Noni's Black Apron

I remember her hands, mostly.  Thin, once elegant I'm sure, the knuckles now arthritic.  Her hands were amazingly soft in contrast to the angles and sharpness time had twisted them into.

She wore black, always a dress.  On Sundays she wore a black lace widow's veil.

Her face was pinched and drawn, deep wrinkles on olive skin.  Twinkling, sharp green eyes shone out from her weathered face.

She lived down the hall in a three-family apartment I once rented in Astoria, New York.  Nineteen-hundred-and-eighty-eight.  Her family owned the house, she'd raised a family there, three boys, but, so many years later, she lived alone.  She was well into her eighth decade.

She went to Mass most mornings, seven, noon on Sundays.  Sometimes we'd pass each other on the sidewalk or steps in front of the house, me coming home from an evening's work and night's partying, she off to pray her black and silver rosary that hung around the high collar of her black dress.  She seem to not notice me.

We were unlikely friends.

The house shared a common entry on the side for the two upstairs apartments.  We'd pass each other, I'd try to say hello, but, short of a quiet sort of sighed greeting, she didn't say much when I first moved in.

Honestly, we would never say much, but...

One cool fall day, I came in from running errands and, as I was about to open my door, I noticed hers was open.  The hallway was full of a scent I was unfamiliar with, like licorice sticks but prettier, purfumey.  I couldn't figure it.

I lingered in the hallway.  She saw me standing there and walked a little outside her door.  She shrugged a 'what' look my way.  I smiled and inhaled deeply.

"Ah!  The cookies.  Come, come."

They were little shortbread cookies, flavored with just a hint of anise.  To this day I hate licorice, but those cookies were so perfect.  She invited me into her kitchen and she showed me how she made them.  A pinkie-sized, flat oval, that she gave a little half twist before she put them on the tray.  Brushed with egg whites, they were golden, tender at the ends and crispy at the twist.

I'd visit her kitchen many more times from that afternoon on.  At first it was cookies and treats, but soon she was making lasagna and Alfredo.  I watched as she made noodles and gnocchi.

One day she was cutting some onions and she set the knife down and rubbed those tired hands.  I took up the knife and continued chopping them.  She was delighted when she saw I knew what she was doing.

I was working evenings in those days, long ten, twelve hours shifts, but only four a week.  I was home most afternoons and some nights.  She took to leaving her door open when she was cooking or baking, and sometimes she'd knock me up and ask, no, tell me to come help her.

It's imperative that you understand we had no way of communicating.  Her English was minimal and heavily accented, my Italian was non-existent.  We gestured and smiled and winked.  I remember cutting the roasted red peppers she'd scorched on the gas stove, covered to sweat, then peeled - a process I'd never seen before - too large for her liking.  She pushed me away with her hip and showed me how she wanted them.

She always had a bottle of limoncello and she'd offer me a bit every now and again, in a classic sherry glass.  She asked me to help her one time and the day was hot, I went to get a beer out of my apartment, when she saw it in my hand, she grabbed a little pony glass off her shelf and had me pour her a few ounces.  We'd repeat that little ritual dozens of times.

In the crazy, wild world of New York City, she offered me quiet and stillness.  She worked slow and carefully, so different from the frenetic kitchens I watched in the resturant where I worked. She showed me tradition.  She had me taste sauces and pastas, soups... and beans.  I had no idea about the diversity and difference in beans - giant cannellini, tiny pinto like beans, dried Limas and peas - so much a boy from the Midwest had never seen.  I came to treasure our time together and I hope she did as well.

She sent me once to the Salumeria just down the street - the one I was afraid to go in because the proprietor looked so rough and ill-tempered, the one with sausages and pepperonis hanging in the window - with a note in loopy, shaky Italian.  I opened the door to the dinging bell that markets had in those days to the scowl of the butcher behind the counter.  I timidly handed him the note.  I was suddenly his best friend.  His English was better than Noni's and he filled me in a bit, same sad story, children gone, busy, never visit.  She made food for church, socials, funerals, parties and such.  He seemed sweet on her, I know I was.  From that day on I was a regular in his shop.

I carried home to her a bag of sausages and meat and who knows what.  I watched as she turned it into meatballs, spicy, hot, delicious.  She baked them in the oven, flipping them half way through.  She called the sauce she made for them "arrabbiata" and it made my eyes water and she teased me about it.

That's what brought all this to mind today.  I made meatballs recently. 

When I form the balls I always coat both my palms with olive oil, just as Noni did.  I often remember her when I make Italian food.  I remember standing next to her, watching her form the meatballs, thinking of my Dad's hands forming hamburger patties, of my mother's hands peeling potatoes or carrots, of my sons' hands, stirring sauce, browning meat.

One of the last times I cooked with her, she caught me in the hall and showed me that her hands were stiff and she needed some help chopping some canned whole plum tomatoes, the only kind she used.  I was going out and had on a pair of jeans, cowboy boots and a white dress shirt.  I went into her kitchen and indicated I was afraid I'd get the shirt dirty.  She took of her black apron, trimmed in black lace, and put it over my head.  It hung on me like a cummerbund, I can't imagine how very silly I must of looked.

She offered me a glass of sherry, and kept giggling like a school girl, at me in that black lace apron.  I danced a little cowboy jig for her, I remember, and she laughed until she had to sit down.  I'll never forget how happy she was that evening.  I wish I could have kept that apron.

We were unlikely friends.

When I finally left that apartment and headed back to Ohio, she cried.

So did I.

It's nice to think of old friends.  I'm sure Noni is long gone.  I never knew her last name.  I never thanked her.  But I honor her often, I think of her often.

Oddly, this is not the first time I written about meatballs.  Here is that piece.


I hope you've enjoyed meeting Noni, she lingers long in my memory.

The day I left one of her sons was there, the one who still managed the rentals and sometimes checked in on her.  My then girlfriend, a girl named Howell, was there to see me off.  It was the first time Noni had ever seen her.  She had an animated conversation with her son, lots of hushed voices and furtive glances my way.  Noni gave me one last hug, we both knew it was our last.  She looked at me, tear in eye, a slight smile and said something to her son.

