The year is 1948. I am two and a half. We have lived in Minneapolis for the last two years in the house on Ewing Avenue South. We will move again in two years to Virginia where my father will be an army captain at Fort Belvoire and my sister will be born when I am six.
My mother has never lived away from her family, and although she has made many friends here this first time she moves away from her hometown, she will not be so resilient the next eight times she moves and will sink into chronic mildly functional depression. Perhaps to avert that inevitability, perhaps a prescient dream has told her, perhaps because she is lonely for the friends she has had for more than thirty years, perhaps because my father travels the state to sell chemicals for Pittsburgh Plate Glass and leaves her alone with me from Monday to Friday, girlfriends from her hometown in Ohio visit this summer.
Our house is small. White clapboards shelter two bedrooms, a living room that opens to a dining room, the kitchen, single bath and stairs to the attic where the floor, painted cream and spattered with primary red, green, blue, and yellow, delights me. This decorating statement may be from a previous owner too timid to display energy in the public areas of the house. Indeed, the living room is papered with two-inch cream and off-white stripes.
“Aunt” Margaret, a spinster with whom my mother taught grade school, and whose brother she once dated but didn’t marry because he was Catholic, and Aunt Georgia, whose husbands proliferate throughout my young life, each one wealthier than the last, arrive in her '48 Cadillac to visit for a week. I can’t remember any of her last names.
Nor can I remember where they sleep, but I do remember the paisley comforter they sleep under, feathers of orange and blue intertwined on a sea of pale yellow. When we moved from Minneapolis to Virginia and then to Albuquerque, it remained boxed, probably at my grandmother’s house in Ohio. Not until we move back to Minneapolis for a couple of years until my dad was transferred yet again, this time to Illinois, do I see it.
Aunt Margaret always brings me books and reads to me. She carries herself with dignity and never misses mass. When we live in Albuquerque, she lights candles in the ancient church in Old Town, candles for her parents and the brother my mom had dated, now, sadly, dead.
Aunt Georgia wears her hair tied up in a scarf, with shorts and halter to match. She delights me in ways only a boy can appreciate. Her best trick is to sit on the toilet and boom out farts that echo in the bowl against water, against porcelain. Each time she uses the bathroom, I follow her in, a giggling shadow at her side. Each poot reverberates in the tiny space. Each time I laugh until my side aches.
No doubt we trek to Daytons in downtown Minneapolis – long before malls are built. No doubt we walk to Lake Harriet to watch the ducks and geese. No doubt we lounge on the beach at Lake Calhoun. Perhaps I even wade chest high under watchful eyes. No doubt.
Somewhere in heavenly life Aunt Margaret lights candles and prays. And somewhere Aunt Georgia delights celestial boys by sitting on the pot, reverberating farts.
Please comment below on your childhood memories.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Veterans Day
At the Eleventh hour on the Eleventh day of the Eleventh month in 1918, hostilities ended in the Great War, the War to end all Wars, the one we know today as World War I.
President Woodrow Wilson declared Armistice Day the following year to commemorate the end of the war. We celebrated Armistice Day until 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the commemoration to Veterans Day.
Today we honor those men and women who have fought for freedom in the armed services of the United States.
Let light perpetual shine upon those who died in the service of our country as well as those who have died since.
And we honor those who continue to live: Veterans of World War II, the Korean Conflict, Viet Nam (including my best man Mike Baldwin!), Somalia, Kosovo, the first Gulf War, and the mess we continue to fight currently, as well as all other conflicts we have been involved in. We also honor those Veterans who were lucky enough to serve in times of peace, especially Derek, who chose me his dad several years ago.
(Unfortunately we have devalued this day by declaring it a time to have special sales. Somehow the American way is about buying mattresses rather than honoring the lives of people who have served our country to keep our freedom.)
Thank you, Veterans, for your sacrifices. We honor you and appreciate your courage.
Click comments below to name those veterans you honor.
President Woodrow Wilson declared Armistice Day the following year to commemorate the end of the war. We celebrated Armistice Day until 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the commemoration to Veterans Day.
Today we honor those men and women who have fought for freedom in the armed services of the United States.
Let light perpetual shine upon those who died in the service of our country as well as those who have died since.
And we honor those who continue to live: Veterans of World War II, the Korean Conflict, Viet Nam (including my best man Mike Baldwin!), Somalia, Kosovo, the first Gulf War, and the mess we continue to fight currently, as well as all other conflicts we have been involved in. We also honor those Veterans who were lucky enough to serve in times of peace, especially Derek, who chose me his dad several years ago.
