A Guide To Foodiedumb

                       

Attention foodies: this is the blog post you have been waiting to read.  The other day I was watching three plus size guys ladling some creation onto hotdogs and eating them with great gusto.  While I prefer my waste meat tubes adorned more traditionally, the show inspired me to share with my five and one-half regular readers some of the culinary insights I have gleaned over the last half century.

I want to assure you that I am not some inexperienced boob trying to put something over on you.  It was during my corporate career that I demonstrated my originality and daring flair for gastric concoction.  A committee charged with boosting the staff’s morale, decided to create a cookbook made up of recipes submitted by the department members themselves.  As you might imagine, most of the contributions were family favorites like Gary’s Faux Chicken Appendages and Granny’s Polish Flank Steak.  These submissions were nice, as far as they went, but I decided the cookbook needed something more groundbreaking if it was to truly lift the morale of the department members.

With that charge in mind, I spent many a long hour experimenting in the kitchen.  Finally, after numerous false starts, I created a tasty treat that would become the measure of good taste at Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s better dinner parties.  Utilizing orange circus peanuts, pretzel sticks and m&m candies the Peanut Man was born (send me your email address in the comments section and I will gladly send you the complete recipe).  The reaction to The Peanut Man was, at first, shock, and then enthusiastic acceptance.  I recite this story not to toot my own horn, but to establish my bona fides and now that I have done so, I will not bore you any further with my triumph.  The remainder of this post will attempt to synthesize many of the lessons I’ve learned regarding food and the dining experience itself.

Who knows how or when life will provide the experiences that will influence your thinking over your lifetime?  For me, many of my early insights into food occurred during a mid-seventies trip to Ecuador.  It was during this trip that I learned, what I like to call, “The Four Legs of the Food Table:” Presentation, Atmosphere, Preparation, and Experimentation.

So let us begin our discourse with a short discussion of Presentation.  Many of us have been to an upscale restaurant and ordered an entrée because we were dazzled by the waiter’s description of the meal.  The recitation of ingredients include things you didn’t even know were food and everything is drizzled in something.  When your meal is delivered to your table you’re not sure whether you should eat it or frame it.  Usually, this gastronomical masterpiece consists of very little actual food and you  pay $49 a plate for a postage stamp size piece of beef or fish with all kinds of unknown things that make it beautiful.  That’s the power of Presentation.

The $49 dollar plate is the upper part of the scale.  I learned about presentation from the lower depths of that very same scale.  One day while walking the streets of Quito with my companions, Gary and Pat, we saw a man who was running a little sidewalk operation that consisted of two small hibachi style grills.  On each grill was an entire varmint including head and teeth.  He was grilling guinea pigs.  Being from the U.S., I was a little more comfortable with petting a guinea pig than I was eating the darn thing.  I’ve been around enough and have learned not to make fun of what various cultures around the world eat.  And, had this guinea pig been on the grill in the shape of pig nuggets or tiny drumsticks, I probably would have given it a try.  But that head and those teeth made it feel like there was an open question as to who was going to bite into whom.  On this occasion, not surprisingly, presentation prevented me from trying a local delicacy enjoyed by many, many Ecuadorians.

“Available at your finer kindergartens” 

Now let’s focus on Atmosphere.  Most everyone has been to a restaurant where it is too noisy to carry on a conversation. The atmosphere in such a place goes a long way toward ruining an essential part of sharing a meal.  On the other hand, you have probably been to a place that makes you feel at home, or is particularly romantic and though the food is not the greatest, the atmosphere makes up for it and you find yourself returning for the ambiance.

Once again, I turn to Ecuador, to make a few simple points about atmosphere.  One late afternoon, the three of us went into a small restaurant for dinner.  Not long after ordering something to drink, I got up to use the restroom.  Like many of these small restaurants, it was necessary to pass through the kitchen on the way to the facilities.  As I started through the kitchen, I noticed a very large black rat sitting on the stove.  I hurried to the restroom and when I returned to our table, I began to tell Pat and Gary what I had seen in the kitchen.  Just as I was telling them about spotting the rat, we heard screams and saw the cook run into the dining room with a broom raised above her head, chasing the rat.  The rat ran under a few tables, scattering diners, with the cook in hot pursuit.  Finally, the rat headed out the open door and the cook went back to preparing food.  We finished our drinks and left.  It would not be an exaggeration to say the atmosphere in that particular restaurant was a primary factor in our decision to leave.

Another of the major elements driving the dining experience is Preparation.  Let’s face it, if the food stinks, you're going to need tons of atmosphere and presentation to make up for bad food.

Once more, our trip to Ecuador is informative.  This restaurant was doing well with atmosphere, as there were colorful, well-spaced tables and interesting works of art on the walls.  As we settled in, I, after a careful perusal of the menu, chose a chicken stew.  When the stew was brought to the table I was impressed with the generous portion, served in a large bowl.  As I dug in, I discovered a whole, raw, totally frozen chicken leg in the bottom of the bowl.  You don’t have to have a particularly well-developed pallet to know this is not up to the standards of your finer dining establishments.  As a result, we left the restaurant and were unable to recommend the place to fellow travelers.

That brings us to the final leg of the dining table, Experimentation.   I never thought I would live to see the day when bartenders, who create cocktails, would become sought after and celebrated personages.  For $12 a pop, they will whip up something unique to the taste buds and beautiful to the eye.  There are so many choices that there is a menu for cocktails alone.  Experimentation is the key element driving this phenomenon.

Once again, Ecuador is illustrative when it come to beverage experimentation. One fine day we found ourselves on a yellow school bus type vehicle heading to the southeast corner of Ecuador and into the Amazon Basin.  The ride was beautiful along a red clay road.  The grass was almost as high as the bottom of the bus windows and swayed hypnotically with the breeze.  There were trees with red, yellow, and green foliage and primitive homes on stilts along the riverbanks.

As we made our way, the bus suddenly lurched to a stop and the engine died.  All the passengers piled off into the tropical heat and I made my way to the front of the bus where the driver and his assistant were discussing what to do. Soon they opened the hood and the assistant climbed inside the space around the engine and removed the air filter.  The driver then handed the assistant a gas can and got behind the wheel.  The assistant took a huge mouthful of gasoline and while the driver cranked the ignition, he spit the gas directly into the carburetor.  And it worked.  The engine roared back to life and we all got back on the bus.  Once we were all seated, the assistant walked down the aisle asking if anyone had any Chiclets.

About two weeks ago, I read in the Star Tribune about a fellow in some Central American country who tried the same method to start a bus and ended up suffering severe burns on his face, head and chest.

