaded them up and took ‘em. I do believe that upon my own passing, there will still be the better part of two cases left. If you like PBR, no offense.

I spoke at Jim’s memorial. Jim had fun with his life, and I aimed to have some fun with it, as well. I recalled how he seemed to most enjoy telling me about the things that went awry in his life: bar fights, failed marriages, bum business partners or deals, too much drink… I had heard them all always questioned what amount of truth they contained.

At his memorial, I called him out. I did. Right there in the First Methodist Church chapel, I called Jim a liar. I told the over-flowing gathering that he had promised me his underwear and socks, but that he had not delivered on that promise. Most folks there thought that was pretty funny.

It was interesting to see the faces of those gathered as I spoke. I brought as much laughter as I could tastefully invoke. But there’s always the few, the old-line few, that think a funeral or memorial is a strictly somber occasion, that it is not a time or place for happiness.

Those folks are getting left behind by those of us that choose to be grateful to have been a part of a well-lived life. Almost every memorial I’ve attended in the last decade has been generally uplifting. Sure, there are tears, but there is joy, and yes, plenty of laughter as we relive the precious – frequently amusing – memories of the life we are there to celebrate.

If I have the opportunity to plan my own exit, expect hijinks. And BBQ and beer.

At age 80, I’m convinced Jim knew he was near the end of his journey. He spoke of it frequently, though not in a weighty manner. And he planned. He had taken necessary steps to donate his body to a medical college. He had also arranged for an attorney/friend to be his executor in order to free his wife of that responsibility.

This week, the postman delivered a package to my house. It was from an address I did not recognize. Turns out, it was from the executor of Jim’s estate. In the box, underwear and socks. A tee shirt and the patriotic bandana Jim frequently wore when we split wood had also been included.

I spent the rest of the day laughing. That’s exactly how Jim would have wanted it.

I’ll keep the bandana. Probably the t-shirt, too. But the underwear, that’s one precious memory that will not linger!

Know Any Lawyer Jokes?

What happened to the law profession? Seriously.

One of my best friends for the last 45 years of my life is a lawyer. I recall us many years ago discussing then-upcoming changes that would finally allow attorneys to advertise. Being employed in radio, a medium that makes its money off advertising, I was all for it. My buddy was not. He felt like it would cheapen the profession.

Boy, did he ever get that right.

Television shows today are filled with ads featuring attorneys screaming, dancing, rapping, flipping, standing on top of vehicles, bragging about how much money they’ve won for clients and positioning themselves as courtroom badasses, all in an attempt to get you to go after ‘your share, what you are owed.’

Attorneys and law firms spend enormous amounts of money trying to convince you that if your life is inconvenienced by any little nuance, you may be entitled to a settlement.

You are the victim. You are the aggrieved. You deserve to get some money. It’s your right! Fight for your right! Sue somebody!

Forget the fact that there are ever-increasingly more bodies on this earth in ever-increasingly crowded spaces. Forget that fact that accidents happen, that we bump into one another from time to time. Nowadays, you best bump into someone else, hoss, ‘cause if you so much as look at me cross-eyed, I’m gonna call the strong man of the law, and he is going to take you downtown! He done said so on TV!

Didn’t the law profession have some dignity at one time? What went wrong? Did lawyers just wake up one day and say, “you know what? Screw dignity. There’s a 30% commission to be made. Let us go forth as sue-ers and find us some sue-ees!”

Lawyering has always been a bit of a put-upon profession. I suppose that’s because lawyers have always been involved in settling disputes. And in settling disputes, there’s usually a losing side.

Ever wondered why every single thing we buy these days has so much paperwork attached to it? Why coffee from the drive-through has warnings that it’s hot? Why Apple’s website tells you not to eat your iPod Shuffle? Why there’s a warning on the toy scooter that tells you ‘this product moves when used?’ Why the department store puts up a sign warning you not to chew gum from the urinal?

It’s the same reason your insurance premiums keep going up. Every time someone wins in court, someone else pays.

I do realize that the practice of law covers many areas not associated with personal injury. There are many good lawyers doing many good works (I’m told). There are lawyers that wouldn’t sue someone even if you had a legitimate case, because that’s not what they do.

What we’re addressing here are TV lawyers, attorneys that spend wads of cash to convince you that you’ve been victimized. To my mind, the practice of personal injury attorneys has entered the same space occupied by payday loaning and title pawning.

Dick, the butcher, in Shakespeare’s Henry The Sixth said, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” If ol’ Dick had followed through, I’m thinkin’ television viewing would be a lot more tolerable today.

Disclaimer: if you have been offended by this article, you may be entitled to a settlement. Call 1-800-LETS SUE.

Free Money (Money For Nothing, Pt.2)

It’s an ongoing conversation with friends: will you pick up a penny? If it’s just lying there on the ground, will you pick it up?

