Always Home

First I want to establish that she was my go to protection against Frankenstein. Now I want you to know that while I was ten I wasn't stupid, I didn't say Mom was my first choice, it was just that Dad didn't want to hear from Frankenstein, which left me shit out of luck  after me and my overactive imagination binge watched five days of Creature Feature on TV 38.(Binge watching could take years of careful preparation back in the day unless you were lucky enough to stumble upon Movie 38's Frankenstein week) Dad was a hard case, no matter how many times Frankenstein was in my closet, that noise couldn't have been the pipes, he had no intention of indulging my childish fears. Mom on the other hand always assured me that Frankenstein was fake, but that didn't stop her from sitting in the rocking chair until I fell asleep.

...because of coarse she could kick Frankenstein's ass.

Now in retrospect it seems obvious that a 5'3" 115 lb. woman couldn't have protected me from Frankenstein if he really was in the closet, but it is also obvious that I'm still here to write this. So either Mom gave some serious monster beat downs after I fell asleep or Frankenstein was a serious pussy. Hard to say because Mom was hard to figure out.

She definitely seemed tough. First anybody in her family to graduate collage, she then flitted off to Hudson Bay to help  Mcgill University map what were uncharted territories in 1952. With her cartography project done it was then off to the University of Nebraska for a masters degree in geography. I know, standard lady stuff in 1953, that degree would almost be a cliche if she had got it. Dad happened instead. By 1954 they were both teaching High School in New Jersey. Then I came along. By 1958 Dad was working on a Masters in education at Temple University and Mom was a housewife.

She was not a standard issue housewife though. She was still both tough and ,well, odd. One time when the neighborhood kids I was playing with hoisted my 4 year old brother into a tree by tying a rope around his ankle she vaulted a standard backyard chainlink fence, caught the ringleader by the ear, and never let go until he lowered my brother to the ground. She then dragged him home to be lambasted  in front of his mom and dad. after which she lambasted the mom and dad for good measure. Did I mention that she was pregnant at the time.

She did other bad ass stuff too. Did you know she used to pull her own teeth?

Had to hurt right?

I was a kid at the time so stuff like that just made me think, "My Mom is a badass". Kids never think of other possibilities. Possibilities like maybe she was so afraid of Dentists that she would have to take extreme measures when the pain of a rotten tooth would get to be too much. Years later as her health began to fail and her hospital freak outs became more acute it was obvious that kids know nothing.

Still even afraid, angry or sad she was no standard issue mom. When I was about 5 our dog Pepper, actually it was Mom's dog so I can't account for its' where-abouts while she was traipsing across the country side for collage, got sick. Mom took him to the Veterinarian. Well he was 17 years old and it was the 60's. Time to say goodbye right? Let the Vet do his job. A little cyanide, a disposal fee, then pick out a new man's best friend at the pound. That didn't play with a woman that had a set in stone moral code and an unhealthy love of Walt Disney movies.

Mom loaded Pepper, a shovel, and her .410 shotgun into our 1957 Pontiac station wagon and drove out to the Pine Barrens. She only brought home the shovel and the gun.

He's my responsibility.

 Moms bid to be a Nietzhian obermensch freed from her slave morality to truly make her own ethical decisions based on empathy and her own sense of right and wrong ended as those things often do, in tears and self doubt. Even if it is the right thing your brain doesn't always let you off the hook.  I on the other hand learned a valuable story telling lesson. If you want to make people cry kill the dog. Thanks Uncle Walt, it is a small world after all.

On the plus side Mom always insisted that life was awesome. All through my childhood she shlepped me and the rest of the brood to the library, the beach, the woods, the ball field, the frog pond, where-ever there was an adventure to experience. "I have travelled extensively in Concord Massachusetts". She loved to quote Thoreau, but she also made fun of him for taking home his laundry to his mom. So while I don't remember her quoting Walden ironically or wistfully  I was a kid so what did I know.

Me and my sibs brought the pee to peaceful every time we visited Walden.

I don't think Mom could do irony though. This was a woman that taught us how to catch snakes, frogs, turtles, toads. She was always setting up fish tanks, pens, and cages. Once a box turtle tried to trek across the yard and the dogs, pepper was only the first of a steady supply of dogs, messed him up. After 2 days trapped in his own shell off to the Vet we went where she would't leave until the Doc, who even a 9year old could tell thought she was nuts, at least tried something. 2 Months after that Mr turtle was back in the wild far from angry dogs. She never wanted us to own nature, but she wanted us to understand nature so every spring we would raid the pond with our nets till we had a bucket load of tadpoles. By early summer we were back at the pond with a bucket load of frogs.

Back to the wild?But them's good eating.

When she wasn't teaching us how to live in the moment, how to embrace the magic of the back yard, or how to climb a tree, she was always trying to step further afield herself. She did Bible study, book groups, PTA... not a joiner though, she always quit for something else. She'd always come home with tails about boneheaded people of privilege. She was a person of privilege that didn't like or respect persons of privilege. She was also hopelessly aware that somehow her proximity to life's finish line was somehow not an advantage for her.