(Unfortunately we have devalued this day by declaring it a time to have special sales. Somehow the American way is about buying mattresses rather than honoring the lives of people who have served our country to keep our freedom.)
Thank you, Veterans, for your sacrifices. We honor you and appreciate your courage.
Click comments below to name those veterans you honor.
Eurabia and Fear Mongering
I am tired of people trying to scare me to death. We live constantly in fear from
*terrorists (or at least those in government who tell us terrorists will hit malls this Christmas shopping season even though they could wreak more havoc at a Bears’ game),
*toy makers trying to poison our children,
*the heart association (and the cancer society and a myriad of doctors who tell us about the toxins in our systems, the food we eat, the danger of red meat, coffee, chocolate, food in general),
*researchers who point out that test scores among school children are falling and America will soon be filled with illiterates,
*bankers and economists,
*you name it.
The most recent fear monger is an expat American living in Norway. I have been reading his disturbing book called While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within by Bruce Bawer (Doubleday, 2006).
Bawer says that Europe has a huge number of Muslim immigrants who do the same kind of work that many of our illegals supposedly do. Bawer draws a clear distinction between moderate Muslims and Islamists, whom he describes as fundamentalist fanatics.
The problem, he says, is that while most Europeans deny any bigotry based on color/race, or origin, or religion, they completely segregate (isolate, separate, alienate, and all those other ates) immigrants, keep them on the dole, and condescendingly call them “our colorful immigrants.” Europeans don’t want them – or any foreigners/outsiders - to integrate into society and allow them to remain outsiders, even calling children and grandchildren second and third generation immigrants rather than giving them full citizenship. This turns even the most moderate Muslim into an Islamist.
Many of these immigrants never learn the language of the country they live in, and their children go to religious rather than public schools. And the Europeans support the schools, the imams, and the mosques with huge monetary grants. The immigrants never assimilate into European society and never follow the laws of the country to which they have moved. Rather, they live in ghettos, follow fundamentalist Muslim law above national law, and have become a huge force that works against the country in which they live.
The murder/assassination of Theo VanGogh a couple years ago in the Netherlands is a prime example of fanatics following religious law above national law, Bawer says. Immigrants feel compelled by their religion to kill infidels. And while this drew great public attention, the rape of European women because they dress, according to Islamist belief, like whores becomes acceptable and the women no longer are victims because they violate the fanatics’ core beliefs. In France, he points out, many young French women cover their heads to avoid the rapes and beatings from Muslim youths who beat and rape them for their immodesty.
These fanatics, Bawer also says, have such strong Islamist values that they practice widespread female genital mutilation, beating of women, and “honor” killings of women who violate the Islamist’s beliefs by having the misfortune to be raped, thereby bringing dishonor on their families. The rapists go free under sharia, Islamist law. European courts, rather than allowing themselves to be seen as biased, excuse the crimes as cultural. That, of course is terrible.
Bawer, I believe, is sincere. And making money from his book, which is ranked 1,733 in sales on Amazon, 7,193 on www.barnesandnoble.com. (I was glad to get into the low 100,000s when my novel Family Plot was in print.) But living in the middle of the European culture wars, and comparing them with America’s relatively open society, which does not provide financial support for Muslims to remain separate, keeps him from having a broader perspective.
The Economist (November 3, 2007, “The power of private prayer: A heretical thought about religion in Europe,” p. 9) debunks Bawer’s hysteria: “[T]he imminent arrival of Eurabia can be dismissed as poor mathematics. Muslim minorities in Europe are indeed growing fast and causing political friction, but they account for less than 5% of the total population by American standards of immigration. Even if that proportion trebles in the next 20 years, Eruabia will still be a long way off.”
Of course, as long as Europe remains segregated, cultural problems will magnify. I have no pretensions of telling Europeans what to do about the “problem” of Muslims. In fact, the “Muslim problem” of today sounds scarily like the “Jewish problem” that got the Nazis going.
But I do have a word for American experts who work for their own ends by spouting fear in the various media every day (which raises my blood pressure and will cause my early death!). I want to hear from reasoned, intelligent people who truly have my best interests (not their own paychecks) at heart.
Otherwise, fear mongers should shut the hell up.
Please click comments below and let me know what you think.