My general policy is that I don’t leave money lying on the ground, period. Apparently, I’m pretty much alone, though, when it comes to pennies. Most folks think a penny isn’t worth it. A former co-worker put it like this, “I won’t spend the energy for a penny, but if it’s silver, I will crawl under your car for it!”

I get that. Finding a dime or quarter is winning vagabond bingo.

But on the off-chance that you, like me, think money is money – and there is no such thing as money not worth picking up – today, I channel my inner hobo and offer tips for finding free money.

Pay attention.

First of all, forget Casey Kasem. He urged his listeners to “keep reaching for the stars.” Bump that. Keep your head down at all times. There ain’t no money in the stars or in the air. It’s in the parking lot. Walk with your head down, eyes open.

The kind of parking lots matters; they are not created equally.

Parking lots at drug stores are fertile ground for loose change. Think about it. Who uses drug stores the most? Old people. Old people either don’t know they’ve dropped coins or think they may pass out if they bend over to pick them up.

I always park as far away from the front door of a drug store as possible to maximize the territory I can cover. Whatever I find will offset the cost of the fiber I’m there to buy.

Speaking of old people, you should target the parking lots of restaurants that old people enjoy. I do not mean to disparage the names of some fine eateries, but if you’ve got a Shoney’s in your town, Yahtzee!!

Denny’s, IHOP, Red Lobster… dump the kids out, and let ‘em scour the parking lot. First one to find daddy a quarter wins!

Grocery store parking lots are also very happy hunting grounds. First, there’s the sheer number of people getting in and out of their cars. Secondly, translate that number into how many hands go in and out of pockets for keys. There’s change in them there pockets.

Here’s one you might overlook: parking lots in front of buffets. Next time you’re in a buffet restaurant, pay attention to the patrons. True, most of them are older, but most of them are also large. I’m seeing people that drop coins but couldn’t reach the ground if they tried to bend over to pick them up. Bonus: lots of them have just gotten change from the cashier as they left!

Finally, one of the very best places to find coinage is the parking lot at a golf course. There are several reasons, starting with the fact that golfers frequently use loose change to spot their balls before putting. Even if they don’t, coins in their pockets get mixed in with the tees, ball markers, and other paraphernalia necessary for an outing on the course. As they clean their pockets at the end of the round, there it goes: a dime here, a nickel there…

Bonus time again: golfers drink. And after a few of beers, do you really care that you’ve dropped a penny or two? No, you don’t. So now we have not only loose change, but we have it being handled by drunks. Winner, winner, pay for dinner!

So to summarize today’s lesson, we have just covered how to take advantage of the elderly, the obese, and the social miscreants (golfers). I think our work here is done.

Next time I see you with your hands in your pockets, I hope you’re playing with loose change.

Eat Your Veggies

As we grow older, we seem to constantly be dieting.

We put on a few pounds, then a few pounds more, and eventually, we’re always paying attention to what we eat. Or at least thinking we should be paying attention.

To that end, we tend to move away from such huge portions of meat, gravitating toward what’s supposedly ‘good for us.’

That would be vegetables. At least, that’s what mama said.

So let us now ask the important question, and then we’ll examine the answer:

“What is a vegetable?”

While I like the notion that grass-fed beef is a vegetable (hey, all it ate was grass!), I seek a deeper, more thoughtful discussion.

Squash, eggplant, tomatoes, and okra are all vegetables. Okay, they are actually all fruits since they come from a flower, but we are going to use conventional thinking here and just let them be vegetables.

A lot of people – like me – do not like vegetables, including, but not limited to, the aforementioned garden foods, unless they’ve been fried or put into a casserole with lots of other yummy stuff.

However, in order to insure a more healthy diet for myself, I’ve learned to think outside the box.

The pizza box.

Yes, friends, leave off the sausage and pepperoni and what you have is a veggie mix.

Some of you will want to challenge me: “what about the cheese?”

Cheese is not meat and therefore doesn’t count.

“What about the crust?”

Again, not meat. In this case it’s simply an edible plate for your nutritious feast. Have another slice of vegetables.

Recently, I’ve had my eyes opened to vegetables in a way I never expected, and I want to share it with you.

We were at a small-town diner for lunch, and one of the menu items was a vegetable plate. You picked four veggies for their list, they added cornbread, and you were a healthy-eating machine.

Now, I usually completely ignore vegetable plates, but I was intrigued by the list. There were the usual Southern suspects: green bean, mashed potatoes, and collards.

But wait, it gets better.

-fried okra (see previous comments)

-squash casserole (see previous comments)

-mashed potatoes (yes, I know, but I forgot to tell you they were served with gravy)

The list was extensive.