So, if you are ever at a cocktail lounge and see a drink called a “Gasoline Mist” on the menu, I recommend you not order it unless you have a pocketful of Chiclets and can enjoy your cocktail away from any sparks or open flames.

This concludes our discussion of the “Four Legs of the Food Table.”  The information imparted here should go a long way to assisting you in becoming a full fledged foodie and give you the confidence you will need to invite other foodies over to the house for dinner.

In constructing this post, I didn’t want to appeal solely to the food sophisticate.  So for the folks who like food but look at it as fuel and are brown liquor and beer people, I have slipped in a few helpful hints.  To sum it up, I suggest, if you find a rat in your kitchen, chase it out the back door and away from the dining area.  When serving chicken, it is never all right to serve it frozen and raw.  And last but not least, if you are barbequing some critter that used to run around on all fours, remove the head.  There is an exception to this rule. When you are feeding relatives, who usually eat whatever they can hit with their car, leave the head attached.  They will expect nothing less. If you follow these simple hints, your next dinner party or barbeque is likely to be a smash hit.

Dangerous Women

In June I will be traveling to the Black Hills.  It has been almost exactly 20 years since I drove west to see this part of the U.S.A.. 

The last time we went, the Teacher was a little girl and the Crazy Horse Monument was just beginning to take shape.  The state of South Dakota is like two different places, divided by the Missouri River.  East of the river is flat, prairie grasslands with little to offer visitors outside of the two or three birth places of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Poor Mrs. Wilder must have been in labor for weeks in order to have birthed Laura in multiple locations.  West of the Missouri, the state becomes mountainous, beautiful, and sacred to the Native Americans, who lived there for centuries.

The last time we visited, we did the usual tourist type things which included a visit to Thunderhead Mountain where the Crazy Horse Monument was being carved out of the top of the mountain.  The scope of the sculpture is breath taking.  To give you an idea of the size of the monument, the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore are 60 feet from top to bottom.  The image of Crazy Horse’s face is 87 feet.  When we were out there 20 years ago, we were told that a four-bedroom house could fit into the nostril of Crazy Horse’s pony.  When the monument is completed it is expected to be the world’s largest sculpture.

This all came about when an Oglala Lakota chief, Henry Standing Bear, wrote Polish American sculptor, Korszak Ziolkowski, in 1929 inquiring about the creation of a monument to honor Native American heroes.  Henry Standing Bear’s letter began the process that resulted in work beginning on the Crazy Horse Monument in 1948.  Ziolkowski created a non-profit that funded the project without any state of federal assistance.  He died in 1982 and his wife and 7 of his 10 children have continued working to complete the project.

The project is not without its Native American critics.  Crazy Horse was buried in secret and some believe it is against his spirit to carve up a mountain in his honor.  Others are upset that the sculpture shows Crazy Horse pointing which is taboo in Lakota tradition.  I think John Fire Lane Deer, a Lakota Medicine Man, captured the essence of the opposition when he opined the whole idea of carving up a sacred mountain to create an image is “pollution of the landscape and against the spirit of Crazy Horse.”

I think those opposed to the monument have some very valid points.  However, I have not seen or read anything where any Native American group is asking people to stay away from the site, so off we go.  I am going to see what the last 20 years of work have accomplished.  I am also fascinated with the idea of a project this massive, in this day and age, when we, as a nation, no longer seem to be able to dream this big.

By now, you are probably wondering what the hell this has to do with dangerous women.  To understand the connection we will need to travel back in time some 40 years, when I last hit the road with the two women I will be traveling with this summer.

The danger began early when Panzy Ann, Marjorie Ann, and I dropped off a car in Houston on our way to Mexico.  As I was heading up to the cashier of the diner where we had lunch, a big business man with a silver front tooth, asked me if I would like to sell Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann to him.  Now, I don’t know if those two were vamping and batting their eyes earlier when I was in the restroom, but they had some how drawn the attention of this entrepreneur.  Putting aside my own pecuniary interests, I indicated that I wished to keep both of them and concluded our business discussion on amiable terms thus avoiding an ugly scene.

I never have felt Panzy Ann or Marjorie Ann appreciated my efforts on their behalf.  A couple of years ago, I contacted Percy Crumphfuffle, a Vice President of Business Ethics at J. P. Morgan Co. and asked him if I would have been in the wrong, ethically, had I sold one or both of them to the Houston businessman.  Mr. Crumphuffle informed me that I could have made the transaction ethically because it was a mere exchange of goods and services for consideration.  He did say the Houston party might have had trouble perfecting his ownership of the two women because of over regulation by the federal government, but that would not have been my problem, especially if I left Houston quickly after the transaction.

Once we got to Mexico, Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann again drew considerable attention to themselves.  Women in Mexico did not go out alone without a male member of their family as a chaperone back in those times.  The only time you saw women was if you were invited to someone’s home or they were working in a family business or at the market.  So the mere fact that Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann were traveling around with me instantly labeled them as, what the kids today call, “fast women.”   Thus, I was again called upon to negotiate an offer for their services from two Samaritans who had offered us a ride and subsequently pulled off the road because of fake car trouble and asked me how much I wanted for the two of them.  Once again, putting my own financial well being aside, I told the fellows they would have to ask Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann directly what they were charging for their services.  Of course, I was taking a calculated risk that they would not ask the women and was proven correct when we were merely dumped off in the desert at high noon.

Again, I don’t think Panzy Ann or Marjorie Ann appreciated the skill with which I had negotiated this situation, let alone the money I had again left on the table.

Things continued to be interesting due to these young American women provocatively traveling around with out their fathers.  And so it was we found ourselves needing to travel north up the west coast of Mexico to Mazatlan, to catch a ferry that would take us across the Gulf of California to La Paz on the south eastern side of the Baja Peninsula.

We were hitchhiking along the west coast, about five hours from our destination, when a semi stopped to pick us up.  The driver jumped out and opened the passenger side door of his cab and motioned for Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann to climb inside.  The truck was the old style without a sleeping compartment.  There was a bench seat that could accommodate three people.  As Pansy Ann and Marjorie Ann happily climbed in, the driver opened a small compartment on the side of the truck and stored their backpacks.  That left me standing on the side of the road wondering what was going on.  The driver walked over and patted the gas tank that was behind the cab and in front of the trailer he was hauling, indicating I should climb on top of the gas tank.  Then he threw my backpack onto the tank and again gestured for me to climb up.  We were still five hours from Mazatlan and up against a hard deadline so I reluctantly climbed aboard.