"She wants you to know that all this time she thought you were gay.  She'd have never let you into her home if she'd thought you were straight."

We laughed, and our tears fell again.


See, there's always more.  

Peace, and, I'll see you next time.

Mine, Yours, Theirs... Who Knows?

It's easy to compare - and easier to contrast - our childhoods to those of our children.  On the surface it all seems so disparate.

There's the classic music argument, but, you know, I never really thought "my" music, whatever that might mean, was any better than my parents.  Belafonte, Mel Torme, The Kingston Trio, Burl Ives and so many more, will forever hold up against Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones, John Denver and will always beat The BeeGees.  The truth is, I like today's pop music enough - Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, The Lumineers, Train, Saint Motel - it's all quite listenable.  Is it over-produced?  Yes, but so were The Police.  Do I hate auto-tune?  Yes, with the same hatred I had for Disco, but, I've heard a lot of that, too, and it didn't hurt me.

Somewhere in the mid-seventies I got the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar.  Jesus, I loved that LP.  I played it all the time, wrote down the lyrics, starting and stopping the turntable - probably ruining the vinyl -and singing along like a rock star.  If you were to go upstairs right now and ask the boys what they wanted to listen to, I guarantee they'd answer "Hamilton!"  I gotta admit, when I first heard it I was offput, the rapping, the modernity, the f-bombs and salaciousness - it seemed too much for my tender "1776" ears.  Now, after a dozen or more times listening through the whole show, well, I think it's about the best thing I've heard this century.  We've even checked out the book about the musical from the library.  Is it better than "Superstar"?

You know, that's where it gets tricky.  The defiant teen that still sleeps in the basement of my psyche might scream, "Hell, no!"  The rock-and-roll-ness of "Superstar" juxtaposed to the Christian subject matter really blew my mind back then.  But, you know what? the historical story that "Hamilton" tells, set to rap and funk with real language and astonishing rhymes, yeah, pretty cool. too.

So, maybe it's not the music, it's what the music does for us, them, did me, then.  That record, spinning on my portable turntable on an unmade bed, opened my mind up.  Learning the words, singing along, imagining what part I might have, wondering how Mary could seem so hot, all of it sent my mind further down the road of understanding.  For the boys, hearing it on the CD from the library, watching vids on YouTube that had the words, listening to the whole soundtrack on long rides because Marci bought it, rapping out the songs on the playground with their friends, well, I think the experience has shown them that same road - the "there's-so-much-more" road that surprises us all over and over in our lives.

(Also, it is so damned cute to see them singing those difficult lyrics, smirking at the cuss words, nailing the rhymes and keeping up with the difficult and foreign style.)


The other big discussion is, of course, technologies.  I watched my share of television as a kid, but, it was hardly edifying.  I'd've killed for even the worst of today's Disney programming back then.  What I saw was weird kid's shows - I'm looking at you Uncle Al - and creepy puppet shows and bad B movies or good movies cut to shreds hosted by drunken dudes dressed as werewolves.  I even thought Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Greenjeans were sort of, well, strange.  I think the boys have it better.  They'll watch whole seasons of old shows on Netflix, every Animaniacs, every Loony Tunes, old and new Bill Nye, documentaries on the brain and optical illusions - all, commercial free.  Honestly, I think they have me beat there.

The boys don't play a lot of console games, we have a Wii but it hardly ever gets played anymore.  They do play some "RPG" games on their computers or Kindles.  They play one called "Grail" and another called "Wizard 101."  They get really involved in them sometimes.  They play for hours and have nonsensical conversations that would rival any Ionesco play.  At times I get frustrated with them, I feel they are wasting time and money and brain cells on them.  I'm wrong, of course, to judge them because of one simple truth: I'd have killed to have a game like that when I was their age.  Fact.  I spent a summer playing Cribbage and "Battling Tops," both of which are rather boring and monotonous.  I can't imagine how much fun I would've found the games they spend hours on.

There are more things to come, smart-phones come to mind, texting, face-timing, game playing, study groups... and worse things I suspect.  But, is texting your girl any different than stretching the ultra-long cord from the kitchen and sitting on the basement steps and talking with your girl?  I doubt it.  Is not turning in your homework because you forgot the assignment better than getting into a Google chat with your classmates and doing it all together and wise-cracking as you did?  I doubt it.  Back in the mid-seventies we had a blizzard that effectively isolated us in our country home for over a week.  My brothers were away in college and I didn't have anything to do.  I'd traipse on over to my friend JB's house and we'd sit in his sixty-something Ford Falcon and smoke cigarettes, but, as I recall, that was about the only peer connection I had the whole time, I'm pretty sure the phone lines were down.  Would I have liked an opportunity to face-time and goof around with Dave and Bruce and Don or Lisa or Polly?  You bet I would've.


What other examples are there of this disparity of childhoods?  Here's one I've given some thought to: sports.  Although I did play organized Pee-Wee football - Pop Warner, for the informed - the vast majority of the sports we played were backyard pick-up games.  Baseball, some basketball, lots of football, a bit of volleyball - which as I recall segued into several months of badminton - an occasional game of soccer, for which we used a kickball, and some kickball, no doubt using a soccer ball, but I don't remember seeing a soccer ball until I got to college.

"Good for you," you may be saying.  Yes, uhm, but...  I think that's sort of a myth, "The Sandlot" and a few other movies, our own propensity to spin the details of youth into an often false utopia, that innate belief that all was right as a child, turn those games into movies themselves.  The real truth is that they were chaotic, there was lots of yelling and taunting and saying cruel things about each other, there were fights and constant arguments about rules and in-bounds and "do-overs" and "interference."  Playing football, tackle, believe it our not, we were reckless, bloodying our noses, cauliflowering our ears and blacking our eyes to the point where I'm surprised our parents were never questioned about our home life.