I guess that was pretty much a life theme for Mom. Chained to societies rules, and her personal rules, even while the times were shattering them both. She worked as a substitute teacher for years but couldn't get hired full time even though my father was a principal.(I won't help, that would be unfair nepotism, chains) she tried to get involved with the civil rights movement by bring an at risk kid to the house for the summer and working with METCO.(we don't need help from the clueless privileged, chains) she immersed herself in Friedan, Steinhem, and Bouvior(she couldn't make the leap that wealthy middle-class people were also oppressed, chains). She was an outlier and her comfortable life was a gut punch, maybe because she was afraid or because she thought too much or she took the easy path or she had too many rules or maybe it was all on these things and none of them. A gut punch is a gut punch.

She could have taken Barker and Sandler both.

I don't mean to be maudlin. It's just that my Mom's story is so different from my Fathers. He got the standard issue American success story. She got a pretty good life, it just the one forced(?) on her not the one she though she deserved. And of coarse the new age of feminism was extra kind to those that got left behind. (Sarcasm)

I get it. The 60 minutes guy asking the questions with all his male privilege pissed you off. Having to do the interview at all probably pissed you off. Not an unreasonable response, but the contempt you showed for the cookie bakers with your tone pretty much defined my mothers self image going forward. Nice job. 15 years younger and completely immersed in the barriers you crossed while casually  oblivious to the trials of those that went before.

The new information age proved to be too much for Mom. She was a Catholic born and raised with a Catholic's rules drilled into her, but when liberation theology came to Central America she watched nightly on TV as the church turned its' back while CIA trained death squads murdered priests and nuns. She was front and center as the Boston Globe spotlight team reveled the abuse scandal. She watched in person as that self same church plopped her mother into an old people warehouse after taking all her money then working her for 25 years as a nun.(that's a whole other story).

So there she was, yolked to her churches rules but unable, or unwilling, to believe in her church. She fancied herself a liberal at a time that liberals where being vilified by the right and looked down upon as clueless boobs by the left. She was outside of labor. Feminism passed her by then forgot her. She was an outstanding Mom but even her own kids had issues with her fear and her Disneyfied beliefs. And how do you have Disneyfied beliefs when the nightly news shatters those images every night?

She got more and more insuler as the years went by. More and more she was living the magic of the back yard. If the world doesn't want me I don't want the world. Then Dad died. When your world stops at the end of the driveway it gets pretty lonely when you are the only person in it.

It took 5 more years. It was probably the longest suicide ever. Last weekend I watched as she slowly, painfully died. Afraid, then beyond afraid, in pain only slightly dulled by morphine, her cognitive functions reduced to a primal cry for things to end, and I couldn't even offer her the dignity she offered to a 17 year old black lab. She passed on a Sunday morning while I was in the TV room watching the FOX talking heads basically say it was time for Pope Francis to shut-up, liberation theology was dead, and nobody cared about it anyway.

Goodbye Mom.

Between Holidays

Well, are you going to thank me? I did spare you a post about how Thanksgiving is the best holiday of all time, I didn't hector you about losing the Christmas spirit to our consumer culture, I passed on calling New Years a holiday for amateurs, and I kept my Valentines Day sour grapes to myself. Seriously, weren't you get sick of this moralistic twit blogger constantly telling you the right way to think or the proper way to feel? Aren't some of my holier than thou pronouncements enough to make you want to reach through your computer and give a good slap to my overly round head? "What the #@$%! you blogging piece of ^%$$#*."  Christmas has all that great family stuff plus presents, just because some people act like jerks doesn't make it a bad holiday. Mmmm presents! Besides blogger boy you know you like presents too; you just like stuffing your face more. New Years is fun! Wouldn't you like February 14th more if there was a remote chance that you could get laid someday?

Please Oh Lord, my your gifts involve face stuffing.

I guess I have to plead guilty on this one. The holidays show up, I get kind of jazzed and I want things to conform to my view of the world. Which makes the holidays vastly different from... July 12? Sept 22? March 28? Everyday? Duh! Truth be told the holidays tend to stir up a ton of regret about how little I've managed to make my world conform to my idea of the world. So, because I didn't do bigger things with my life I hector you about perceived things that you do wrong with yours. Wow, smug, condescending, arrogant and riddled with regret. Happy Holidays. Although today is St Paddy's day, isn't drunk blogging the best?

Words to live by... if you're Hitler

So here is where this blogger, and maybe you,  goes wrong. Words and meaning aren't always as clear cut as we would like them to be. This isn't lawyerly BS either. Is the above quote the affirmation of a wise old timer that has lived a full throttle existence, or a get out of jail free card for a sociopath? It is of coarse both while also being totally false. No Regrets? Are you kidding me? Regret comes to you about all kinds of events for all kinds of reasons and you cannot talk yourself out of feeling them. Like if you bumbled your career path and now the people that write your pay check know you had better do the monkey dance when they snap their fingers or learn to like homeless shelters. Only you didn't take good care of your health and now the monkey dance hurts in physical as well as emotional ways. Or maybe the only woman you have been interested in for the last 20 years is gone because you had too many rules about age differences, economic differences, plus you couldn't bare for her to see you do the crippled monkey dance for you corporate masters.... so, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."

Damn! 3 years to plan health care and we still forgot to hire the computer guy!

It happens to the best of us. So, we finally get around to what today's blog is really about which is the things that you can get for less than a buck that you should really be thankful for. In fact it is a product of your extraordinary existence that you have the luxury of thinking that diamonds or cars or appliances are more valuable than this stuff. It's all material stuff too. Rock solid pick it up and use it stuff. No found "wisdom" in bold fonts superimposed on colorful backgrounds to hammer home meaningless points and puff up the ego of blog boy. So...