And right there, right there at the end of the vegetable options…

Mac ‘n Cheese.

Mais oui, bazinga, yahtzee and of course! I am moved to poetry.

All these years

I never knew.

It’s on the list,

You know it’s true!

Tonight, I begin my diet anew, eating plenty of veggies. Say hello to the new, healthier me.

Birthdays With Zeros

I’ve just hit my 60^th birthday. Ugh.

Birthdays featuring zeros are viewed as events that make us older. Take turning forty, for instance. It’s hard to do, but then you have ten years to be a 40-something before you have to face fifty. I don’t mind being sixty, I just don’t like the number.

I also don’t like the fact that I’m now starting to see a sixty year-old man in the mirror. That probably is how everyone feels at some point. We all would like to think we don’t look as old as we really are. One day, reality sets in, and denial is futile.

I do like that I get to move up to the white tees, so I’ve got that going for me. (Note: regardless of color, they are referred to as the ‘senior’ tees. That is, until you move up to them. Then, they are referred to by their color. ‘Cause we ain’t seniors!)

My 59^th year was a good one. It was my first full year of retirement, and my wife and I roamed around a lot. Disney World, Boston, Amsterdam, New York City, Mexico… but I’ve apparently left a little hair in each place. The current version of me is getting quite thin on the dome.

My apologies to housekeeping.

How does it feel, you ask? Since I’m in good shape (not yet a fully-inflated beach ball), reasonably active (I get out of the golf cart to swing at the ball), and healthy (what triple bypass?), turning sixty feels no different than turning fifty. Or forty, for that matter. Just another day in the life.

Because I spend most of my time living my life, I rarely take time to reflect on it. But I found myself doing just that the other day.

Get the picture: we’re on the Georgia coast, and it’s a cool but sunny day. A little restaurant on the marina with a reputation for serving tasty food has brought us our lunch and bloody marys. We’re sitting beside a picture window looking at hundreds of boats of all sizes, moored to the piers, bobbing gently in the tidal waters.

I’m thinking, ‘man, you can’t beat this life,’ when a man appears on the boardwalk, nicely dressed and walking to his boat. The way he is dressed and the fact that there is a golf bag hanging from his shoulder leave little doubt as to where he is going.

When I go golfing, I throw my clubs in the back of my pick-up truck. Not this guy. He’s got a yacht.

Curses. I’ve just been one-upped.

Kissin' Cousins (and other kin)

My wife is saying goodbye to her family. She kisses her father, then, she kisses her mother. Next, both sisters. The problem: she kisses them all on the lips.

Gross.

I’m sorry (not), y’all, but I think kissin’ your kinfolk on the lips is nasty. Good on you, if that’s what you do, but leave me out. In fact, give me enough warning so I don’t have to watch.

I don’t kiss my own mom on the lips. We do cheeks. Go ahead and say it. “One day, your mama’s not going to be around, and you’re gonna wish you had kissed her lips a little more!”

No, I’m not.

I may wish I had gone for one more visit or stayed on the phone a little longer, but I’m not going to wish I had kissed her lips more. That seems odd for a grown guy to do.

Since I’m not opposed to a quick kiss on the lips from some people, I am forced to examine my criteria for who can and who cannot. Let’s start by eliminating immediate family. That will include mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. My sister gave me a peck on the lips twenty years ago, and I’m still not over it.

We should eliminate in-laws, too. Unless they’re really hot.

I like air kissing. You know, like Europeans do, where you just kiss the air on each side of the face. Except let’s just do it on one side. And don’t ever expect me to do it with another guy.

I think kissing on the lips can be acceptable in the once-removed category. For instance, cousins are probably OK. But not aunts or uncles. That’s too close to mom or dad territory.

Girls seem to be good with casually kissing other girls. They are the more nurturing gender, so I’m OK with that if…. they aren’t kin. But guys should not kiss other guys as a simple gesture of friendship. That weirds me out.

One other category should be mentioned: dog kissers. If you let your dog lick you on the lips, don’t ask me to.

Yuck.

I’m going away now. Feel free to just wave.

Walkin' Down a Country Road (Reminiscing)

The harvest is almost done. It’s that time of year.

I am walking with my wife along the edge of a cotton field that has been picked, its stalks cut and waiting to be tilled back into the soil. And I feel really good.

I am very fortunate to have grown up in a time and place where I got a little taste of pre-modern life. My family spent a fair amount of time at both of my great-grand parents’ houses in Dallas, Georgia.

In the 1960s, Dallas was hillbilly country. Now, it’s basically just more Atlanta.

Both places had an old-fashion well where you cranked a bucket on a rope down into the hole, let the bucket fill up, then cranked ‘er back up. A ladle hung on the well post for dipping and sipping that cool water you had just pulled up from the ground. As a young boy, I didn’t think of it as old-fashioned, I thought of it as being pretty cool.