Baseball was a mess.  We never had enough kids so we let the littlest run bases and stand in the outfield.  Of course there was never an umpire unless someone's Dad sat on a Coleman cooler calling arbitrary strikes and balls, sipping a Miller Highlife - hence the cooler - and warning us that if one of us spilled his bottle he'd kick our asses.  There were rarely more than two baseballs and, honestly, fewer bats.  When we didn't have an ump or enough players, we'd have a designated pitcher, who called his own strikes, pitch to both teams.  We had no idea how to hold the bat or catch a grounder, it's not like we had any guidance or supervision, we were too afraid to spill Mike's dad's beer to approach him.  We'd call a fly into right an "automatic out" and we'd have the dreaded and confoundingly stupid "ghost runners" all over the damn field.  This, as in football, resulted in arguments, shoving matches and someone taking their ball and going home.

It all seems like fun in retrospect, but, honestly, it wasn't always.  Another thing that never seems to come up when grown folks wax poetic about their collective, superlative childhoods is "picking sides."  Some of the scenes in "Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" are less harrowing and dramatic than those that develop as thirteen or fifteen (always an uneven number) kids, almost always boys in my experience, chose sides.  First someone has to be a "captain," the chooser, actually, two of them.  In an ideal world, these are popular, cool dudes with fair and honest hearts.  In reality, they were often the bullies, or the older guys, or the strongest, or whoever's ball or net or bat it was.  Now, the captains choose from a line of boys, all hoping to not get on the dick's team.  Friendships are betrayed.  Chubby and runty kids are chosen last.  "First-picks" go fast and "mid-picks" look eager and athletic and loyal.  Last minute trades to even things out are discussed but never acted upon.  One poor kid is left standing, sometimes me, wondering how things will work out.  "Well, I guess I'll take little Billy Peebles," and I try not to be noticed as I walk towards my brother's team.

It all sounds silly looking back on it, I mean how hard could it have been?  I know feelings were hurt, I can still see the disappointed faces on the boys I was choosing from when I finally stepped into the role of Captain.  I know I betrayed a friend or two choosing a better athlete over my lifelong friend, JB, or picking someone I thought was "cool" but was, looking back, a dick.  I know bodies were hurt, bruises, scrapes, a broken bone or two and probably uncountable concussions.  I also know it was often tense.  Was Wayne gonna punch somebody?  Would the big guys come again and take over the field?  Would darkness fall before the game was finished?  Would I get hurt?  Picked last?  Lose?  Get blood on my pants?

N & Z play "rec" ball - baseball, soccer and basketball.  There are refs and umps, the teams are chosen by committee in an attempt at fairness.  Qualified and dedicated coaches are on hand to show proper technique, offer support and act as role models.  Fights don't break out, there are plenty of balls and, well, hearts don't get broken.  I like to think I enjoyed the wildness of those backyard games, that I understand life's unfairness a bit more, that I learned about friendship and loyalty.  Yeah, maybe so...

Honestly, I'd have rather played rec ball.  It looks like fun.


Listen, I can only speak to my own childhood, as you can only speak to yours.  I think these memories of it are intensely private.  There are memoirists and novelists, songwriters and such who are brave enough to shine a light on theirs, but, my experience has been that people are reluctant to talk a lot about it, especially as it gets further and further away.  And, as it drifts further from now, the edges soften, the details obscure and the lessons transform.

There is song title that flits around in my mind from an album by Jethro Tull released in the early seventies: "Life's a Long Song."  The rest of the lyrics are, well, a bit uninspired, but that title - the refrain of the song - is worth remembering.  Life is a long song.  Childhood is long, careers are long, days are long, as are some years.

I recently heard a saying - I think I've mentioned it here before - "mine is not a failed attempt at yours."  I wish more folks would try the remember that.  I also think the inverse is true, just switch the  mine and yours.   Basically, my childhood and the boys' is the same childhood.  I also don't think you can "call" your childhood - label it good or bad, fruitful, lazy, whatever - because, even as it seems fixed in time, the way you see it is practically lunar or tidal - ebbing, waxing, waning, sometimes there, bright and strong, other times so far out on the horizon it seems nearly gone.  I don't think it is fair to tell someone how to fill their life, that's their hand to play.  You can't manipulate memory or set a lesson in stone.

Time changes everything isn't the lesson in stone, perspective changes everything, might be.

There is a lot of time in a lifetime, I am always astounded at how many lives I seem to have had.

There is a lot of time in a childhood.  Hours to be filled.  

I filled mine my way... and, they're doing a perfect job filling theirs.


Filling theirs with cutting meat for home-made Big Macs.

Or fidget spinning in a class shirt you designed for "field day."

Or taking a selfie with your dad.

Or learning "Hedwig's Theme" on a flute

Or, playing in a sandpit on your "first-cousin-once-removed"'s farm - God I hate the nomenclature for close family, someone should work on that.  (As an aside here, I grew up near sand and gravel pits so, seeing them jumping off and scrambling up one 800 hundred miles and forty-five years removed, was a bit odd - one of those moments when it all gets jumbled in my head.)

Or they might spend their time behind nice chain-link fences, throwing a few long balls...

...or  walking to a dugout...

... or being the battery as a fastball flies between hand and glove on an unforgettable midwest midday.

Or maybe they'll fill a couple of hours pranking me while I'm getting new tires for the camper, cutting paper and drawing smiley-faces and taping them onto every single thing in the refrigerator and freezer - a story I will guess will be told for a long time:

Well, I suppose I've taken enough of your time.  Thanks for stopping by, I know it's been a while since my porch-light's been lit.  I appreciate you looking out for it.

As always, Peace.

I touch on this theme frequently around here, this "whose childhood is whose" thing.  In "Esta La Luna" things get all jumbled around and in Closeted Memories I mention the gravel pits of my youth and how I filled some hours as a kid.

(Here's a link to that Tull tune, if your interested, it's actually a pretty good song.)

Cake Post

A while back, Marci and Zack went to a movie and Nick and I made a cake.  It was sloppy and lopsided and messy and... perfect in every way.  Nick did almost all the work by himself including lopping off the dome of the bottom layer - the ultimate "Scoobie snack" -  and icing it.  And, licking the beaters - I know, horrors, raw eggs, whatever.

I took a picture of it and after I did he said:  "You gonna put that in your blog?"

"I might," I told him.

"Well... I'd sure like to remember this forever," he said.

So would I buddy, so would I...


From Marci's ".... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"I'm sad I'm not going to be a child forever.  

Parents have no imagination." 