As we took off, it became quickly apparent that I would need to stand up and hold on to a bar attached to the cab with my backpack wedged between my legs.  As we went along, the backpack and I would vibrate toward the side of the tank and absent the maintaining of a degree of vigilance, would have vibrated off the tank to the road below, causing a heck of a mess.  As I took my standing position, I found my self between two unmuffled exhaust pipes, belching smoke, and causing brain-rattling noise.  And there I stood for five hours literally roaring down the highway.

I have to say I have had more comfortable rides.  What added insult to injury was my looking through a little oval window in the back of the cab and seeing Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann talking with the driver and laughing and seeming to be having just a grand old time.  I’m not too proud to admit that I wiled away the last hour of the ride fantasizing about strangling them both.  Every now and then one of them would turn and smile and wave at me, not in a mocking way, as I believe neither one of them thought I wasn’t having a nice ride and thinking we were all happy we were going to make our destination on time.

When we finally reached Mazatlan, I climbed off the gas tank, physically exhausted with my brain feeling like a glob of jelly.   It didn’t take long for Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann to realize that my ride hadn’t been anywhere near as pleasant as theirs and they took over making sure we got to the ferry and boarded the ship on time.

I don’t think my traveling companions were at fault in this situation, but I do doubt the driver would have stopped if there had been three men hitchhiking that day. I do suggest, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you insist your female companions wear fake beards and mustaches to avoid having to ride on the outside of the vehicle.

The danger continued when we reached the Baja.  After an interesting episode on the west coast that I have already written about (See: Naked Came the Gringo), we decided to hitch hike back to La Paz.  There was one road, mostly dirt, which connected the west and the east coasts.  As we stood waiting for a ride, it occurred to us, we better get a ride from the first vehicle passing because it didn’t look like their would be another one coming by that day.  After a considerable wait a truck stopped and we piled into the back.  The truck was one of those with an open air, picket like fence around a flat bed.  It was being use to haul bails of straw and in the open air the straw dust swirled around and made breathing it in less than pleasant.  In order to avoid breathing the dust we all stood holding on to the top of the fencing.

The Baja is quite narrow and the ride across it was somewhat slow due to the condition of the road, but not all that uncomfortable.  In fact, the first three fourths of it was rather enjoyable as we rode through the desert in the late afternoon.  It was in that final fourth that the huevos rancheros I ate for breakfast attacked me.  I began to feel clammy and broke out into a full body sweat.  This was followed by gut wrenching cramps like I had never felt before.  Luckily, we were not far from La Paz when this all began.

Terrorist Breakfast.

As we arrived at the outskirts of the city, I knew I was in trouble.  Then as we moved farther into the city, the truck hit a bump and everything that had been inside me was suddenly outside.  The cramps intensified as the truck pulled over just across from a nice looking, if modest hotel.  Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann helped me down from the truck and across the street into the hotel lobby.  There was a cot by a stair well in the lobby and I curled up on it while Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann went to get us checked in.  The hotel staff, being professionals, realized that having a sick and rather stinky gringo in their lobby was probably not that good for business, moved very quickly to get us to a room.

When we got to the room, I grabbed some clean clothes and limped to the shower to get cleaned up.  When I was done in the bathroom, I walked, bent over in pain, to one of the beds and curled up in the fetal position.  As I lay there, I realized Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann were breezily discussing their dinner plans.  I guess I was expecting some sympathy but that was in short supply and as I lay there convinced that all of my major organs were lying back in the truck, I realized they were going to leave me in my last hours on the planet.  Panzy Ann did run down to a corner store and get me a bottle of 7-UP, that universal, if mostly ineffective, bromide for all stomach ailments.  Just as they were going out the door, one of them turned and asked me if I wanted them to bring me back something to eat, I waved them off, as I thought at that moment, I might never eat again.

I have to admit; I was astounded they had just picked up and went to dinner and left me to die alone.  I guess in retrospect, I must have been exaggerating in my mind the severity of my condition.  Both of these women, who would become mothers, must have taken a look at me and concluded, he’ll be all right, let’s go eat.  And, they were right.  They came back to the room after a couple of hours and a nice dinner and stroll around La Paz and I was already feeling better.  The cramping became less severe and the sweat stopped within 90 minutes or so and by midnight all of my symptoms were gone and the next day I was good to go.

I have held these incidents over Panzy Ann and Marjorie Ann’s heads for the last 40 years.  In a kind of weird tribute to just how good of people they are, I have been able to make them feel guilty for their sins, although I suspect they are pretty good actors, too.  All in all, it was a great trip and we have often relived the many strange and wonderful things that we went through way back when.  I married Panzy Ann, and Marjorie Ann (their names have been changed to protect the guilty) has been a great friend, forever.  But even though I know what great people they are, my subconscious keeps throwing up the possibility that when we hit the road again this summer, they will revert and dangerous times will be back again.  Pray for me.

Why I Am Not A Scientist

I know a lot of people think I am down here in Mexico drinking beer and wandering the beaches.  Well, they are mostly right, but lately I’ve been reading about science.  If I can complete the book I am reading, I am hoping to go from a complete science ignoramus to pretty much a science ignoramus.  The distinction is slight, but real.

The book I am reading, voluntarily I might add, is Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything.”  I know, that sounds like a history book, but the New York Times Book Review said it was, “Destined to become a modern classic of science writing,” and that’s good enough for me.

And what a story science has to tell.  It’s the story of men and women of such great genius that it makes you wonder how their brains fit into roughly the same size container as the one you and I walk around with on the top of our necks.  It is also the story of perseverance, mistakes, good and bad luck, good and bad timing, villains, heroes, accidents, rivalries, and teamwork.  The cast of characters includes some incredible weirdoes and the story of science is, in and of itself, fascinating.

But that is only the human side of the equation.  What science has uncovered in the last 500 years is just plain mind-boggling.  The creation of the cosmos, the age of the earth, the distance between objects in space, the atom and it’s components, the evolution and extinction of species on earth, plate tectonics, and asteroids crossing the earth’s orbit are a miniscule recital of the incredible things we have scratched the surface of understanding.  Yet, with all our progress, the amount we don’t know dwarfs what we understand.  In fact there is so much unknown out there that it draws into question man’s ability to ever understand much about the big questions, or at the very least, to come to understand them before our species becomes extinct.