*terrorists (or at least those in government who tell us terrorists will hit malls this Christmas shopping season even though they could wreak more havoc at a Bears’ game),
*toy makers trying to poison our children,
*the heart association (and the cancer society and a myriad of doctors who tell us about the toxins in our systems, the food we eat, the danger of red meat, coffee, chocolate, food in general),
*researchers who point out that test scores among school children are falling and America will soon be filled with illiterates,
*bankers and economists,
*you name it.
The most recent fear monger is an expat American living in Norway. I have been reading his disturbing book called While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within by Bruce Bawer (Doubleday, 2006).
Bawer says that Europe has a huge number of Muslim immigrants who do the same kind of work that many of our illegals supposedly do. Bawer draws a clear distinction between moderate Muslims and Islamists, whom he describes as fundamentalist fanatics.
The problem, he says, is that while most Europeans deny any bigotry based on color/race, or origin, or religion, they completely segregate (isolate, separate, alienate, and all those other ates) immigrants, keep them on the dole, and condescendingly call them “our colorful immigrants.” Europeans don’t want them – or any foreigners/outsiders - to integrate into society and allow them to remain outsiders, even calling children and grandchildren second and third generation immigrants rather than giving them full citizenship. This turns even the most moderate Muslim into an Islamist.
Many of these immigrants never learn the language of the country they live in, and their children go to religious rather than public schools. And the Europeans support the schools, the imams, and the mosques with huge monetary grants. The immigrants never assimilate into European society and never follow the laws of the country to which they have moved. Rather, they live in ghettos, follow fundamentalist Muslim law above national law, and have become a huge force that works against the country in which they live.
The murder/assassination of Theo VanGogh a couple years ago in the Netherlands is a prime example of fanatics following religious law above national law, Bawer says. Immigrants feel compelled by their religion to kill infidels. And while this drew great public attention, the rape of European women because they dress, according to Islamist belief, like whores becomes acceptable and the women no longer are victims because they violate the fanatics’ core beliefs. In France, he points out, many young French women cover their heads to avoid the rapes and beatings from Muslim youths who beat and rape them for their immodesty.
These fanatics, Bawer also says, have such strong Islamist values that they practice widespread female genital mutilation, beating of women, and “honor” killings of women who violate the Islamist’s beliefs by having the misfortune to be raped, thereby bringing dishonor on their families. The rapists go free under sharia, Islamist law. European courts, rather than allowing themselves to be seen as biased, excuse the crimes as cultural. That, of course is terrible.
Bawer, I believe, is sincere. And making money from his book, which is ranked 1,733 in sales on Amazon, 7,193 on www.barnesandnoble.com. (I was glad to get into the low 100,000s when my novel Family Plot was in print.) But living in the middle of the European culture wars, and comparing them with America’s relatively open society, which does not provide financial support for Muslims to remain separate, keeps him from having a broader perspective.
The Economist (November 3, 2007, “The power of private prayer: A heretical thought about religion in Europe,” p. 9) debunks Bawer’s hysteria: “[T]he imminent arrival of Eurabia can be dismissed as poor mathematics. Muslim minorities in Europe are indeed growing fast and causing political friction, but they account for less than 5% of the total population by American standards of immigration. Even if that proportion trebles in the next 20 years, Eruabia will still be a long way off.”
Of course, as long as Europe remains segregated, cultural problems will magnify. I have no pretensions of telling Europeans what to do about the “problem” of Muslims. In fact, the “Muslim problem” of today sounds scarily like the “Jewish problem” that got the Nazis going.
But I do have a word for American experts who work for their own ends by spouting fear in the various media every day (which raises my blood pressure and will cause my early death!). I want to hear from reasoned, intelligent people who truly have my best interests (not their own paychecks) at heart.
Otherwise, fear mongers should shut the hell up.
Please click comments below and let me know what you think.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Central Standard / Daylight Savings Time
I hate changing to and from Daylight Savings Time.
It heralds the beginning of flu season, caused by the stress of not sleeping correctly. It messes up children’s body clocks and hinders them from learning, even when they have the extra hour to sleep in the fall. I know it puts my body clock out of synch, and I am convinced that I am not the only adult to whom this happens.
It was probably a good idea at the time, during the last “good” war when a paternalistic government gave workers more daylight in which to play after their shifts at war industries making the products that helped us win WW II. It allowed children more time to play in the daylight after school in the good old days when they didn’t have two hours of homework every night beginning in third grade, and when they weren’t thralls to video games and the television.