Truth...


I know this is short today, but, well... truth is I was just going to add the cake to another post but I looked at the blog today and noticed only three posts this month, which would be the fewest ever.  I didn't like that and tomorrow is the first and, so, here ya go.

Peace to you, thanks for sharing our cake.  It was fun.

(You really should check out the post "Scoobiesnacks" I linked above, it's extra cute.)

Andy and Me... and Pie

I don't watch much television during the day.  If I do it's usually when I am sitting down with something to eat.  Actually, I watch when I am sitting down with something good to eat, or something messy.  More often than not I just stand in the kitchen and look off into the yard and watch the maples grow as I eat a salami and mustard sandwich - true story.

Sometimes I watch - and laugh - at the news channels headlining a football controversy or a super-blizzard fixing to pummel the East Coast and neglecting the real news.  Oh, I know, these things are important to folks and push ratings, I get all that.  But, I usually just change the channel.

The Andy Griffith show is on often in the mornings on some station or another.  I land on it and sigh in relief as I see Aunt Bee loading Barney's plate with mashed potatoes as Sheriff Taylor loads on cobs of corn near the perfect pot roast.  You see, they need to fatten him up so he'll pass the deputyin' requirements so he can continue to work in Mayberry.  They've even hatched a hair-brained scheme to stretch him taller.  It all works out in the end.

"It all works out in the end."

Nick told me that about a book he really liked the other day.  Let me go on record as saying a lot books for kids these day are full of dragons and demons and wizards and spells and, well, stuff that's sort of scary.  I blame Ms. Rowling.  And it's fine, for the most part.

But not for every kid.

I read - at Nick's request - the book he was talking about.  It is called Pie and is by Sarah Weeks.  It's not perfect, it's not important, it's not allegorical or deep.  It is, in fact, a rather ordinary story.  But, it is sweet and tender and full of wholesome and good people and, and, it has a happy ending.

A lot of characters die in many books for kids these days, I guess that's always been the case, Disney and all.  Movies abound in which a parent is gone, or lost, or absent.  Pets die, fortunes are lost, people suffer.  Nick doesn't want any of that.  I've mentioned before in this post and again in this one, that Nick used to run out of the room when the plot got scary or the music got ominous or the parents went on a trip.  He used to say "I only like the endings!" by which he meant the happily-ever-after part.

I am the same way.

Could there be a happy endings gene?  Perhaps it is the same gene that compels us to wear things on our heads as silly hats.  Is it the same gene that makes our hearts beat fast when the brothers reunite or the main characters fight?

There is a scene in Pie where the main character insults her sidekick, an ordinary boy with a heart of gold, for not being smart.  She hurts the boys' feelings and he lets her know that.  She later apologizes and they make up.

When Nick suggested I read this book he told me there were a couple of spots that weren't too nice.  That was one of the scenes he was talking about, the other was when they spy on teacher they suspect catnapped the cat that has the pie-crust recipe.

It's funny, some folks just gloss over or don't notice or understand it is just fictional characters doing fictional things and don't take the tensions and heartbreaks and joys and sorrows good prose can offer into their hearts.

And then there are people like me and Nick.

He also told me to be sure to read the epilogue.  "It's really the best part."  In it the girl grows up and keeps the pie shoppe open, the sidekick boy marries the other girl but they all live happily ever after, friends forever, the legacy of Polly the piemaker continues.

That's just fine by me.

Which brings me back to Andy.  I feel certain that many of you, Nick and Zack included, may not know who Sheriff Taylor was, is - I never know which way to go with that - but you'd recognize him I'd bet.  He is firm and kind and good and true.  He's a widower and is raising a boy and lives with his Aunt and is the law in a small town in a Carolina in the early sixties.  He does the right thing, almost always, and when he doesn't, he makes it right.  Nearly every episode of the show is a morality tale and ends just as you think it should.

I often find myself as a parent thinking "what would Andy do?"  I guess that's not the whole truth, I think I try to treat everyone as Andy might've.  In fact, the storytelling voice I've chosen, the aw-shucks attitude, the non-controversial stance I use here is influenced by Andy.  I admired Andy.  I loved Andy.

Truly, I want to be Andy.

I could go on and on about Mayberry and Andy and Opie and Goober and Gomer and Barney.  I'll stop for now.  I will say this though, it is important to let your kids know that you have heroes, role models, mentors, man-crushes.  Boys - I know boys - need to look up, and they need to see you looking up and if they see Andy looking back down at all of us, they'll know they're safe and that everything is gonna be alright.


(I don't know if you get weary of the 'but wait, there's more to every story' thing I do around here.  I am sorry if you are.  Sometimes in the middle of things I don't want to stop and tell something different but I still want to say that thing and one thing reminds me of another and.... well, I have trouble ending things.  I'm going to go ahead now and do that, well... now.)


There's more to the story about the book.  Nick really related to the boy who was the main character's friend, the sidekick, Charlie.  He's a sidekick kinda guy, Nick, he's loyal and faithful and a bit bumbling, hopelessly romantic and painfully devoted.  Interestingly, there was a bit of grocery list Charlie had written:

Yes, misspellings, just as Nick would have.  Perfect imperfection, I think.  I am positive Nick would spell dozen as "duzzin" if he tried.

Also, Ms. Weeks, used an incredibly clever device to open each chapter, she includes a pie recipe, several actually.  These simple recipes become somehow a character in the book.  They are interesting pies, pies familiar and strange, pies you imagine smelling and tasting and sharing with a friend or loved one.

About halfway through the book Nick came out of his bed to ask me if we could make the chocolate pie recipe.  We did.  Nick did most of the work.  He seperated the eggs, by hand, which is really the only way, and truly the funnest; he measured and spooned and stirred.  He tasted cocoa powder for the first time - for the record I told him he didn't want to do that; he experienced the curious squeaky texture on cornstarch.  The pie turned out a little soupy, we weren't patient enough cooking it over the stove, but it was damned tasty and, well, pretty unforgettable as well.

If you have a second, read that bit opposite the recipe.  I'll wait.

That is exactly the kind of thing I want my sons to be reading.  I want them to feel emotions for themselves.  I want them to empathize with others deeply, respectfully.  And, mostly, I want them to know they are cherished.