All of this got me thinking about my own science education.  I went to a Catholic parochial grade school from first to eighth grade.  Our teachers were Dominican nuns, who, as I look back on it, did a pretty good job.  My seventh and eighth grade classes were 55 and 56 students.  That is a class size that no one should have to manage, but the nuns were able to teach us the basics despite our numbers.  Of course, they had some advantages few teachers enjoy today.  We were all from the same socio economic background.  None of us were hungry or homeless.  We came overwhelmingly from stable households and shared the same religious heritage.  Then there was the fact that when a nun sent a note home that you were screwing around in class, you weren’t just misbehaving in school.  You were offending and disrespecting a representative of the church and that carried a lot of weight with our mothers.  The nuns did a great job teaching us how to read and write, sentence composition, English, a little history and a bit of social studies.

When it came to science, the best that can be said about my parochial school days was that it was missing.  I believe we did get a science book in seventh grade, but it was seldom opened or discussed in class.

I have no way of proving this, but I suspect the Church’s somewhat spotty record when it comes to science may have played a part in the apparent indifference the nuns felt about our science education.  You know, things like Galileo, heretics, and inquisitions didn’t often encourage scientific inquiry.  After all, it was Bishop Ussher, who, using the books of the bible in 1650, determined the earth was 6000 years old. This number is still clung to by people who believe Fred and Barney always stopped for brontosaurus burgers on the way home from bowling with the boys from the rock pit.  By the early 1700’s, people who studied the earth knew 6000 years was a ludicrous underestimation of the earth’s age (the best estimate of the earth’s age is 4,550 million years, give or take 70 million years).

I don’t feel the nuns did a very good job with teaching us math, either.  I suspect it was similar to some Methodists prohibiting dancing because they believe it leads to sex.  Catholic educators may have felt the same way about math, in that teaching it could lead to science.

So, when I began my high school career at a Catholic high school, I was a virtual science virgin.  My freshman, and only year at that particular school, found me enrolled in a class called “Earth Science” taught by Father Gibbon.  Father Gibbon was Lurch from the Adams Family without the personality.  I feel I need to reveal here that I didn’t like Father Gibbons then and I think if I met him now, some 45 plus years later, I still wouldn’t like him, for reasons we shall get to shortly.

For some reason, Father Gibbon took and almost instant dislike to me and another student who sat next to me in class.  He made his dislike for us apparent almost every day.  Now, I admit I was no angel, but neither was I disruptive in his class or, at least I felt, deserving of the distaste and scorn he displayed toward John and I on a regular basis.

One day Father Puchelli came into Father Gibbon’s classroom and asked him if he had any students that gave him a hard time.  Father Puchelli’s role at the school was to make sure the kids of the wealthy or powerful were feeling welcome.  I think the rest of us could have fallen down in front of Father Puchelli foaming from the mouth and bleeding from our eyes and the good priest would have stepped over our bodies to make sure the heart surgeon’s son was getting everything he needed.  Anyway, Father Gibbon pointed out John and me and we were asked to come to the front of the class.

Father Puchelli told us we were going to play a little game for the amusement of our classmates.  This representative of Christ on earth stood working chalk into a blackboard eraser as he explained the rules of his game.  John and I would each get a turn.  Once the eraser was white with chalk we were to stick our tongues out and if we could get them back in our mouths before he hit us in the face with the eraser then we would “win” the game and get to go sit down.  I went first and managed to get my tongue back in my mouth before he hit me in the face.  I “won” and got to sit down with my nose, face, and hair full of chalk dust.  It took John two tries before he could return to his seat.

As an adolescent, I might have taken the priests’ good time a little personally.  I have to think that my relationship with earth science deteriorated from that point on.  I know I didn’t put forth much effort and passed the class without gaining any appreciation of the earth sciences.  In fact, that class was one of the many reasons I decided to end my Catholic education and move on to the public high school on my side of town.

It wasn’t until my junior year when I took Larry Gazell’s chemistry class that my true scientific potential was exposed.  Larry might have known a great deal about chemistry or he might not have known anything.  The only thing that was for sure was that he never taught any chemistry.

Every class period he would enter the room and climb up to his desk that sat on a slightly raised platform.  The budding scientists sat in two rows of desks in front of Larry’s desk.  Larry would tell us what experiment we should do and what page in the workbook we could find it spelled out.  He would say something like, “be sure to measure carefully” and then would either walk out of the class room and head down the hall or would go into the room attached to the chemistry room where chemicals and supplies were stored.  That would be the last time we would see him until he returned about three minutes before the class ended.  He followed this same procedure when he gave tests, which fostered an unprecedented level of cooperation and teamwork among the young scientists.

There was one other curious thing about Larry.  Every two or three years he would manage to blow himself up or set himself on fire.  He would show up in class all bandaged up and never bothering to explain what had happened.

On our first day of class Scott and I were paired up with two girls who quickly agreed to actually do the experiments and share their results with us.  This freed Scott and me from actually learning anything about chemistry and left us free to explore raw, or as I prefer to think of it, pure research.

Our first three classes or so, we busied ourselves with mixing chemicals in an attempt to find the right combination that would blow the lid off the centrifuge.  We eventually succeeded, but our rookie mistake of failing to measure anything or write down what chemicals we had used caused us not to be able to repeat our results and to lose interest in the experiment itself.

At the beginning of one of our next class periods, Larry entered the room and took his place behind his desk.  He was bandaged from knuckles to biceps on both arms and he was missing most of his eyebrows.  Yes, our class was one of the lucky ones given a concrete lesson in the dangers of chemistry.

Next, Scott became fascinated with mixing various chemicals to create colorful concoctions he would pour into test tubes.  He would then throw the test tubes out the window in order to observe the patterns that would be created when the tubes landed in the parking lot a couple of stories below.  These experiments ceased when Scott threw one test tube a little too close to a teacher’s car and a bit of his creation splattered onto the paint job.  This was followed by a short-lived, but intense investigation by the school administration, but because there were chemistry classes all day long and Larry was never around to see anything, the investigation bore no fruit and became a cold case.

Nonetheless, Scott decided this would be a good time to end his research and we moved on to what would be the highpoint of my career in chemistry.  One day, we decided to put a cork in the end of the hose that hung down from the faucet on our worktable.  By placing my thumb over the cork and letting the water pressure build, we could get some interesting results in the discipline of hydro propulsion.

When I eventually removed my thumb from the end of the hose, the cork shot across the classroom and ricocheted off the far wall.  As interesting as that result was, the truly revelatory discovery was that following the cork, much more slowly, was about a half of pail of water that landed about three quarters of the way across the classroom.   This break through was near the end of class, but the implications of our discovery were clear and we looked forward to our next chemistry class with anticipation and excitement.