Farmers never liked the time change. My late Uncle Acen (who died in 1967) never changed the clocks on his farm in Central Illinois near Arcola. Rather, he kept them on “God’s time.” He always said the cows didn’t know if it were daylight savings time or not, they just kept on their own schedule and needed to be milked when they needed to be milked. Ironically, he grew broom corn, which migrant workers from Oklahoma harvested each fall. He and my Aunt Edith, my father’s eldest sister, didn’t have livestock except for the occasional beef steer, some gigantic hogs, a few geese for Christmas, a smattering of chickens for eggs, and a German Shepherd named Bernice.
Nor did they have running water in the house. There was a hand pump at the kitchen sink and a reservoir on the wood stove in the kitchen they kept filled for hot water. When they needed to wash themselves, they would undress except for a robe, go outside and open bulkhead to cellar, go down the steps, and then stand under the reservoir in the kitchen, pull a chain and shower. Briefly.
(Uncle Acen was a curmudgeon, and so am I. He was not my role model, however. I somehow just grew into the job.)
Sometimes after a time change it takes me a couple months to change all the clocks in the house. The digital ones are harder than the ones with hands, except for our antique clocks which cannot be turned backward without breaking the works or forward too fast because the chimes go fonky. The ones in the cars are easier than they used to be, but I still need to get out the manual to figure it out. I don’t wear a watch, but the digital ones used to drive me insane because I’d lose the directions and only certain males under the age of sixteen could figure out how to adjust the time on them.
On the first day after a time change I wake up on my previous time no matter when I went to bed the night before. By the third day I am a wreck. This morning I poured cream all over the counter instead of into my coffee. I slopped coffee on my hand and robe because I couldn’t manage the cup correctly. If I follow true to form, I’ll be fine by the end of the week, but revert the second week. After that I find a routine. When I was teaching, my students were worse the second week, too. I can’t imagine what happens to automobile mechanics or Air Traffic Controllers if they have the same reactions I do (there’s a horror show in the making!).
I do have an idea. While we could do away with changing time altogether, I don’t think that would solve the problem.
What I believe we ought to do is split the difference.
WHAT? Turn the clocks ahead half an hour once in the spring and never touch them again? Am I crazy!
The idea is not without precedent. India is on a single time zone, with the time based on the center (east to west) of the country. That puts it ten hours and thirty minutes later than Central Standard Time. Thus when it’s noon here, it’s 10:30 in the evening there. Is this a problem? For some people, no doubt it is. But most manage to adjust. On the bright side, if we switched our time by 30 minutes, all those out-sourced workers who answer our computer questions might have it easier figuring out when to call us back after we’ve been put into the telephone queue.
If we changed the time in the United States by 30 minutes past Standard Time, we would still have time zones, but we would never have to adjust our bodies, or our clocks and watches, again. Schools might change the time they start and stop. They do it all the time. Businesses could also adjust, and save money because they would adjust the time only once.
And if we never fiddled with the settings on clocks, despite not being on “God’s time,” even Uncle Acen might approve.
Please comment by clicking on comments immediately after the graphic of the pencil.
And thanks for stopping by!
It heralds the beginning of flu season, caused by the stress of not sleeping correctly. It messes up children’s body clocks and hinders them from learning, even when they have the extra hour to sleep in the fall. I know it puts my body clock out of synch, and I am convinced that I am not the only adult to whom this happens.
It was probably a good idea at the time, during the last “good” war when a paternalistic government gave workers more daylight in which to play after their shifts at war industries making the products that helped us win WW II. It allowed children more time to play in the daylight after school in the good old days when they didn’t have two hours of homework every night beginning in third grade, and when they weren’t thralls to video games and the television.
Farmers never liked the time change. My late Uncle Acen (who died in 1967) never changed the clocks on his farm in Central Illinois near Arcola. Rather, he kept them on “God’s time.” He always said the cows didn’t know if it were daylight savings time or not, they just kept on their own schedule and needed to be milked when they needed to be milked. Ironically, he grew broom corn, which migrant workers from Oklahoma harvested each fall. He and my Aunt Edith, my father’s eldest sister, didn’t have livestock except for the occasional beef steer, some gigantic hogs, a few geese for Christmas, a smattering of chickens for eggs, and a German Shepherd named Bernice.
Nor did they have running water in the house. There was a hand pump at the kitchen sink and a reservoir on the wood stove in the kitchen they kept filled for hot water. When they needed to wash themselves, they would undress except for a robe, go outside and open bulkhead to cellar, go down the steps, and then stand under the reservoir in the kitchen, pull a chain and shower. Briefly.