It all works out in the end...


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

Dad: "No wrestling, please."

Boys: "I was just giving him a hug."

*yea, right*


One last thing, if your child wants you to read a book they loved, do it.  Marci and I always try to and it means the world to them.

I am glad you came by.  Oh, I almost forgot.  This is the cover of Pie:

 ...and you can get it at Amazon here.

A Toaster, A Tire and Cinder Block Moss

Imagine I just got an envelope of photographs from the drugstore that sent away the film to get negatives and prints - negatives, lost forever, sad that - and I'm showing you some of them.  I'm not really sure what's here, I haven't seen them yet.  One at a time I show you some of them.  Talking as we go, a picture held in the space and time between us, my hand and yours on it together.

I wish there was more of that these days.  Something about holding the prints, sniffing a vague hint of the chemicals.  The colors so bold, the lines of black and white and gray so crisp.  The corners of the photo-paper are sharp and aggressive.  Each print has a bend to it, either arching up to you, or recoiling from you, lens-like.  The finish makes you want to stroke it, especially images of loved-ones or familiar scenes of youth.

There is a power that is in a photograph.  You can sense the urgency or spontaneity or necessity or tenderness the image maker felt.  You connect to them, you engage them, interact with them, cherish them.  Sometimes the are laid out in front of you on the coffee or kitchen table, a story board jumping through time

That doesn't really happen much anymore.  I'm just as guilty of the next guy.  I see almost exclusively digital imagery.  But, I'd like you to imagine the image in your hand, imagine I handed it to you, imagine our fingers touched and you smiled up at me and said thank you.


There is a trail not far from us where we've been walking around since the boys were three I'd say.  It is a loop through trees and hills.  A couple of bridges cross over a creek that meanders through.  There are a lot of brambles and downed wood and muddy creek banks.  Mostly oaks and a few cedars and elms, the undergrowth is thick and mean in the summer, but in winter it has fallen away.

We've been there dozens of times or more, in every season and all conditions.  We've seen it blanketed by eight inches of snow, we've smelled it in a spring rain and heard a cold autumn wind whistle high in the naked trees.  We've picked uncounted bouquets of wildflowers, collected pockets of acorns, spotted possums and, allegedly, a fox.  Deer have run in front of us, leaping impossibly over the path, as startled to see us as we them.

For the past several years now they've been allowed - encouraged - to roam freely through the roughly two and half acre woods.  (In fact, that's what I'm gonna call it, The Two and A Half Acre Woods, Pooh-like.)  I went with them early on, teaching them the wily ways of the brambles and Poison from other ivies.  But now they just take off into the woods to make their own adventure...

Oh, I'm sorry, look at me holding these pictures and not showing you a single one.

This is just along the path on the right, or left, depending on which path you traveled off the parking lot.  It has been a source of endless fascination to the boys.  Agreeably it is an odd sight and I am not sure of the circumstances which brought a substantial pile of blocks a quarter mile into the woods. The boys think was a fort, or a "prairie house," or "home for hurt animals during the war" (I'm still wondering about that one, which war, was it just to recover or was it a residential place, did animals die there, was there a separate carnivore wing?  - all this we've discussed).  My guess is an out-building..  Oh, Jeez, sorry:

That's how it looks from the path.  It looks as though you could walk right in there but the leaves are just covering up more blocks, unstable, crumbling blocks.  Don't try to walk in there...

When you get up closer, you can see how it looks like it was a building that fell, with perhaps a garage door on the wall facing us.

What's that?  No, no, don't worry about keeping them in order...

Here is what's interesting, at least to the boys, and me, well, us, I guess.  Initially, there wasn't any moss on them, it's come with time.  The age-old story of decay and our inability to do a thing to forestall it.  I'd say in another twenty years there won't be much but a pile of mossy sand and blackberry bushes. And an oak tree or two, we always throw the acorns we've collected into the blocks and like to imagine a sapling struggling its way up through the blocks, you know, right up through the center.

If you'll look closing in the first one I handed you - I think it's in back there, isn't it?  Well, just around that bend is a creek that winds through The Two and A Half Acre Woods.  It's a fairly healthy creek I'd say, no crawdads, but plenty of tadpoles and minnows.

One of the first times we walked through the woods we found an old park-style picnic table half buried in the shifting bed of the lazy creek.  We sort of tried to get it out, but it was stuck pretty good.

In fact, here in this one, you can a see a part of the table, I think:

But that isn't why I took the picture.  No, it's that damn tire right there.

This one:

It was, is still, may be always, buried in the frozen mud on the banks of The Creek That Runs Through The Two and A Half Acre Woods.

Nick and Zack and a good buddy of theirs spent upwards of two hours trying to get that tire out of that mud.  Now, this cannot be understated, they did everything possible to get that tire out of there.  Does it look to you like that's gonna come out of that sand and muck there anytime soon?

They tried everything they could think of.  They dug with flimsily gloved hands in the cold mud at first just figuring they'd dig it out.  When that didn't work, they decided to dig along one edge so they could get under it and lift it.  When that didn't work, they decided they needed a fulcrum and a long pole.  Here you can see it better in this one:

No, you can see it better in that first one, the one you just had.  It should be in back or is it just under this one.  The one where the four-by-four is in the top of the frame.  See how the managed a little hole there and stick is in it and a log is under it, yeah, a fulcrum.  They placed that log just so and found a good long stick.  For a while Zack even filled a water bottle over and over again pouring it in around the hole they were making to soften the dirt.

A few times they came to us, asking that we come down and help.  Inherently we both knew this was not our tire, not our fight, not our quest.  We'd had ours, we were still having ours - but this was theirs.

Oh, here, sorry, take the lot of them... just lay them out on the table if you need to.

I listened to the remnants of their conversation as the buddy's dad and I sat on a bench absentmindedly talking about this or that but really thinking of our own boyhoods.  You couldn't hear the words exactly but the tone was clear.  Earnest.  It's a funny word.  There is no better one.  You could hear bits of commands and ideas and light-hearted banter. Two wandered off to pee and kept talking the whole time.  They were comrades-in-arms up against it bad.  They were the bonding brothers of history, the alliance of the yet-to-come, they were the essence of the moment.