Ain't they purti...

I know, I know, I know... I just got done talking about things that make life better than diamonds (for the record diamonds are stupid and unless you can get some pinhead to give you money for them they add no value to your everyday existence)when I whip out a picture of ... not diamonds. That kids is a close up picture of table salt. Mmmm salt! Think about eating. Think about eating 3 times a day. Now boil some unsalted water and cook an unsalted chicken in it. Eat. Wow! Does that ever suck. Try other things; pasta, corn, green beans, all without salt. Try a salt free diet. Try not to rip your tongue out in despair. You spend an hour or two every day eating, seven days a week three hundred sixty-five days a year for the duration of a seventy plus year life. Salt/no salt, Pleasure/no pleasure. Salt brings you 4.5 years worth of 24/7 pleasure for about 2 bucks a year. Screw heroin, I want salt.  How big would a diamond have to be before you'd trade it even up for 4.5 years of pleasure. I didn't think so...

Oh yeah, give me the good stuff.

I don't know what people did in the olden days, but I'm pretty sure I don't ever want to find out in person. Wikipedia suggests leaves, corn husks, corn cobs, stones, broken pottery, moss, ferns, rags, sand, fruit skins, the left hand, and the always comfy seashell. While we are trading in diamonds and pleasure maybe we can also put a price on reducing yuck. Six billion people times at least one load a day times six billion rather foul corn cobs is one hell of a lot of yuck. It is yuck to the power of OMG! Yuck as a way of life. Yuck that you can never get away from. Yuck!

What you going to do with your blue ray phone now?

I am not saying that a 70 inch HD television won't bring you pleasure, I'm just saying that when you are "ahem" trapped in a moment, where you lept before you looked, and now everyone at the morning meeting is wondering where you are there are other things that have more value. Maybe some Ivory...

You'r missing the point here...

We are talking about cheap (and legal). It's bad enough that we covet rocks and metals, how messed up is it that there is a huge trade in pieces of dead animal when the ivory with the real value is...

Invented 2000 years ago it took until the 11950sbefore most people started using daily.

How great is this stuff? Could we even live as we live today without soap? Would we even want to? Think if everyone smelled like the smelly kid from 5th grade. How about those gym lockers in high school? Maybe you wouldn't care if your date was like that fat sweaty guy at Walmart who's wearing the same gym pants for the 3rd day in a row. ( Wait, that's me! This could explain the mysteries of my love life) Maybe. Face it, soap is the bomb with the added bonus of keeping us healthy as well as smelling good. That's right, when it was invented nobody knew that smearing yourself with rendered animal fat that had been exposed to an alkaline solution would keep  disease away as well as the stink but hey, bonus!

Which is why I go to Walmart dateless.

Of coarse that brings us to an even bigger prize: clean tap water. No, not the bottled stuff almost all of which has come from...wait for it... a tap. Yeah it gets filtered by the corporate giant that is happy paying pennies a hundred gallons ( subsidized by the government) for something it can sell to you for $1+ per pint thereby legally stealing your money, but if you live in most parts of the US or Canada the tap stuff is just as good if not better. (your public water supply is checked for heavy metals your bottled water is not) (because corporations don't pay to do things the government does for them for free). And can you do this with bottled water?...

You can drink it, bath in it, play in it, flush with it...Tap water WooHoo!

So with less money than the pope spends on funny hates you get a years worth of wet and clean with the added surprise bonus of fewer colds and less gangrene. Pretty sweet deal, Huh? ...and we aren't even talking lush sinful flavor yet. That's because we're really getting into the luxury realm now. My next favorite score could run you a brutal $75 a year if you are a real addict. Even more if you fry with it but then you can subtract the cost of vegetable oil and your house will smell better than your naughty bits after an encounter with soap and water.

Plus you can totally believe it's not butter. 

Butter, Mmmm butter! It's a party in your mouth. Salt gives everything a chance to be good. Butter, Mmmm butter! gives everything a chance to be great. Invented in cave people times for God only knows what reason (cave people did not have toast) butter, Mmmm butter! was only a way to get a few more days out of milk for most of its' existence. Milk lasts what? a day without refrigeration? In cave days stretching that to a week when no other food was on the horizon was survival. Well the survival of your ancestors and the evolutionary need to enjoy getting fat kept butter around long enough for me to deem it the one possible proof that there is a benevolent God. Plus in a pinch it makes a wonderful marital aid.

Once you're all buttered up, and you think you are in a private place, and you let a wee bit of whiskey loosen you up, and the happy gene kicks in, isn't a bit of music just the thing? Now I know you can spend big on tunes, the current Stones tour starts it's tickets in the thousands of dollars, but for personal consumption isn't that lame wheezing you do in the shower some of the best s%^t ever? At least for your personal consumption? Why we sound good to ourselves when we don't sound good to anyone else is a mystery but isn't it a cool gift from the powers that be?

Suck it rock stars, I'm listening to me.

I need no more proof than any season of American Idol ever. We just love, love, love the sound of air blasting through our own pie-holes. And not just because it's free, but because it feels good. In fact all bodily functions feel pretty good when you... Time to stop the blog. The Old Bushmills is taking me down a path where no family blog should go. So write tonight, edit tomorrow. Maybe blog again if I can convince myself it is worth doing. You could send me salt, butter, TP, soap and tap water if you are feeling generous, or a song would be nice.