(Uncle Acen was a curmudgeon, and so am I. He was not my role model, however. I somehow just grew into the job.)
Sometimes after a time change it takes me a couple months to change all the clocks in the house. The digital ones are harder than the ones with hands, except for our antique clocks which cannot be turned backward without breaking the works or forward too fast because the chimes go fonky. The ones in the cars are easier than they used to be, but I still need to get out the manual to figure it out. I don’t wear a watch, but the digital ones used to drive me insane because I’d lose the directions and only certain males under the age of sixteen could figure out how to adjust the time on them.
On the first day after a time change I wake up on my previous time no matter when I went to bed the night before. By the third day I am a wreck. This morning I poured cream all over the counter instead of into my coffee. I slopped coffee on my hand and robe because I couldn’t manage the cup correctly. If I follow true to form, I’ll be fine by the end of the week, but revert the second week. After that I find a routine. When I was teaching, my students were worse the second week, too. I can’t imagine what happens to automobile mechanics or Air Traffic Controllers if they have the same reactions I do (there’s a horror show in the making!).
I do have an idea. While we could do away with changing time altogether, I don’t think that would solve the problem.
What I believe we ought to do is split the difference.
WHAT? Turn the clocks ahead half an hour once in the spring and never touch them again? Am I crazy!
The idea is not without precedent. India is on a single time zone, with the time based on the center (east to west) of the country. That puts it ten hours and thirty minutes later than Central Standard Time. Thus when it’s noon here, it’s 10:30 in the evening there. Is this a problem? For some people, no doubt it is. But most manage to adjust. On the bright side, if we switched our time by 30 minutes, all those out-sourced workers who answer our computer questions might have it easier figuring out when to call us back after we’ve been put into the telephone queue.
If we changed the time in the United States by 30 minutes past Standard Time, we would still have time zones, but we would never have to adjust our bodies, or our clocks and watches, again. Schools might change the time they start and stop. They do it all the time. Businesses could also adjust, and save money because they would adjust the time only once.
And if we never fiddled with the settings on clocks, despite not being on “God’s time,” even Uncle Acen might approve.
Please comment by clicking on comments immediately after the graphic of the pencil.
And thanks for stopping by!
Monday, October 15, 2007
The world is too much with us
Please click comments at the bottom of this piece and tell me your thoughts. You don’t even have to sign your name.
William Wordsworth wrote “The world is too much with us, late and soon . . .” When I read the newspaper I am sometimes inclined to agree, but most times the world is with us and we are with the world. And it’s usually good.
On a national level, for instance, Ann Coulter has decreed from her infinite and mean-spirited wisdom that the United States is a Christian Country. She says that Jews, for instance, need to be “perfected,” whatever that means. Her solution to the Muslim “problem” is "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." She leaves no room for the myriad religions practiced – or not – in our country today. The founding fathers in the Constitution of the United States declared in the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights for those paying attention (obviously not A. C. who has confused herself somehow with J. C.) that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That doesn’t say to me that Ms. Coulter should become our own national Ayatollah who decides how people should believe or think. Somehow people who know they are right just know they are right.
But being part of the world isn’t all bad. More locally a close acquaintance died a couple of weeks ago. The opposite of mean-spirited Ann Coulter, Wilma was kind and generous and hard working. After she retired from teaching she started her own travel agency, which she was part of until just a couple of years ago. When she died, Wilma was 91, and we took a couple of river cruises with her within the last five years: one from Venice up the Po to several cities like Padua; and one from Bucharest, Romania, by coach to Constanta on the Black Sea, up the Danube to Budapest. She kept up with (or surpassed!) all of us in our group, saw all the sights, enjoyed a drink or two before dinner, discussed politics and current affairs knowledgeably, was a fascinating woman who never lost her mental alertness, played a mean game of bridge, loved the Cubs, and remained interested and interesting until the end of her life. She joined us occasionally at dinner with mutual friends, and also participated in their annual Passover Seder with enthusiasm. We shall miss her. More, however, we’ll cherish the time we spent together.
And the world isn’t always sad, either. Our grandson David is on Fall Break from Beloit College in Wisconsin. (We see his brother Jonathan at least once a week. He’s fifteen, and that’s sometimes enough said. He is a delight, though.) We haven’t seen David since August, and we’ll have an opportunity to spend time with him, bake him some cookies with black and orange Halloween M&M’s, and have a meal at our favorite restaurant, Flavor.