I imagine Scott and I were feeling the same kind of excitement that the NASA scientists felt right before the launch of the first moon mission.  As soon as Larry made his exit, we began our preparations for a more practical application of our discovery.  Extrapolating from our earlier results, I worked on aiming the water stream so that I could drench an unsuspecting friend whose table was about three fourths of the way across the room.  As the water pressure built, I aimed the hose and at just the right moment removed my thumb.  Again the cork slammed off the far wall followed by the stream of water that hit its unsuspecting target in the head.

The success of our experiment set off a tremendous level of excitement and chaos in the classroom, as our fellow scientists congratulated us on our break through.  The reaction of the other scientists in the room, who were also pursuing pure research, was informative. If I know anything about the scientific method, and I know practically nothing, I know that when one team of scientists make a major discovery, it spurs other scientists to attempt to either duplicate the results or build upon them to reach new and interesting discoveries.  Scott and I had laid down the gauntlet and we knew that it was a matter of time before our results would face challenges.

During our next class period we worked on refining our results.  Now that the other scientists had witnessed our results, they were making themselves much more of a challenge as targets. However, Scott and I had not rested on our laurels and continued to improve our accuracy.  During the class, we were able to hit our target on two of three launches.  As gratifying as this was, we did find out that the other scientists had not been sleeping on the job.  Our original target had found a large syringe in a drawer and filled it with a chemical concoction he had prepared.  When he was hit with another of our hydro specials, he aggressively charged forward with his syringe and managed to hit Scott in the chest pocket of his pale blue shirt. Instantly a green stain spread across Scott’s shirt.  Before Scott could fully withdraw he was hit again on his sleeve and another green stain spread down his arm.

Near the end of class, Larry returned as he always did, and the students took their seats at their desks in front of him.  Two students looked like they had been dipped head first in a pool of water  up to their chests and sat dripping onto their desks and one student had conspicuous green stains all over him.  In one of the most amazing examples of scientific indifference, Larry failed to comment or take notice.

I managed to get through my education, from elementary to high school, without knowing anything about science. I suppose if I have to be honest for a moment, I would say I was primarily to blame.  Having said that, I do hope that science education has improved over the years, although you have to wonder when you read that one in four Americans believe the sun orbits the earth.  I think the teaching of a little bit of context could help the general student understand how fascinating the world of science is to contemplate.  I suspect those who are really gifted in science will eventually find their way there.  But for the rest of us, it sure couldn’t hurt us to better understand the story of how scientists came to their discoveries and how those discoveries have changed our world.  Pondering the wonder of it is, in and of itself, worthwhile.

I suspect, no matter how good my science education might have been, I would never have found myself pursuing a scientific career.  I just didn’t have the requisite aptitude.  It’s probably a good thing.  I’d look pretty weird without eyebrows.

Etta James Sings the Blues

Here I am sitting in Zihuatanejo thinking about New Orleans.  New Orleans is on my mind because at the end of April, I will be headed for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  This will be my fifth or sixth “Jazz Fest,” and it is one of the greatest music festivals on earth.

When people hear “Jazz and Heritage” they almost always forget the heritage part and focus on the jazz.  After all, this is New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz and unless you have been to that part of the country, you probably are unaware of the rich musical gumbo that is always on the stove down on the bayou.  Yes, there is plenty of Jazz, in it’s many forms, but there is also Cajun, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, zydeco, jug bands, reggae, country, rock and roll, gospel, roots, folk, Latin, blues, and all kinds of combinations of all of the above.  If you can’t find something you like, you don’t like music.

So as I sit here thinking about once more heading for the Fest, I can’t help but think about some of the many memorable experiences I have had there.  One of those experiences was the last time I saw Etta James sing.

I started listening to the Blues in the late 60’s when I was in my late teens.  The Beatles and the British Invasion had eclipsed the Blues, along with soul music and any other form of popular music that didn’t feature guitars and Beatlesque elements.  Many of the biggest names in the Blues world suddenly could not make a living playing their music.  Many couldn’t find work playing music, some pumped gas, and others hung on any way they could.  Then something great happened.  College age kids discovered the Blues and suddenly a new market blossomed.

This all happened at a time when the consensus that had held in the U.S. since the end of WWll, and had built the largest middle class in the history of the planet, began to unravel.  The Vietnam War was a major catalyst.  It began the process of shaking the country to its foundation.  Our leaders were unable to explain why we were fighting and as “the Pentagon Papers” were published, the lies and distortion became public knowledge.  At the same time as the war was shaking things up, the Civil Rights movement was exposing some of the deep contradictions embedded in American life and forcing people, especially the young, to question what they had been taught about the nature of their country.

The youth of America became alienated from their parent’s generation and the rather sad saying “don’t trust anyone over thirty,” became popular among young people.  Cesar Chavez began organizing the farm workers and the Gay Pride and the Woman’s Movements added to the sense that something was seriously wrong with the status quo and change was needed and over due.  The people who had been kept outside were demanding to be let in as full participants.

Youth felt betrayed.  Like all youth, our generation was naïve and didn’t understand the sacrifices and contributions the previous generation had made to build the life we took for granted.  The draft made the Vietnam War personal and TV had not yet censored itself and nightly newscasts brought the war home like no other in our history.  Hard questions were being asked and none of the country’s established institutions were providing answers.

 It was during this time many of the young people of America developed a longing for authenticity.  And that is where the Blues reentered the picture.

What ever the Blues was, it was authentic.  The music was the story of the millions of black Americans who had endured brutal conditions in the south and made their way north in the years surrounding WWll, seeking opportunities that were opening in the war industries of places like Detroit and Chicago.  The Blues chronicled that journey.

 

A lot of people think the Blues is exclusively a sad music and it does talk of harsh, back-breaking working conditions, terror, discrimination, lynching, poverty and all the problems that come with living under those conditions.  But that is hardly the whole story.  The music also chronicles the humor, yearning, joy, love, and the rhythms of every day life.  To fail to see this side of the music is to miss an essential part of its make up.  You can’t understand the saying, “The Blues had a baby and they named it Rock and Roll,” unless you embrace the whole story of the Blues.

So, in the late sixties the yearning met the “real thing.”  It was impossible to sit and listen to Muddy Waters play and sing and not be aware that, whatever he was saying, he had lived a life that gave him the authority to say it.  This was not like listening to the second runner up on American Idol as they tour the country’s arenas.

As I came of age, I sought out and attended as many Blues shows as I could during the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.  I consider it one of the great joys of my life to have had the opportunity to hear Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, and literally dozens of other kings and queens of the Blues.  It took me to many strange and wonderful venues and stretched my perception of American life.