Too Late Smart

I often lead off this blog with some clever quote punched with colorful framing images from the Internet . Because... colorful? I often lead off this blog with a quick hit concerning the politics of the day. Because...current? I often end this blog with a recipe which I have somehow forcibly joined to my political point. Because... Mmmm food? I often scatter this blog with amusing pictures that I have skimmed from the Internet. Because... yeah theft? I often write this blog so I can feel heard. Because... I'm important? Well, clever quotes aren't truth, politics is where smart goes to die, theft is nothing to be proud of unless you are Robin Hood or an investment banker, and I'm just as important (i.e. not at all) as the other 7 billion of you taking up space on this earth. Food? Mmmm food... but you can get better recipes and cooking tips at other sites so you don't need me. Truth be told despite over 50 of you being regular readers this whole activities real value is keeping me out of bars and off of dating sites. No, don't listen to him, move along, move along... nothing to see here. Unless...

Wiener dogs should get more Internet love than cats. They just should.

...I start writing about things that I actually experience. For example I woke up recently realizing that I was too soon old. Isn't everyone? Do you think that there is anyone out there besides little kids breathlessly hoping to be older sooner? And too late smart? What about never smart? What if you speed right to old then never get smart? What if you are just some crinkled up old dope that can't even find his own butt in a dark closet? That's it! a blog about where my butt is... but I closed my eyes and still managed to find my butt, article ruined. So, of all the things that are breaking down as I age the damage doesn't yet include my body sense. What they do include is...

Eye booger, say something or let it slide?

...eye boogers. Suddenly I'm sitting around the house minding my own business when I realize that I have eye boogers. At least the hair growing out of my ears is free of slime, but then there is the nose hair... and eye boogers? God almighty do I gag the people around me? I mean it's bad enough when someone casually hands you a tissue because your nose is misbehaving but I don't think people even dare with eye boogers. You hand some poor old bastard like myself a tissue and I'm going for the nose even if I don't feel anything... then you'll have to redirect me to my eye?! Why does this happen? It's almost like after years off abuse my body has decided I need to be punished...

There they are! Some mornings finding them is like looking for a child lost in a crowd. Panic doesn't help but...

...why else has it moved my feet further away from hands? There was a time when my feet were at arms length. This came in really handy when I was doing that daily sox/shoe thing... which I still have to do even though my feet were moved further towards the floor. So there I am, in my bed room, eyes full of unnatural goo, deaf from ear hair wrestling with my MIA feet when I realize...

Yep, and it hurts every day.

... Oh my God! my butt is going rouge. "No, no, no I'll get to you after I put my socks on." Like your butt is going to listen to your voice once the direct line from your brain has been severed by age. My only option is to drop the socks and make a run for it... ah, made it...

"Oh come on!"

... worst of all if you are male is that a modern American bathroom is only equipped to work in one direction at a time. It's like Sophie's Choice except with sewage. And you are old now so nothing can actually be aimed with any effectiveness. Did I mention that all of this, except for they eye boogers, is happening during sever physical distress?

Three weeks ago I went to work feeling fine, nothing happened, and I came home with a knee that hurt so bad I was sure I needed a hospital. Did I go to the hospital? Of coarse not. First of all I am not getting old I'm just sore. It was my knee a few weeks ago next time it will be my shoulder or my hip. Second; nobody, not even doctors, sometimes especially doctors, believes you when you tell them you are in unbearable pain unless your leg is shot off and you gimp to their office on the stump. My job requires a lot of walking. If I make too much of a howl about how I can't walk the people that write my checks will stop doing so. The workman's comp people don't even know me and I know they will think I'm lying...How? Because almost everyone else thinks you are lying...

It's amazing how the medical professions beside manner changes when you are butting up against an insurance claim.

... 12 years ago I was run down by a car. If I wear shorts it is obvious that my right leg looks like meatloaf severely hampering my ability to mack on the ladies when I'm in my speedo. Woman do not like you to look like the elephant man no matter how many times they say it's what's inside that counts. What if the insides are oozing to the outsides? Every doctor I go to, and I have been to quite a few, says pretty much "Get over it". So while I schlepped around looking for relief from my imaginary pain I have powered through 12 years of walking miles and miles a day.12 years! See, I was wrong and the doctors and insurance people were right. The debilitating pain was a figment of my imagination.  So now there is a new pain that I expect them to believe in just because I'm old? I would be better off getting a new job with out all the walking, but I am old, where in office/non-walking skills I am behind the tech curve...

My life as a green ball, bummer.

... which is extra bad as you get old because you already need too much money to pay your bills and nobody wants to give you 60 grand a year when there are high school freshman that understand computers better than you do. I'm not one of those Luddite anti-tech meat heads either it's just that there is a whole generation entering the workforce that speaks tech. They just know how to use the stuff. Me? I have to buy all the "...For Dummies" books then hope I'm not mocked by a kindergarten class full of kids with blue-ray smart phone tablets. Getting old doesn't mean I can't become intuitive with modern devises, but even if I do I'm still a barefoot, creaky, pain-wracked oldster covered in pee, crap, and boogers. Not exactly the face of the company there.

So, what to do? What to do? Shut up, toughen up, and keep on trucking. What else is there? Not everything is broken. For example, I still don't need Viagra. Granted it tends to be a solo activity when you are covered in pee, crap, and boogers but hey it's something to build on...