Sepaking of. Chicago Public Television’s program Check Please, which has three ordinary people review their favorite restaurants each week, reviewed my cousin Rochelle’s restaurant, Flavor in Flossmoor this weekend. Rochelle was pretty nervous, even after the show aired. But Flavor got good reviews for having great food, a friendly atmosphere, and as one reviewer said, the friendliness is “a digestive.” I never thought about using the word that way, but it’s true. I always meet new and interesting people when we eat at Flavor. Sometimes when it’s crowded we tell the host that we’ll be glad to share a table, and we always find interesting conversation when we do that.
This Thursday Margaret Murphy will appear with her trio on Flavor’s weekly jazz bill. She is a wonderful musician and vocalist, and has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand, if you’ll pardon the pun. We plan on being there and you can probably watch me steppin’ with my wife, who is a wonderful dancer, and my cousin Rochelle.
Despite Ann Coulter and her negative view of the world, people like Wilma, restaurants like Flavor, singers like Margaret Murphy, and grandchildren, what can be bad?
William Wordsworth wrote “The world is too much with us, late and soon . . .” When I read the newspaper I am sometimes inclined to agree, but most times the world is with us and we are with the world. And it’s usually good.
On a national level, for instance, Ann Coulter has decreed from her infinite and mean-spirited wisdom that the United States is a Christian Country. She says that Jews, for instance, need to be “perfected,” whatever that means. Her solution to the Muslim “problem” is "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." She leaves no room for the myriad religions practiced – or not – in our country today. The founding fathers in the Constitution of the United States declared in the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights for those paying attention (obviously not A. C. who has confused herself somehow with J. C.) that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That doesn’t say to me that Ms. Coulter should become our own national Ayatollah who decides how people should believe or think. Somehow people who know they are right just know they are right.
But being part of the world isn’t all bad. More locally a close acquaintance died a couple of weeks ago. The opposite of mean-spirited Ann Coulter, Wilma was kind and generous and hard working. After she retired from teaching she started her own travel agency, which she was part of until just a couple of years ago. When she died, Wilma was 91, and we took a couple of river cruises with her within the last five years: one from Venice up the Po to several cities like Padua; and one from Bucharest, Romania, by coach to Constanta on the Black Sea, up the Danube to Budapest. She kept up with (or surpassed!) all of us in our group, saw all the sights, enjoyed a drink or two before dinner, discussed politics and current affairs knowledgeably, was a fascinating woman who never lost her mental alertness, played a mean game of bridge, loved the Cubs, and remained interested and interesting until the end of her life. She joined us occasionally at dinner with mutual friends, and also participated in their annual Passover Seder with enthusiasm. We shall miss her. More, however, we’ll cherish the time we spent together.
And the world isn’t always sad, either. Our grandson David is on Fall Break from Beloit College in Wisconsin. (We see his brother Jonathan at least once a week. He’s fifteen, and that’s sometimes enough said. He is a delight, though.) We haven’t seen David since August, and we’ll have an opportunity to spend time with him, bake him some cookies with black and orange Halloween M&M’s, and have a meal at our favorite restaurant, Flavor.
Sepaking of. Chicago Public Television’s program Check Please, which has three ordinary people review their favorite restaurants each week, reviewed my cousin Rochelle’s restaurant, Flavor in Flossmoor this weekend. Rochelle was pretty nervous, even after the show aired. But Flavor got good reviews for having great food, a friendly atmosphere, and as one reviewer said, the friendliness is “a digestive.” I never thought about using the word that way, but it’s true. I always meet new and interesting people when we eat at Flavor. Sometimes when it’s crowded we tell the host that we’ll be glad to share a table, and we always find interesting conversation when we do that.
This Thursday Margaret Murphy will appear with her trio on Flavor’s weekly jazz bill. She is a wonderful musician and vocalist, and has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand, if you’ll pardon the pun. We plan on being there and you can probably watch me steppin’ with my wife, who is a wonderful dancer, and my cousin Rochelle.
Despite Ann Coulter and her negative view of the world, people like Wilma, restaurants like Flavor, singers like Margaret Murphy, and grandchildren, what can be bad?
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Check this out
My grandson sent me this video of Raul Midon that I think you'll enjoy. Double click on it to play the video of this marvelous musician.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Sports Genes
I don’t have a sports gene.