Then starting in the last half of the 90’s, I began to realize how fleeting these experiences were becoming.  Pat and I went to a Blues Festival in Madison WI in the early 2000’s.  Headlining the festival was Pinetop Perkins, a legendary piano player, whom I had seen several times when he was an integral part of Muddy Waters’ band.  When it came time for Mr. Perkins to perform, he had to be helped to the stage.  He had somehow aged and at 90 was a shadow of what he had once been at the keyboard.  My image of him was as a younger man who would rock his instrument and the house as he and Waters’ other sidemen made up one of the best Blues bands on the planet.  As in most things, you can do them a lot better at 55 than you can at 90.

I came away saddened and decided then and there, I would no longer go to see the old lions of the blues on stage.  The shows had become tribute shows and I preferred to keep my memories of when these men and women were at the height of their powers.  There is an old saying that the Blues will never die, and I believe that is true to some extent.  But, the masters who created the music and brought their story north and then to the world, did get old and die.  It was a special time, and like I said before, I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to be a witness.

These thoughts were in my head as I laid on my bed in our hotel room in New Orleans looking at the next day’s Festival schedule.  Pat and I agreed we wanted to see Etta James at 4:00 o’clock and felt it best we camp out at the tent she would be playing in starting at around 2:00pm.  It wasn’t any hardship because there were other noteworthy artists scheduled at that venue earlier in the afternoon.

Etta James was born in 1938 in southern California.  Some people consider her a jazz singer and others looked at her as an early rhythm and blues or rock artist.  Cases can be made for those points of view, but for my money, Etta James was the consummate Blues singer.

Pat and I first saw Ms. James live in the early 80s at Wilebski’s Blues saloon in the Frogtown section of Saint Paul.  Wilbeski’s was an old hall upstairs from a Polish pizza parlor.  The place was a mess. The tables were an assortment of old kitchen tables (the kind with linoleum tops) and mismatched red plastic covered chairs.  It was sticky and smelled of stale beer. What it lacked in atmosphere it made up for by booking great music almost every week.  Teddy Wilebski dressed like a 1930’s gangster and was responsible for bringing a lot of great music to the Twin Cities.  The IRS shut him down a few years later.  I would have given him a medal instead.

The night we saw Etta James there, she was absolutely captivating.  She was sexy, sassy, and packed more emotion into one song than many of today’s divas manage in a career. When Etta James sang she would rather go blind then see a former lover with another woman, you knew she had been there and you believed her.  She prowled the stage like a big cat and every eye in the place was glued to her.  It was the first of a number of memorable appearances I would witness over the next 15 to 20 years.

As the afternoon wore on we worked our way to about 20 rows from the stage, dead center.  Just about ten to four, a Festival official took the stage and demonstrated one of the great differences between Minnesota and New Orleans.  He announced to the crowd that around 1:00pm the National Weather Service had notified them that severe weather was moving into the New Orleans area.  They just wanted to let us know in case we wanted to head for protection but the show was going to start on time.  Minnesota officials would have, more than likely, taken a look at the several hundred people sitting in a tent and sent us home to weather the storm.  In New Orleans, you let the good times roll.

After the announcement, I glanced out the open sides of the tent and noticed the sky had taken on a rather purple hew.  Pat and I thought about it for about a minute and decided to stay.

At 4:00 The Roots took the stage.  They were, I hate to say backing up, so I will just say they were accompanying James for this show.  This was before their fame had spread very far and long before they became the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show.  They warmed up the crowd with a tune or two and then James made her way to the stage.  She had become grossly over weight and needed to be helped up on stage.  Instead of standing she half sat and half stood on a tall stool.

One of the reasons I had wanted to see her was that I heard she had been seriously ill.  She was getting on in years and had lived a difficult life and I feared it might be now or never.  As she settled in up on stage I wondered was I going to see a shadow of a once great star.

My worries disappeared the minute she began to sing.  She no longer was able to prowl the stage like she once did, but she had lost none of the raw emotion and power to deliver a song like few have ever done, then or since.  The reaction of the crowd was electric and she seemed to feed off the response.  It’s possible she was thinking she might never again grace the stage at this great festival and it helped pull a great performance from her.  What ever happened, she was great.  I savored every song with the knowledge that this would probably be the last time I would have the privilege of watching and listening to her perform live.  The show ended with a couple of standing ovations and encores.  She didn’t leave the stage and come back because you knew when she did leave, that would be it.

When the show ended the crowd began to stream out of the tent.  I looked at the sky and it now was a deep, ominous purple with lightening firing off every couple seconds.  Pat and I got about twenty feet from the tent when the sky opened up and a deluge of Biblical proportions hit us.  We stopped and pulled out two Bucky Badger ponchos we had been given when we had visited the Teacher on parent’s day at the University of Wisconsin.  They were made to look like the furry little beasts complete with ears.  As we walked the quarter mile to the shuttle buses that would take us to the French Quarter, it rained so hard that the ponchos were inadequate to the job of keeping anything but maybe 10 square inches of our torsos dry.

We reached the shuttle buses and they took us to the French Quarter, where we had another half mile walk to our hotel.  As we passed through Jackson Square, where the tarot card readers and fortune tellers set up their tables every day, I noticed there were a few of them huddled under large umbrellas waiting out the storm.  As we walked by, I dipped my head under one of the umbrellas and said, “I predict rain.”  Nothing, I got nothing, not even a smile.  I guess tarot card readers and fortune tellers have no sense of humor because they already know the punch line before it is delivered.  As usual, I was the only one laughing at my jokes.

When we reached our hotel we knocked on the door of our friend Rich’s room.  He opened the door and before him he saw two very drenched but happy badgers.  I’m not too sure he has recovered from the sight to this day.

It rained 8 inches in 4 hours that day in New Orleans.  It turned out to be the last time I saw Etta James.  A little rain could never dampen that memory.  Once the rain ended, we went to dinner in the Quarter.  Did I mention, if you like to eat and drink, you will be hard pressed to find yourself in a better place than New Orleans.  Just remember, if you have a car and wanted to park in the French Quarter the early bird special ends at 10:00am.

Defending Christmas

            

Last year, just about this time, I posted a “Heartwarming Xmas Tale.”  I fully expected the piece to become a Yule classic and it was my sincere wish that families would gather every Christmas Eve and read the Tale aloud.  I envisioned the children each reading their favorite part and the glow of the story’s message of kindness would carry everyone through the season.

Unfortunately, the reaction to my offering was less than enthusiastic.  Pat and I hosted a small dinner party late last December and in keeping with the season I printed a few copies of the “Heartwarming Xmas Tale” and left them on an end table for our guests to pick up and read.  The first friend to do so, read the whole piece and then screwed up his face and asked, rather incredulously, “Did you make that up”?  Little did I know, his reaction would be the most positive one I would get.