Really God? Really?

The Fair

Fair point. For a country famous for wasting stuff we sure do like to trot out our old bullshit in a shiny new wrapper. For example we are currently having a government shut down. We had one before back in the 90's. Several in the 80's. It's politics as usual. This is not to be confused with the government default which will happen in a few weeks if we don't raise the debt ceiling. Mmmm! default. It also has nothing to do with the sequester, which congress passed on condition of raising the 2011 debt ceiling which cut last years budget and will continue to cut budgets by taking an ax to each of them when the pinheads in congress can't agree on a budget that doesn't raise the new debt ceiling. Wow, that was quite a mouthful, but doesn't it all sound vaguely familiar? Blah blah doom, blah blah screw them, blah blah.... blah. Just the same old stuff over and over again. Hell it's even in the bible.

It's Ecclesiastes, you have to believe Ecclesiastes. That's a bible top 10. and look! a fern!

Well none of this sat well with me. What do you mean it's not a concern? Just because it sounds like the same old bulls#@t doesn't mean it is the same of bulls@#t....

This doesn't prove anything...

... but even if it is the same old bulls#@t that doesn't mean it isn't harmful. Isn't it possible that the ruling class in this country wants us to think everything is the same old thing so we all; left, right, and me; think 1) that whatever is going on confirms our deeply held beliefs 2) the only side that is right is our side. In this way continues the status quo with profit and political safety trumping actual solutions. I had to defeat this paradigm at all costs so for you I took the ultimate risk...

... I went with a friend to the Topsfield Fair. Oldest state fair in the country. Yes, I do things so you won't have to. I haven't been to the fair in over 20 years, and I loved it as a kid...

Cider donuts hot out of the grease! Yeah baby!

... after all what's not to love. Giant pumpkins, fair food, crafts, prize winning farm products, cute animals, fair food, a colorful carnival midway, manly demonstrations of work skills, ladyly( I know this is not a word) demonstrations of domestic skills, fair food... it is all things America enhanced with deep fat frying...

Like donuts, only worse for you. Mmmm worse!

... but where do they get the Twinkies now that the unions have selfishly destroyed the Hostess Baking Company? I'm guessing the Gov'ment has space people in Roswell New Mexico churning them out ( talk about illegals) in order to keep real Americans at their proper weight. In any event I enlisted a friend and trekked off to Topsfield MA to see if the more things change the more they stay the same.

$15! Per person. Just to get in. Throw in another $5 for the car and we were already down $35 before we even got close enough to get a whiff of deep fried anything. They didn't even hand you a guide to the fair. The Lowell Folk Fest was free and they were handing out colorful schedules enhanced with a map of downtown Lowell, but that was a bunch of crunchy granola hippy pukes grooving on polka music and sea shanties. I had hoped that my admission money would have included a cup of powder sugar covered deep fried Crisco but I would have to weight (irony intended) for the goodness to start until I was inside. After all the whole thing was about American farm traditions...

Yep, heading out to the north 40 just like in colonial days.

WTF? How do you milk that thing? More importantly why would you strap little kids to its' back? You could go to you tube and type in "rampaging elephant" but I already did it for you. Domesticated American farm animal or highly intelligent, often angry and exploited killing machine? I report you decide. Still I seem to vaguely remember non farm type animals at the fair during my youthful visits and I don't remember the ticket prices so the old was still new for now.

Still if you have ever seen a video of the way elephants are trained and what the can do when they decide they don't like it you might have second thoughts, or third thoughts, about strapping your kid to one. Fortunately the great white shark petting tank was closed so we went to look at the actual farm animals. Now as an admitted meat eater I have to say it would be hypocritical of me to go all PETA on you right here, but a quick tour of the animal pens left me a little flummoxed...

Why there's almost enough room to turn around.

... I mean I don't want to be judgmental here but...

... living, eating, sleeping and pooping in a wire mesh box the size of toaster oven pretty much has to suck. At least the cow gets to be murdered so I can have some tasty hamburgers, but Bugs? What sets him free? Does anybody besides me even eat rabbit? Show of hands. I didn't think so. So a coat maybe? or a quilt? I know, I know, no judgements. So off to the produce barn and worlds biggest pumpkin.

Not the worlds biggest and technically not a pumpkin.

 Sadly it is actually a giant gourd so us rubes were being sold a bill of goods which come to think of it is a fairly ongoing common and old school theme. For the scientifically obsessed there were a couple of big arsed real pumpkins to look at. Both of them had been lying around past their expiration point. In fact the whole place had the fetid smell of a compost heap. Because that's what happens when you pick a vegetable, pin a ribbon on it, and then leave it out for a week with no refrigeration...

...because wasting food in the name of prizes is always OK

... I guess onions and potatoes are OK but tomatoes? Broccoli? Cilantro? I'm no farmer but I'm pretty sure the latter 2 shouldn't be brown and the tomato shouldn't ooze and smell like my armpit. Here's a suggestion, after awarding the ribbons couldn't they just go to the supermarket and replace the veggies every day with fresh? I would be too dumb to know the difference and you could give the day old ones to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Or maybe put a number on the back of that $15 admission ticket and have a lucky winner get to take the veggies home with them at the end of the day. I myself would rather have the Crisco and powdered sugar, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth. Wasting food? Gratuitously? Check and check still the same old crap.