Usually that doesn’t cause problems. But despite the continuing warm weather here in Chicago’s South burbs, the holidays are peeping over the horizon and we are starting to think about who’s hosting what, who’s spending the holidays with whom.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter particularly are family and friend holidays, I believe. When we host these celebrations, we invite our chosen family, their families, and various friends. Usually around fifteen or so people come. We see some of them, for whatever reason, no more than a couple times a year.
When we host Thanksgiving, we have a traditional menu: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry orange relish, jellied cranberry sauce, my Grandma’s dry dressing (mmmmmm), green beans with sliced almonds or fresh artichokes, salad, stuffed celery, giant green and black olives, Bobby Christopher’s chocolate maple pecan pie, pumpkin pie with cream I whip at the table, parker house rolls, wine and drinks. We open a can of cranberry sauce, but otherwise we make everything from scratch. We bake the day before, get up early on Thanksgiving morning and put the turkey in, and then get started peeling potatoes, making some kind of sweet potato soufflé, and so on. It’s hard work, but we love to do it for people we love.
We always suggest to our guests that if there’s something not on our menu that screams family dinner for them, they should bring it. Someone always shows up with their family’s special event dish, usually made with cream of mushroom soup and some sort of vegetables, and cheese, or cream of mushroom soup, green beans and canned fried onions. I’m not big on Campbell casseroles, but it’s comfort food for a lot of people, bless their hearts. Usually someone picks up a frozen apple pie that we don’t have oven room for. We set it aside and eat it eventually.
After we eat, I like to take a walk to settle my food so I can have another piece of pecan pie later. I prefer to play board games or chat with people I haven’t seen in a long time before we serve the gang turkey sandwiches for supper. After all the work, which Ann and I share, we need to do something sedentary, especially as we age and begin to realize we can’t do the kind of things we used to. Conversation is the perfect solution.
We have had some interesting Thanksgivings over the years. There was the time Ann had surgery the Monday before the holiday, came home from the hospital on Wednesday, and lay on the couch, totally incapable of cooking. Both sets of our parents were alive at that time and they all came, along with my sister, her husband and my niece. My father-in-law got up around five and clomped around the house in the belief that if he were up, everyone else should be. I cooked the dinner and got everything out at the same time with minimal help. But when we sat down to eat, my mother-in-law had disappeared. Our relationship was tenuous at best. I had worked hard to get everything together and I was irritated, but mild irritation turned to fury when we found her, eventually, shoveling snow off the street in front of our house. I may well have said a couple bad words in an uncharitable moment.
On Thanksgiving the year after my son died, his friends Bill and John showed up. They had spent Thanksgiving evening with us for several years before Daniel died. Bill told us, “My dad said, ‘Isn’t it time you go to Mosers?’ He just wanted us out of the house.” I am not sure Bill’s dad even knew about Daniel. We spent hours catching up and reminiscing about Daniel, and they didn’t leave until after eleven that night. God bless Bill’s father.
Another time we spent Thanksgiving with friends who had a huge house and invited about forty people all together. They asked me to be in charge of the kitchen because in a former life I was a professional cook. We had an interim priest while we were looking for a permanent one, and after everyone else was served, I finally collapsed with my food at the table next to him and his grown son. “You’re not as dumb as I thought you were,” Fr. Hess said, shoveling food into his mouth. I stared at him blankly. “I mean, you’re smarter than I thought.” My mouth dropped open. “You’re smarter than you look.” Finally his son said, “Dad, shut up.” I think he was trying to tell me that I had pulled the dinner together, everyone was served at the same time, and the food tasted good. He just couldn’t get it out.
I haven’t forgotten that I started out this essay about my lack of sports gene, and I am wending my way back, as is my habit, to my point:
Lately after Thanksgiving dinner, everyone rushes from the table into the family room to watch a really important football game. All conversation comes to a halt. If I try to talk with people I haven’t seen for months, I am met with the same kind of stares I gave Fr. Hess or asked to go into a different room because “we are watching the game.” It makes me feel as if they regard me as merely the person who cooks and cleans – for their benefit. None of us do very much for nothing, and I expect my pay off to be conversation. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
We haven’t decided what we’re going to do about Thanksgiving this year. Maybe we’ll just let ourselves be invited out. If we decide to host the dinner, the invitation could note that if the football game is paramount, people should stay home and watch TV.
Or maybe I should look for a sports gene splice instead.
Please share your interesting, unusual, bitter or funny holiday dinner experiences by clicking on comments below.