Another friend began reading the post and periodically would look at me and shake his head.  My five and half regular readers, who often send me emails commenting on various posts, were ominously silent.

These reactions were a bit sobering, but I felt I could always rely on my family for support.  At least that was how I felt until Pat asked my mother if she had read the Tale and my sister reminded her that Pat was referring to “that stupid thing I had written.”  Even the Teacher’s reaction was tinged with embarrassment and shame.

All of this lead me to decide to sit this Xmas season out and not to write anything that would cause further distress to friends and family.  But that was before I heard Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly warning of a war on Christmas.  Apparently, this war has been going on for at least twelve years according to Bill.  I don’t know how I missed it, but the reaction to “The Heartwarming Xmas Tale” started to make sense.

Then my awareness of the war on Christmas was heightened when I heard a Fox News host express her distress at having to drive her kids around looking for a nativity scene.  I had no idea things had gotten so bad and I wondered what I, personally, could do to defend Christmas.  I figured that if our Fox News host was out driving around there had to be countless other parents in the same situation.  So I went on churchangel.com and found that there are 420 Christian churches in Minneapolis registered on the website.  I’m pretty sure there are at least a few more that haven’t registered with churchangel.com and I’m sure there are more Christian churches in Saint Paul and the rest of the metro area.  So, before you get in the car to search for a Christian Christmas display, I suggest you try this method to foil the anti-Christmas gang.  Go out side and spin in a circle.  At some point before you become too dizzy, stop spinning and run in the direction you are facing.  Given the number of Christian churches in our community, you should only have to run approximately three blocks in any direction to run into a Christian church.  Once you get to the church, it is highly likely it will have a nativity scene on display, or at the very least, will be able to tell you where you need to go to see one.

I’ve spent a day cleaning out the space under the stairs to our basement, so when the Teacher and Pako come to celebrate Christmas with us this weekend before they head to Mexico to celebrate the actual day with Pako’s family, we can eat down there without being disturbed.  It might be a bit cramped, but it is more easily defended and I swear, the forces of Satan will not get my Christmas ham this year.

As I thought more about the reaction to my Heartwarming Xmas Tale last year and put it into the context of the War on Christmas, I realized that the cabal that is trying to ruin Christmas had probably manipulated my readers’ subconscious.  Of course, some of my readers are just plain heathens and there is no explanation for them.  The more I though about it, the more convinced I became, that I too, was a victim of the War on Christmas.

My newly raised consciousness required I go all out to defend Christmas.  As I pondered what I could do to fight back, it came to me like a lightening bolt (I intend to write to Bill and ask if he thinks it was Divine inspiration).  So, in order to stick it to the hordes of anti-Christmasites out there, I have decided to defend Christmas by re-posting “A Heartwarming Xmas Tale.”  Enjoy it with your family and Happy Holidays.

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a small town who made his living repairing shoes.  The town was not wealthy and people still had their shoes repaired rather than buying new ones and the man was able to make a modest living from his business.

The man rented a small cubby hole, not much larger than a walk in closet, in the town’s downtown, and there he sat all day surrounded by pairs of broken down shoes.

The man was not particularly good looking or bright but was a good soul whose one unfulfilled wish was to meet a woman, marry and have a large family.  The man truly loved children and wanted to surround himself with happy kids.  His problem in fulfilling his dream was his innate shyness and social ineptitude made it difficult for him to meet and woo a mate.

At around this time there was a woman who made her living walking all over town, with a small grinding wheel, sharpening knives, scissors and just about anything that needed sharpening.  As she walked through the various sections of the town she would whistle a sweet tune that would signal the housewives and business owners that she was in their vicinity in case they needed something sharpened.

The first time the shoe repairman saw the woman he was immediately smitten.  Every time he heard her whistle, he would frantically search for something for her to sharpen.  There interactions were very polite and formal and appeared on the surface to be nothing more than business transactions.

One day, when the man had everything he owned with an edge already sharpened, he, out of desperation, presented the woman with a spoon.  The woman smiled and realized the man admired her for more than her sharpening prowess. Gently, she led their conversation around to Saturday night and the man managed to mumble an invitation to the woman to go with him to a movie.  Thus began their yearlong courtship that ended with a small ceremony before the town Justice of the Peace.

The woman was soon pregnant, as the man, while not being overly bright or good looking, was blessed with highly potent swimmers.  Nine months later, a baby boy was born.  They named the baby Juan.  The man and woman lived in a small one-bedroom apartment over a hardware store and Juan slept in a dresser drawer.   As soon as it was humanly possible the woman became pregnant again and nine months later another child was born.  Neither the man nor the woman could agree on a name for the new baby so eventually they decided to name the child Two.

The man and woman were running out of available dresser drawers so alternative housing became a necessity.  Around this time the man’s only living relative, a bachelor farmer, named Eddie died and left the man a large, if somewhat rundown, farmhouse about three miles outside of town.  Uncle Eddie had lived in the farmhouse the last 25 years with his best friend Larry, who rented one of the many bedrooms in the old house.  Larry had died three months before Uncle Eddie and their misfortune solved the man and woman’s housing problem.  They moved to the farmhouse and before long the woman was pregnant again.   When the baby was born the same naming inertia happened and they decided to name the baby Three.

Life proceeded in kind, and over the next ten to fifteen years Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve were born.  They were a poor family but generally happy as the man and the woman were kind and loving parents.  As time went on the man and woman noticed that their twelve offspring were taking different life paths.  Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten, and Twelve were studious highly focused achievers while Juan, Three, Five, Seven, Nine, and Eleven lacked direction and, frankly, were a little odd.

Time rolled on and one by one the children left home to pursue their fortunes.  Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten and Twelve embarked on successful careers as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers and college professors.  They married like-minded professionals and moved to all four corners of the country.

The other children, I will call them “the odd children” not in judgment but in order to facilitate the story, had tougher, if not more colorful, paths to adulthood.

Juan had several scrapes with the law over petty thievery and had spent a few months in the county lockup on various theft misdemeanors.  His passion was taxidermy.  He specialized in recreating famous scenes from history by posing various vermin and critters he found in the woods behind his house or along the side of the road.  His best-known piece was a recreation of Lee’s surrender to Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse marking the end of the civil war. He considered a recreation of Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak at the end of the Ice Bowl to be his masterpiece.  He agonized over how to recreate Chuck Mercein, a Packer running back, who had tumbled into the end zone behind Starr, with his arms raised giving the signal for a touchdown because the critters he had used to represent the 22 players on the field all had short forelegs and were incapable of raising them over their heads convincingly.  Juan lost sleep trying to figure out how to solve this problem and complete the piece he felt would rocket him to preeminence in the world of taxidermy.