Of coarse there was the midway...

Ooo...sparkly!

...and while it is possible that the rides are overpriced compared to the good old days I have no point of reference to make that claim. One thing that hasn't changed is the midway games with their weighted bottles, narrow slightly tilted basketball hoops, and everybody wins a prize games where the prize would have been cheaper if you just went to the dollar store and bought it for yourself. Then I saw the holy grail, something completely new and different... the Fair trade pavilion, Wo Hoo!

There are new things under the sun. We aren't in an endless cycle of repainting the same barn. Pleased that a small smattering of awareness for small time 3rd world farmers crushed by unfair government subsidies to first world conglomerates like Conagra and Monsanto I strode up to the door of that brie smelling, eastern elite, guilt inducing barn and marched inside to...

 ...That was the first booth I came to. There was swifters, there was replacement windows, there was car detailing... I threw up a little... there was insurance and window treatments for your replacement windows and big screen TVs and a place to lay your soul when it dies. It wasn't about "fair trade" it was about Fair( Topsfield Fair) trade. Why anyone would buy replacement windows at a state fair I'll never know, but I guess you had to buy something at the fair since you couldn't buy homemade jam, locally sourced honey, or a bag of vegetables. This was the big change? The new thing that was going to replay the old with a shiny coat of consumer paint? I wanted to cry. I always loved the fair...

... but that was it! I loved the fair when I was too young or too uninformed to think that animals might not like spending the day in a tiny box or that the rides were overprice. I wasn't smart enough to know that the arcade games were rigged or that government farm practices in America contribute to hunger in Africa and Asia. The Fair was obviously just the same

old thing with hot tubs replacing the homemade jam. Fine. I was the new thing. Me and everyone else that struggles with loving the things we used to love before we knew better.

It doesn't have to be more of the same old thing. And we can still have fried dough... Mmmm! Fried dough!

Yeah!

It's easy as long as you ignore the mess.

1. Buy some pizza dough at the supermarket.
2. Add enough oil to a cast iron skillet to come 1/3 up the side.
3. Divide the dough into 4ths per 1 pound package of dough.
4. Flour your hands and press out each piece into a rough circle 1/4 inch thick.
5. When the oil starts to shimmer toss in a small dough ball, if it sizzles you're ready to rock.( you could use a thermometer, don't touch the bottom of the pan, to see when it reaches 350 degrees.)
6. Make sure your stove fan is running on high.
7. Lay in a dough circle.
8. 2 minute, flip with tongs.
9. Place newspaper or paper towels on your counter, cover with a wire cooling rack. You should probably do this before you start not as step #9.
10. Place the golden circle on the rack, douse with cinnamon sugar and eat with a Woodchuck hard cider. Coffee or milk if you are a sissy.
11. If you don't want to eat as you go you can hold them in a 200 degree oven until you have cooked  all dough circle. Just wait on the sugar until you take them out of the oven for consumption.
12. Butter them first, Mmmm butter, if you want them to be extra bad for you.

So my summer hiatus is over. When last we spoke I had a whole blog post full of cool things to do, our government was trying desperately not to call the regime change in Egypt a coup even though it totally was, there was still a chance that Superman could have been a good movie, the sequester was still punishing only poor people, it still seemed to be OK to drone kill whoever Obama put on his kill list, (plus our president had a kill list WTF), there were concerts, beach weekends, parties, and trips to Fenway on the horizon, and I had every intention to enjoy the hell out of this summer. It was going to be the wind in my hair and bugs in my teeth as I frolicked throughout New England. I was even going to try dating again. Wrong!...wrong, wrong, wrong!

Even with all my nifty dreams life happened, work happened, it's kind of amazing how shit just happens.

You can see why the dating didn't happen, but the rest of it, Come on!

I had July 4th off then worked every single day of that month except a day for a personal  emergency and a Sunday at the Lowell Folk Festival. 3 Days... 3 days off out of 31. I didn't even get to slide into my new speedo, not once, and I rock a speedo.  Then came August. I had 5 days off in August. I watched the Perseid meteor shower at 4 AM from my companies parking lot. (which was actually an excellent place for viewing; I counted 12 serious shooting stars before I fell asleep on the hood of my car) Then I had to listen to the, "At least you have a job" crap. Are you kidding me? That's what we've come too? I've been working hard since 1974 and now I'm supposed to be grateful that I have a job? Screw you America! I don't want a penny in hand outs, but as long as I'm willing to work you better have a job for me... and my labor is a straight up fair trade. I get some pocket cash and someone else gets rich. What could be more elegant than that?

OK, ok, I was getting a little heated there for a moment. It wasn't the best summer I ever had but it was still pretty good. How about those Red Sox? Isn't it great to watch a team that looks like they just love to play baseball? No matter what happens in the next month this team will always be one of my favorite teams of all time. "The summer they saved baseball",  would be a great title for a movie.

...it's how you play the game... but winning, winning, is awesome.

Yeah, winning is awesome, but I'll show my un-American almost french side by stating that I kind of wish you could freeze the season right now and skip the play-offs and world series. Why ruin something that was so satisfying by going for the big finish? Besides I really like the Patriots, but I can't really pay attention to football until baseball is over.