They were boys.

They were boys doing the essentially stupid things boys need to do.  The blind hope and passion of boyhood is blinding sometimes.


What's that?  Whaddabout which one?  What, a toaster?  Hand it to me...

Oh, yeah...  believe it our not, the picture of the toaster started all this, I'm glad you asked.

Initially, I had a very bad idea for a post which compared cleaning my very used and dirty but reliable toaster-oven to the recent journey I took back into the archives here.  Ostensibly, I went back to "tag" my many posts here so things would be easier to find and there was some sort of a way to navigate around here.  I ended up reading the majority of the posts here and it was helpful.  I saw my journey.  I saw where I'd faltered or succeeded.  I was going to, hell, I don't even remember...  I never cleaned the toaster, and it was a bad idea.  I took several pictures of the toaster, do you want to see them?

No.  I don't blame you.

When I took the pictures I got to thinking about some of the snapshots from my youth.  Pictures of any youth, really.  I got to thinking about the backgrounds in some pictures, thinking when I see an an old photo from a holiday or party how often I look behind the subject matter.  I see an old cutting board or a can-opener, a lawn mower or tree lost in a tornado just a few months before the picture of a new car was taken.  I see the old green couch behind the shiny Christmas presents, a painting above the fire, the old pop-up camper behind the smiling, tanned faces.  It's almost like you are peering around the people in the way of the good stuff just behind.

It's those little bits back there that add the verisimilitude to our memories.

I think a lot about all this being really just a scrapbook for the boys.  Ultimately I think it is, was, will be.  I thought, well, I might as well stick a picture in here of the toaster.  The toaster that's toasted  thousands of bagels and muffins and, well, toasts, and tater tots and pop-tarts and pizzas.  In a few decades they may see that toaster and remember the breakfasts, snacks, dinners, the past.  They may see beside it the cookie jar they made when they were two, they may remember that the fruit bowl was always full - hell, they may remember that the toaster was always old and worn out - I'll probably still have it.  I don't know.

But because I got to pondering a toaster I got to thinking about a tire, and moss-covered blocks, and a trail through yellow woods and I had to go there and take these pictures.

Oh, thanks for straightening them all up.  It's fine if they're all jumbled up, life's like that...


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

"Can I get paid for eating donuts?"

I've always wondered that...


I wish you could hold these pictures, I wish you were right here with me.  Thanks for indulging me, I appreciate it.

On Pride and Personal Prejudice

Zack is taking his plate into the kitchen where Nick is blustering about making some "butter sauce" for his second plate of penne.  I'd made a nice bolognese with fresh garlic, onions, carrots, basil, oregano and home-ground meat, but he likes a second plate of just pasta and butter sauce.

"Dude, what are you doing here!?" I hear Zack exclaim.  I'm thinking, he lives here, but soon I get it.  A friend of the boys from down the street is standing, grinning on the porch.

His name, curiously (and to the purpose of not implicating any other child around these parts) is Dude.  Which, for as often as they call each other Dude, might actually be his name.

"I rode my bike down, thought you guys might like to play," Dude answers, still grinning.  He's a good boy - polite, sweet, gentle - my kind of kid.

I get up from my, well, third plate of penne alla bolognese - it's really good - and watch as the three boys shake hands and pull each other into sweet, chest bumping hugs, grins all 'round.  My boys slip on their "muddy shoes" and they run out into the yard - a scream of boys.  Wooden swords are brandished.  Instantly it seems, there are four types of balls available and, uh, they play.

I walk in the kitchen as Marci is beginning to clean up.  She points to the abandoned bowl of ingredients that Nick had started and suggests it might be a nice idea for a post:

(Later, the following week.)

I am gonna tell you a little secret, I can't remember where I was going with this, I started it Friday and it is Monday and, well, that's all there is to that.  There seem to be some other images here next to the one above, grouped together in my WIP folder as "syns.1-9."  The image above is number nine and I think it was supposed to be used for a killer closing, which, I may have written first, as in the above is my closing, or, I have forgotten altogether.

Here are the other eight images in the order I'd planned for them:

syns2

syns1

syns3

syns4

syns5

syns6

syns7

syns8

Yes, well... I have no idea how this was supposed to work.

Imagine deep and impassioned writing on pride and, uh, prejudice of the personal variety - what does that title even mean? - because, I have nothing.


Nick, who has been working hard at spelling and vocabulary in general, came home with this study aid that he had made for his synonyms.  The first column is the word, then its synonym and finally a "skech" to help him remember the words.  He was remarkably proud of it, and, he should have been.

Zack brought home a project he did with some of his classmates.  There is a lot more to that story but, I in short he did most of the work as his group made suggestions, did research and colored the background.  He was pleased, his teacher was very pleased, and his table worked together.  He was proud of himself, and, he should have been.

Nick was very happy to show me his "pickle paper."  I read it in a cheesy announcer voice and he laughed and laughed because it was exactly as he had imagined.  I told him I was proud of him, and I was.

Nick, Zack and Dude decided to have a drawing contest after they'd conquered the backyard.  Nick made a "devil/pope drawing" and said there was a better one on the flip side where bold letters scream "LET ME WIN OR i'll Kill YOu" and a face down torso floats ominously.  He was proud of the joke he made, proud to make me laugh, and I did.

Dude's entry was a "dirigible warship" and it is fantastic.  I was so spellbound by work other than Nick and Zack's that I almost immediately declared him the winner, but I didn't.  He was proud of it and I told him I thought it was perfect.

Zack handed me his and simply said, "It's me."  A happy and proud boy made a picture of a happy and proud boy.  He beamed and so did I.

I called it a three-way tie.  A cop-out I realize.


Well, there must be some sort of point here, and I think it lies in that wallowing title up there.  We all can see pride in others, acknowledge and affirm it when we see it, show them themselves in it, but... well, it becomes more meaningful, more fulfilling, more empowering when you find that pride swelling up from inside you.

Yes, yes that is the point I wanted to make.  Or not.

Listen, I have to mow the lawn, and go do stuff and... sorry about all this, bit of a train wreck today, I'd say.  Thanks for coming around all the same.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat..."