Three was an extremely shy and socially inept child who only really felt comfortable in the presence of chickens.  Every birthday and holiday he asked for chickens and before long he was selling eggs out of the shoe repair shop.  When he turned eighteen he left home and used his egg money to buy a small piece of land in the country away from humans and started a poultry farm.

Five’s only distinguishing characteristic was his uncanny resemblance to Popeye the Sailor Man.  He briefly cashed in on his appearance when a local movie theatre ran a Robert Altman film retrospective that included his Popeye movie.  Five would stand in the lobby dressed as the famous sailor and spin a corncob pipe in the corner of his mouth.  This employment was short lived and he worked several menial jobs before settling in as a short order cook in a 24-hour greasy spoon.

Seven had problems with drugs and alcohol during her late teens and twenties.  She rocketed from one shaky relationship to another, always ending badly.  At one point in her late twenties she married Homer Swans, who she believed was the heir to the Swan’s ice cream fortune. When she sobered up, after a week or two, she discovered Homer was the heir to a dilapidated house trailer and nothing else.  The marriage lasted 39 days ending in a no fault divorce.  Seven’s marriage experience represented rock bottom for her and she resolved to change her life.  She took up endurance sports beginning with mountain bike racing and expanding to marathon running, triathlons, speed walking, mountain climbing, bungee jumping, steeplechase, and giant wave surfing.  Her latest sport was long distance swimming and she hoped to swim from Florida to Cuba by the end of the year.

Nine was a joiner.  Unfortunately, she most often joined cults.  Her extreme devotion to principle and rigid adherence to every rule soon alienated everyone in the cult and she would soon be asked to leave.  Her latest obsession was linked to a rogue priest in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who advocated dancing as the cure all for the world’s problems.  Utilizing Nine as his chief disciple, the priest instituted the Mash Potato Mass during which the flock would get up and dance for an hour straight.  Any dance was acceptable and it was not uncommon to see the mash potato, boogalou, fox trot, polka, and all manner of free style twitching going on at the same time.  The local bishop was threatening to have the priest defrocked if he didn’t stop his dance ministry but Nine assured him that if he was defrocked she would continue ministering to the religiously funky.

Eleven became the world’s worst daredevil.  He never failed to clear five of the six cars he was attempting to jump on his motorcycle. He always managed to blow himself up or set himself on fire when he performed standard daredevil stunts.  He worked a regional circuit of stock car races, small county fairs and church picnics and became a local legend.  He never failed to entertain and had broken nearly every bone in his body at one time or another.  He also held the record for walking away from small aircraft crashes and had attracted a small following at the local airport where he hung out.  His latest endeavor was to form a Piper Cub (a small prop airplane) precision flying team.  They perfected one trick, which consisted of two columns of five planes in parallel lines nose to tail.  Eleven lead the other fliers in this formation, which he called “the pipe.”   They were in great demand satisfying America’s curious desire to see planes fly over sporting events and had flown over high school football games in three different states.

Time passed and the shoe repairman passed away peacefully at home.  The woman continued to live in the old farmhouse, now alone, and grew to be old and fat.  The even keeled children slowly stopped visiting home citing busy schedules, deadlines, travel distance and various other career pressures for their absences.  Unspoken, but none-the-less real, were their feelings of embarrassment at their humble beginnings, the run down farmhouse and their overweight mother.  So it was left to the odd children to make sure that their mother was not alone on holidays and birthdays.

So it was on a December 25^th morning, Juan was busy strapping a fruit tree he had dug out of his neighbor’s yard the night before to the roof of his van.  Just as he was tightening the last strap, Juan looked up and saw Three coming up the street.  Three was carrying a small cage containing two Crevecoeur chickens.  Under his other arm he carried a large Tupperware tub.  Three had contacted Juan a couple of nights before to see if he could get a ride to their mother’s house.

Although they hadn’t seen each other in over two years, Juan and Three greeted each other as if they had been hanging around together the night before.  Juan knew that Three wasn’t much of a conversationalist and the four hour drive would be done mostly in silence.

Juan took the cage from Three and put Three’s French chickens in the back of his van.  Juan asked Three what was in the Tupperware tub.  Three told him he had been contacted by Five who told him he had to work at the diner on the 25^th and wouldn’t be able to go with his brothers to visit their mother.  Five, knowing his mother’s love of onion rings, had made up a batch to send to her as a present.  Three popped off the Tupperware lid and showed Juan Five’s golden rings.

Juan and Three got in the van and were backing out of the driveway when Juan suddenly hit the breaks, put the van in park and ran back in the house.  A minute later Juan came back out carrying a stuffed bird.  He told Three he was going to attach the bird to the branches of the tree when he transplanted it in his mother’s side yard.  He thought she would get a kick out of seeing the bird in the fruit tree.

They rode in silence until they cleared the outskirts of the town.  Once out in the country, Three turned to Juan and asked him if Seven was going to be there this year.  Juan told him she wouldn’t be there because Seven Swans a’swimming to Cuba as they spoke. Three then told Juan that Nine’s laity was dancing and she couldn’t get away this year, either.  Juan told Three he had heard from Eleven and was told he would meet them at the farmhouse and he was planning something special for their mother.  Thus the conversation ended until they were about a quarter mile from the farmhouse.

As they approached their mother’s house, Juan heard a faint droning sound and spotted a series of small specs in the sky.  He pulled the van over and he and Three got out and looked up in time to see Eleven’s pipers piping over their mother’s house.

Three and Juan stood transfixed, as they were not immune to America’s strange love of flyovers, until the pipers had disappeared from view.  Juan then looked at the farmhouse itself and saw what looked like flames shooting out the upstairs windows and smoke billowing from a section of the roof. The boys jumped back in the van and raced the last quarter mile skidding to a stop some 25 feet from the front door.  Juan and Three burst from the van and charged up the front steps and into the house.  The first floor was beginning to fill with smoke and Three went from room to room calling his mother’s name.  Juan dashed upstairs and ran down a very smoky hallway where he found his dazed and disoriented mother sitting in a heap.  Juan called to Three and the two of them struggled to get their rather large mother to her feet.  Once she was standing each of the boys took one of her arms and guided her down the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room and out into the front yard where the three of them gulped in the most delicious air they had ever breathed.

The moral of the story:  Appreciate your odd children because they may someday pull your fat out of the fire.

HO HO HO!    Merry Xmas, Everyone.