On the national level it was business as usual. The Pubs in congress tried to revoke Obama care once a week for the entire summer. Considering that the sequester is still in place, because the Budget Control Act that Obama signed to end congresses desire to take the country over a fiscal cliff by refusing to authorize a rise to the 2011 debt ceiling is still in place even though we now have to raise the 2012 debt ceiling  this year is... blah, blah, blah, I know you are not listening to me. Boring! Right! You'd rather hear about my dating activities...you wouldn't?...hmmm.

Well I did manage to catch a few movies this summer. There were a load of blockbusters released just like every summer, and a lot of them were pretty good pop corn fair. World War Z, Iron Man3, Pacific Rim, Elysium... but I also love the little films that sneak in under the radar that were made for $30...

This one was just sweet

...or less in some cases.

This ones from 2012 but it needs a 2013 plug.

 I love blockbusters, I love studio movies, but I also love a great story and sometimes, like with the Red Sox, it's more special when you can feel the extra effort being made. Maybe the kind of extra effort we all should make so I can talk about the sequester and the debt ceiling and you can answer me and be interested and we'll all understand what we are talking about. (Warning: inexpensive movies have probably been ruined for you by the shear seamless spectacle Hollywood produces, so you might have to work at loving the 2 films I just recommended, Beasts especially is crudely made, but it I is worth it.)

I also know that I have been bouncing around with this blog post. Well it was a long summer, the world was busy busy, and I didn't get to do much of anything so I'm kind of tossing this at you as I think of things. For example I just thought of an excellent fall recipe.

Looks good, tastes good, and it's a wonder food.

I love me some sweet potatoes. Except in that nightmarish casserole with the marshmallows that everyone serves at Thanksgiving (Still best holiday ever!). Keeping with that thought I like to goof around with sweet potatoes so that their goodness, vitamins, fiber, antioxidants, are not reduced to a sugary almost desert casserole designed to trick children into eating a vegetable even though by the time you gussy it up for kiddy taste you may as well have given the little crumb pickers cake to start with. Anyway start by baking off some sweet potatoes. you will be working with them cold so run a bunch of them through the microwave one at a time, six minutes each, while you are doing dishes or something. This is a "make it up as you go" recipe. As far as quantities go just remember you want  them to be mostly potato.

1. Cut each potato in half, then being very careful because the skin is thinner than on a regular potato scoop out most of the insides and place in a bowl.
2. Meanwhile fry some finely chopped onion, shallot would be better, in some olive oil. Butter will taste better, Mmmm butter! but be less healthy. 
3. When the onion softens add salt, some chopped parsley, sage would be better, and some chopped garlic.
4. You will need some crumbs, crushed crackers ( get medieval on them, grind them fine) old bread you rubbed between your palms, canned crumbs, whatever. Add it to the onion mixture off heat. Stir.
5. Grate some cheese, Swiss would be good, Gruyere would be better, or a nice smoked Gouda.
6. I third of the cheese goes in with the crumbs, mix, the rest goes with the scooped out potato, mix.
7. Fill the shells with the potato cheese mix.
8. Top the filled potatoes with the crumb onion cheese mix.
9. Drizzle with olive oil if you are being good, or melted butter if you are being bad.
10. Bake in a 350 degree oven for twenty minutes.

If you want to turn these bad boys into a main coarse you could fry up some bacon, Mmmm bacon! or some sausage and add a third to the crumbs and two thirds to the potato, but that would pretty much destroy any illusions that these things were good for you...

...and speaking of illusions it is time for the lightening round. Obama drone kills people on a secret kill list that has included American citizens and a 16 year old boy and he gets to be president. W started an unjustified war that killed over 100,000 and he gets to retire in comfort as an elder statesman. Chaney outed a CIA agent for political reasons+ petty revenge thereby placing all her contacts at risk but he got to return to Haliburton or his lair or where-ever with not a peep from us, the soldiers we saw on tape lighting up unarmed reporters and a van with children in it while laughing about it got to come home, Eric Snowden, who gave the tape of the war crime just mentioned to Wiki-leaks got sentenced to 35 years in jail. Life's a bitch isn't it? I won't leave you grumpy though, I don't do grumpy any more.
So...

It's as obvious as the difference between knowing and dreaming.

Summertime.

Finally some summer weather. I don't know about the rest of you all but honestly... aren't you kind of rooting for global warming? I believe it is real, I know the consequences could be dire but after the last 6 months of cool and damp, cold and damp, damp and cold, damp and cool, wasn't last weekend's hot and sunny kind of refreshing? I know, in a month we'll all be crying that it is too hot, but we're human. That's the way we roll. If we get bronze we want silver, if we get silver we want gold, if we get gold we want diamonds, if we get diamonds we cry because we don't have a bronze bowl to put them in. Well I want summer and...

Never trust me. I am easily bought.

So I was up the beach fishing this weekend. Fishing and eating fried dough slathered in butter, Mmmm butter! and cinnamon sugar which might in fact be the most perfect food ever created since it has no know health properties whatsoever. I love the beach. I was even better than that because the water is still too cold to fish from the shore so there was no chance that some crappy marine animal  was going to interrupt my book reading, or my bikini watching, or my dough eating. Now for me that makes for a perfect summer, but since the rest of you are human and given to moments of existential dread, narcissistic personality disorder, and unmitigated consumerism punctuated with lack of imagination I figured I'd map out a summer of possibilities that only tangentially involved stuffing your pie hole with fried wheat products.