Dammit, I can't find anything new for this either.

I know, I could close with a picture of Nick's abandoned bowl of garlic butter...

Nailed it...

Hamburgers And Stuff

I've mentioned this before, but it is important to me.  It is hard to discern the place a story ends, it is hard to figure the beginnings of a story as well. Somewhere towards the end is where we are in this one, or, maybe not.

I guess my grandfather, Gramps, a man I'd never met, my father's father, would never have guessed that the story he began in the 1930s would still be narrating itself to his great grandsons, grandsons who bear his last name and a pension for beef. It's a long sort of story with the smoke of cigarettes and charcoals and sizzling fat obscuring the heart of it. It is as true as an eighty year old tale can be. It is a story about Saturdays and ground beef and hands and tradition and fathers and stability. It is, as so many stories are, universal in its specificity.

From hamburgers to sliders.

When I was a kid every Saturday night we had hamburgers. Christmas on Saturday, hamburgers. Birthday on Saturday, hamburgers. Blazing Summer heat, blizzarding Winter cold, Saturday? Hamburgers. My Dad did it because his Dad did it. The reasons are lost in obscurity, diluted by time, blurred like a family recipe on an index card.

My Dad grew up on an experimental cotton farm where his Dad, a noted botanist, worked on developing long-strain cotton for the USDA in Southern Arizona on a Pima Indian reservation. Yes, that Pima cotton. That is all another story for another time, but, imagine how big the appetites must have been, how beefy the burgers, probably colossal on hand-baked rolls, grilled over mesquite coals, juicy and as flavorful as all the wild west.

I imagine the beef, hand ground, perhaps sirloins and chucks mixed together, formed by this man I never knew, being watched by his son whom I would later watch make the patties; twisting, flattening, smoothing the edges carefully, knowing that is where the burger is most vulnerable. I watch my boys watch me and imagine they are watching the same hand choreography my Dad watched. It pleases me, it pleases time, it pleases generations past as I hope it will please generations to come.

Nearly every Saturday night around here, I make “Sliders,” my take on the burgers of my youth. I originally made regular sized burgers, dressing one for the boys and then slicing it and giving each one half. They never loved them, I mean, they ate them, but, it was never a huge deal. One day a few years back - I was still in the restaurant business at the time and “sliders,” small-bunned sandwiches, steak, chicken, bbq and the like, were popping up on menus everywhere - one day I saw slider buns in the grocery store, I bought a package and I don't think I've purchased full-sized buns since. The boys got their own burger and that started it. They got what they wanted on it, dressed it like they liked and started eating two, sometimes three, at a sitting. Ownership is a wonderful thing.

Back when I was a kid, the burger we had was from a “side” of beef my parents would purchase every once and a while. It was local and frozen fresh in butcher paper and piled in the chest freezer right behind the ping-pong table. It was good beef, but, thawed, once-frozen beef is moist from the ice crystals formed in the freezer. I make mine fresh.  In fact I have changed a lot of things about the burgers of my youth, but, I've changed nothing about the spirit of the burgers, the essence of them, their heart.  Let me show you how I do it, show the boys how I did it, and, in so doing, show the future the past, which is always a good thing.

You'll need one of these with the meat grinder attachment (I know, cool, right):

  

The one I use was probably purchased in the early seventies and was used by my wife's grandmother.  I took it reluctantly but I am very glad I did.  It is built like a fortress, over-powered, indestructible, and very easy to use.  It was manufactured just at the end of the era where things were made to last.  It has all the attachments, a blender, a chopper, a mixer... it is a beauty.

So, you'll need some beef.  You could use sirloin, that'd be cool, you could use some steak, but, well... don't.  You could mix sirloin with chuck, that would be good, or, you could use chuck, beautiful, fatty, flavorful chuck:

  

You'll need to cut it into bits, my best solution has been strips, they slide right down the grinder and you have to feed fewer into the machine.  Use your steel, that long thingee in your knife rack, to sharpen up your blade, you'll be glad you did:

Now's the fun part, or one of the fun parts.  Grind that beef:

Oh, that reminds me, you will need a piece of bread, the heel works well, to feed into the grinder when you are done, it forces the last of the ground beef out and helps clean the thing out as well:

That's an important step, but, remember to get it before you start the grinding, and so is getting the whole thing good and clean, go ahead and do it when your done grinding as the meat sits in the fridge and chills a bit:

Alright then, everything is put away and the sliders need to be formed.  Go ahead and work the meat some and be sure to get the edges smooth without any cracks.  Forming the patties was my Dad's favorite part.  I can see him now, standing at the counter gazing into the deep backyard, making those giant burgers of my youth, they were probably a good third to half of a pound - as in they varied from burger to burger, as in they didn't cook evenly, as in... weigh the burgers.

I usually go with about 80 to 85 grams, which is about three ounces or so.  Why?  Well, uh, the first time I made them I had a 2.2 pound chuck, divided by twelve and, there I was.  It seemed perfect so I still try to do that.  You've probably noticed that I have more than enough meat there in that giant bowl.  I freeze whatever is leftover for bolognase sauce or chili or, the very best, meatloaf.  I use the grinder for pork as well and combined it makes super moist, flavorful , meatloaf.  

Where was I?  Yes, I don't think the weight really matters, consistency does.  Dad's burgers were always good, because, well, meat, and I was a starving mancub.  However, some were sort of more done than others.

Next I pop the finished patties in the freezer, yes, freezer, for a few while I move ahead.  I don't want them frozen, but, I have found they hold their shape better when they start out firmer on a hot grill.  People will argue against this, and, usually, I advocate room temperature meat onto the grill or into a pan, But, these guys are small and that firmness seems to help.

Eating my Dad's burgers was the sloppiest damn thing ever.  Ketchup dripping, tomatoes sliding, and the bun as wet as a sponge but with no supporting structure.  There are two reasons for this.  The first I'll get to later but involved an onion slice sizzling on a burger.  The second is because the bun is, indeed, a sponge.