Usually that doesn’t cause problems. But despite the continuing warm weather here in Chicago’s South burbs, the holidays are peeping over the horizon and we are starting to think about who’s hosting what, who’s spending the holidays with whom.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter particularly are family and friend holidays, I believe. When we host these celebrations, we invite our chosen family, their families, and various friends. Usually around fifteen or so people come. We see some of them, for whatever reason, no more than a couple times a year.
When we host Thanksgiving, we have a traditional menu: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry orange relish, jellied cranberry sauce, my Grandma’s dry dressing (mmmmmm), green beans with sliced almonds or fresh artichokes, salad, stuffed celery, giant green and black olives, Bobby Christopher’s chocolate maple pecan pie, pumpkin pie with cream I whip at the table, parker house rolls, wine and drinks. We open a can of cranberry sauce, but otherwise we make everything from scratch. We bake the day before, get up early on Thanksgiving morning and put the turkey in, and then get started peeling potatoes, making some kind of sweet potato soufflé, and so on. It’s hard work, but we love to do it for people we love.
We always suggest to our guests that if there’s something not on our menu that screams family dinner for them, they should bring it. Someone always shows up with their family’s special event dish, usually made with cream of mushroom soup and some sort of vegetables, and cheese, or cream of mushroom soup, green beans and canned fried onions. I’m not big on Campbell casseroles, but it’s comfort food for a lot of people, bless their hearts. Usually someone picks up a frozen apple pie that we don’t have oven room for. We set it aside and eat it eventually.
After we eat, I like to take a walk to settle my food so I can have another piece of pecan pie later. I prefer to play board games or chat with people I haven’t seen in a long time before we serve the gang turkey sandwiches for supper. After all the work, which Ann and I share, we need to do something sedentary, especially as we age and begin to realize we can’t do the kind of things we used to. Conversation is the perfect solution.
We have had some interesting Thanksgivings over the years. There was the time Ann had surgery the Monday before the holiday, came home from the hospital on Wednesday, and lay on the couch, totally incapable of cooking. Both sets of our parents were alive at that time and they all came, along with my sister, her husband and my niece. My father-in-law got up around five and clomped around the house in the belief that if he were up, everyone else should be. I cooked the dinner and got everything out at the same time with minimal help. But when we sat down to eat, my mother-in-law had disappeared. Our relationship was tenuous at best. I had worked hard to get everything together and I was irritated, but mild irritation turned to fury when we found her, eventually, shoveling snow off the street in front of our house. I may well have said a couple bad words in an uncharitable moment.
On Thanksgiving the year after my son died, his friends Bill and John showed up. They had spent Thanksgiving evening with us for several years before Daniel died. Bill told us, “My dad said, ‘Isn’t it time you go to Mosers?’ He just wanted us out of the house.” I am not sure Bill’s dad even knew about Daniel. We spent hours catching up and reminiscing about Daniel, and they didn’t leave until after eleven that night. God bless Bill’s father.
Another time we spent Thanksgiving with friends who had a huge house and invited about forty people all together. They asked me to be in charge of the kitchen because in a former life I was a professional cook. We had an interim priest while we were looking for a permanent one, and after everyone else was served, I finally collapsed with my food at the table next to him and his grown son. “You’re not as dumb as I thought you were,” Fr. Hess said, shoveling food into his mouth. I stared at him blankly. “I mean, you’re smarter than I thought.” My mouth dropped open. “You’re smarter than you look.” Finally his son said, “Dad, shut up.” I think he was trying to tell me that I had pulled the dinner together, everyone was served at the same time, and the food tasted good. He just couldn’t get it out.
I haven’t forgotten that I started out this essay about my lack of sports gene, and I am wending my way back, as is my habit, to my point:
Lately after Thanksgiving dinner, everyone rushes from the table into the family room to watch a really important football game. All conversation comes to a halt. If I try to talk with people I haven’t seen for months, I am met with the same kind of stares I gave Fr. Hess or asked to go into a different room because “we are watching the game.” It makes me feel as if they regard me as merely the person who cooks and cleans – for their benefit. None of us do very much for nothing, and I expect my pay off to be conversation. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
We haven’t decided what we’re going to do about Thanksgiving this year. Maybe we’ll just let ourselves be invited out. If we decide to host the dinner, the invitation could note that if the football game is paramount, people should stay home and watch TV.
Or maybe I should look for a sports gene splice instead.
Please share your interesting, unusual, bitter or funny holiday dinner experiences by clicking on comments below.
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