Not everything there was pretty cool, however.

At both places, there was an outhouse, and we used them. Even as they got indoor plumbing, the kids - that meant me - still had to use the outhouse. Yes, there was a Sears & Roebuck catalog in there. And yes, you tore off pages to clean your business.

What I also remember about one of the outhouse was that yellow jackets tended to congregate around whatever deposits had been made.

It might be useful to know that the back portion of the old outhouses were open – at least a foot or so off the ground – to allow them to be shoveled out from time to time. Any manner of critters had easy access.

I never had to shovel one out, but I did have to put my bare bottom and other associated parts onto a hole in a wooden plank that was situated about two feet above where some bees were buzzing. I saw that as a threat to my manhood. Or little boyhood.

Whatever. It was always a bit unnerving.

One of my great-grandfathers had a chicken house. It was a single house, but he was raising chickens commercially, even if on a small scale. It was always fun when he got a fresh load of baby chicks in. We kids would go into the chicken house and play with them.

These days, going into a chicken house is almost a hazmat operation where you have to wear special gear and get hosed down with some cleaning solution. Looking back now, though, “I played with your foo-ood! I played wid jo foo-ood!”

If I’m being honest, I have to admit I never got the hang of milking a cow. My great-grandmother tried to teach me a couple of times. I was afraid I was hurting the cow. With that little stream of snuff juice oozing from the corner of her mouth, I’m right certain hurting the cow as of no concern to Grandmama.

The point of this little waltz down memory lane is that I have some connection to the farm. At least occasionally I was amongst the chicks, the cows, the pigs, the donkeys…

And they all smelled better than that dang outhouse.

The very first summer job I had was hoeing nutgrass out of peanut fields. I spent another miserable summer working for an entomologist who had me collecting and counting stinkbug eggs from soybean plots.

My wife has even more exposure to the farm. She spent one summer cropping tobacco. That set her on a career path of “anything but that!” Her chosen career as an entomologist, though, wound up keeping her close to farms and farmers.

There are things you pick up from the farm - from the country - that never leave you. The smell of freshly-cut hay, the smell of freshly dug peanuts.

They fill your senses so strongly that when you get the chance to experience them again, they bring you closer to earth, closer to the dirt that sustains you.

I love the city I live in, and my farming experience now is limited to a lone tomato or pepper plant in a pot out on the deck. So walking with my wife on this sandy dirt road, alongside this abandoned railroad track, past this cotton field, past this over-grown pond, through this tall stand of pine trees, I feel something.

I’m not really sure where it’s taking me back to, but it has a hold on me.

Feels a lot like home.

Real Man Food

It’s no great revelation that our tastes change as we, uh… mature.

Think about the first wine you drank. Pink right? Or peach or strawberry or whatever Boone’s Farm blend you could get your hand on. 

White zinfandel, which is pink, is still popular with novices. In fairness to white zin, it’s still popular with girls and gay guys, too. No offense intended; I have girl friends and gay guy friends. I know what they like.

My own wine experience started with sauterne, which is a dessert wine. I recall drinking it over pizza with a girlfriend. It’s really sweet and a terrible choice with pizza, but it’s where your taste buds are. Or were.  

These days, I prefer syrahs, zins (not white), and cabernets: rich, hardy, almost heavy wines with lots of big tannins and a warm alcohol feel.

Coffee is another good example of changing tastes. It’s pretty common to start drinking it with lots of milk and sugar which, except for it being hot, makes it more like a coffee milk shake. I’m a late-in-life coffee drinker, but I only want it one way: black and strong.

Chocolate: I will eat creamy milk chocolate if you offer it, but I would marry a Hershey’s Special Dark bar if the law allowed and it could say “I do”.

Syrup: Aunt Jemima is for sissies. Give me a buttered biscuit and some blackstrap molasses - or sorghum, and get out of my way!

Anchovies: Like most folks, I grew up thinking they were yucky. Now, I routinely use anchovy paste in certain dishes. Sardines? Nothing but big anchovies. Open a can and let’s eat.

Spices and herbs: more, more, more! Pepper, cumin, and cilantro. Garlic could duke it out with dark chocolate for my deepest affections.

But you see the trend, yes?  Bigger, bolder, richer... words already used.  Here’s another word that applies: stinkier.  I want my cheese to stink. Bleu, gorgonzola… give me any cheese with mold in it. That seems odd to even say.

But ‘stinky’ seems like a good place to stop and begin to address the elephant in the room. And that is how all of this affects us. More importantly, how it affects the people around us. Or we could just ignore it. 

Either way, COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE OPEN A WINDOW AND GET SOME FRESH AIR IN HERE!?!?