You must do this:

Toast the buns, or something.  Make the surface of the buns less susceptible to the wet, juicy mess it is trying to manage for you.  Your bun is your friend, respect it.  Now, ideally, you would have some help and someone could butter-grill the buns on a flat-top griddle to golden perfection.  Or, if you are not likely to have an assistant, you could grill them on the grill outside before you do the burgers, or during, even.  Be sure, if you do that, to always - always - buy to packs of buns because you will burn them at sometime and need more buns.

Here is what I have come to find easiest and time-friendly:

(Forget about the cookies.)  I slice the buns through - serrated knife - and spray them liberally with a spray oil and pop them under the broiler in the toaster oven, maybe six or so minutes.  I usually have to do two or three batches but, remember, the point is not hot buns, just brown them up somehow.  Oh, don't lay them out on the face you just broiled, steam will come up from them and make them soggy nulling your efforts, use a rack of some sort.

Especially in summer, my Dad made a plate of home-grown, thick-sliced tomatoes, leaf lettuce and onion slices as well.  This we called the "fixin's plate" and still do here.  I am sure that is what Gramps called it, the term echoing down the generations, trivial and essential at the same time.  Here is what mine usually looks like:

I do the "fixin's plate" as I broil the buns as the meat is chilling and the grill is warming up.  My wife thinks I am a poor multitasker, but, in the kitchen everything is happening at the same time, it's cool, we got it.

I refuse to enter into the gas or charcoal debate.  In my opinion, both are fine.  I have use both - a lot.  I have a gas grill now, so I heat it up, pretty hot with lid down.  I wire-brush the remnants of the last meal from the grill - salmon, chicken on a stick, beef on a stick, pork chops, ribs - and open it up and turn down the heat to around medium and I'm ready to go.  Ten minutes tops, I'd still wait another twenty for charcoal - 'nuff said.

Conflagrations.  Infernos.   Black smoke and raging flames licking the ceiling of a screened-in porch under which a sweating, somewhat enraged man tries to salvage blackening burgers.  Yes, memories.  Man, he flamed his old fifties patio grill up sometimes and, later, a Weber with a lid which, he contended, could quench the flames by depriving them of oxygen, which does indeed work, except, the second you lift that lid up that bad-boy will flame up your arm and singe your mustache... It's kind of funny, especially when the swearing and smoldering man is wearing socks and sandals.

Turn down the heat.  (Which isn't an option really on coals, I mean, you could push the coals around, or wait, or, you know what, get a gas grill...)

You see, the grease is what catches on fire.  Something sciency happens, and, apparently, all things have a temperature at which they ignite.  People study these things, it's science.  Keep the heat below that point and the fat drips down, sizzles politely, lets off some smoke and flavors the meat.

Which reminds me, it is still in the freezer.  If they are are frozen hard, don't sweat it, it'll be fine, just let 'em sit for a few minutes.  No, your coals won't die, you are using a gas grill.

Here they are out of the freezer, salted and ready for the grill.  You must salt them, LIBERALLY:

 

Let me tell you, you can add something else to the burgers here, some garlic powder, some onion salt, some cajun spice, whatever, but... don't.  Do that, if you must, to store-ground beef of questionable origins, not to the beautiful burger you just made.  Nope, just salt, and, if you must, some pepper, which I do... do.  Not too much.

Grilling.  Yeah, I can't tell you how to do that.  I have a talent for it, a gift, I am a "Meat-whisperer."  There might be a gene.  Either that, or, more likely, I have spent thousands probably of hours watching a grill, I better be good at it by now.  Grilling is time in, and, managing the heat.  Hot spots.  Learn them, deal with them.  Also, don't keep flipping the burgers, and don't you dare smash them.

You see how they are sort of all over the grill there, hot spots.  You'll learn.  Remember, medium heat and I promise the burgers won't flame up.  It's important.

So, we put cheese on ours.  I know, I know, I just said no others spices, but, I like cheese on mine.

I can't remember whether Dad put cheese on them or not.  I think he did lay some American down on them sometimes, but, not usually.  I use shredded mixed cheese, cheddar and, uh, white cheese.  It's the same we use for Taco Tuesday.

One last phrase in italics, those are the ones I need you to know.  Remember earlier I mentioned a sizzling onion.  Well, my Dad, called us to the table and one of the three boys would hold the platter of buns and he would lay the burgers, off the grill, directly on the bun.  One time, I was starving, and I grabbed one and laid an onion slice on the patty and it sizzled, like in a pan.  Yeah, don't do it that way.  Put the finished burgers on a platter lined with a paper towel or two.  Now, let them rest.  Five minutes at least.  You will be rewarded for this.  Here's what mine look like as they rest, happy:

Here they are rested and ready for the table.  This is the face of a well-rested burger:

When I was a kid, we'd eat those things, like, thirty seconds of the grill and the juices would run like a faucet, soaking the bun and the thin paper plate, running down your chin at a hundred and forty degrees.  It can sort of be disastrous, and really annoying.  The juice always got on your damn potato chips and made them all soggy as well.

I sometimes serve potato chips with ours, but I like french fries best, lots of them:

We like baked beans as well.  Here's the table ready to go, chips in this photo it looks like:

Well, that's what I do on most Saturday nights.  I don't mind grilling in the cold, so, I do it year 'round.  My Dad did them in the fireplace in Winter.  He had this contraption that held a grill and swiveled over the fire.  It was pretty cool, I can't find a picture of it, though.

Why?  Why do I do this?  I don't think I know.  I suppose it is tradition, but, that seems bigger than what this is.  This is just something I feel like doing, something, I dunno, maybe silly even.  Maybe, it is deeper than I know, some primitive man in me showing off my skills and hunting prowess.

Maybe I do it for this:

I guess I do it in a way to honor my Dad, his Dad, the past, the old ways.  Yeah, I suppose that might be it.

It's either that or the fact that they are the best damn hamburgers I have ever had, and so were my Dads come to think of it, and I think he said his Dad's were the best.  Mine are better...


Thanks for stopping around the kitchen today.  I gotta run, the burgers are in the freezer...


(One of my very first posts around here was called You Should Try The Purge and it was about an imaginary restaurant in the basement.  On the menu you was something called "Hand Burgers" and to this day I think that would be a better name.)