Some of this stuff is free, some of it is expensive, but it is all awesome and I can vouch for everything having tried it at least once. Let the summer begin.

1. 6/7-6/9: There is a huge Irish festival in Canton MA. Music, food, Irish football, and beer, it's a win, win, win, win situation. http://bostonirishfestival.info
2. 6/16: Hit the deck at the Surfside 5 at Salisbury beach. Even if the day is hot the  summer mobs won't be there yet but the reggae on the deck will ( worst reggae band ever by the way, doesn't matter) http://www.surfsidesalisbury.com
3. 6/21 or 6/23: Tough call,  you could put on your skinny Mad Men tie and go see Straight No Chaser do an acappella set at the Casino ball room http://www.casinoballroom.com , or you could wait until Sunday and get your freak on with the B-52's at Bank of America Pavilion. http://www.bankofamericapavilion.net, or you could do both if you have the cash, or you could stay home and watch the Bruins and The Penguins both days. Bruins, Bruins, bruins!
4. 6/29 and 6/30: St Peter's Festival in Gloucester. How can you go wrong with an Italian festival? Grilled sausage and peppers, some dude singing Volare, the blessing of the fleet, the greased pole competition over the harbor, and afterward you are in a town that has 1 bar for every 5 citizens. http://www.stpetersfiesta.org
5. 7/4 to 7/7: By the 6th you are probably going to be running out of gas so jump on the T and bop into city hall plaza for the African Festival. Just do it. There will be all kinds of weird ass stuff there that you have probably never seen or heard of before. That's why you go. Get out of your comfort zone. http://www.africanfestivalofboston.org
6. 7/12: So you've been enjoying yourself but you haven't had a chance to dress nice for a month. You can change that by getting buffed up and going to the Bastille day party on Marlbourgh street in Boston. They close the street between Berkeley and Clarendon for some serious dancing with the stars type dancing only for $30 you get to jump in. Who doesn't like giving your best girl a twirl. You know she'll think you're the best if you do. http://www.frenchculturalcenter.org/index.cfm/events/scheduled-events/bastille-day-party-2013/
7. 7/20 and 7/21: Road trip! The Pioneer valley out by UMass is great all summer  but on this weekend the Green River Balloon festival is going on. Pretty sweet when it's dusk, the bands are playing and twenty or thirty balloons go sailing off into the night. http://greenriverfestival.com/2013festival/
8. 7/27 + 7/28: Lowell Folk festival. It's free, it's awesome, just go. http://greenriverfestival.com/2013festival/http://www.lowellfolkfestival.org
9. 8/3+8/4: Newport Jazz Festival. It's the music we invented here in America. It's the music that infected all the other kinds of music affecting everything we listen to from rock to rap. It's quickly going the way of the dinosaurs so just go, spark a fatty, and get your groove on before it's gone. http://www.newportjazzfest.nethttp://www.newportjazzfest.net
10. 8/11+ 8/12: Perseid meteor shower. Best viewed in the predawn hours of the 12th. Find a dark place, set up some beach chairs, and remember that the best things in life are free. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/185454662.html
11. 8/16+8/17+8/18: Fisherman's feast North End Boston is just as great as the Gloucester feast in June, you have had a month to let the heartburn die down, and they wing a local girl off a 5th floor roof as a representation of an angel. Old timey traditions: What could go wrong? http://www.fishermansfeast.comhttp://www.fishermansfeast.com
12. 8/24 or 8/25: Enough chasing around. Just break out the grill and cook something fine, or go up to Hampton beach for a Blink's Frydoe. Relax, summers already over and it was epic.

This is just a rough outline of coarse. This is America you can add more. There is always the Red Sox, or any of 3 minor league teams with in a 2 hour drive, there are feasts every weekend in the North end, Portsmouth NH kicks ass all summer, there are Blues festivals in Gloucester and Rockland ME, then Rockland doubles down with a lobster fest, there's a huge 3 day rhythm and roots festival in Charleston RI, Waterfire in Providence, Shakespeare on the common... blah blah blah. We are some really lucky folks even if all we do is stay home. Sorry people not from Massachusetts. I can't write about your home, but here is off the hook!

Of coarse that's just the weekends. Summer happens during the week too. So if you are a kid find a sand lot and play some baseball, or build a fort in the woods, or catch frogs, or play hide and seek but put the video games down, ditch the adults, and get outside. If you are a teen find a beach or a swimming hole to call your own, cruise the back roads, blast some music, get your first job, score your first kiss, put the video games down, ditch the adults, and get outside. If you are a young adult get a cabin with 20 of your friends, go camping, learn to kayak, climb all the 4000 foot mountains in the presidential range, put the video games down, ditch the old folks, and get outside. If you're middle-aged  get the kids outside, grill things, play hooky from work to see a summer blockbuster, have neighborhood parties, teach your kid to hit a ball, teach your teen to drive, teach your younger brother or sister that jazz or blues or folk are as much fun as the new stuff, turn off the TV, do family stuff but allow the kids to ditch you once and awhile, and get outside. If you are getting old remember that you can still do all those things that the youngsters are doing, make hot sweaty love to that person you share a bed with, don't ditch anyone that wants to hang with you cause you don't know how long you will have them, turn off the TV, and get outside.

I wanted to thank everyone that bothers to read this. I hit 20,000 page views last week. That's small potatoes in these Internet times but bestseller numbers for a book or article from the 1950's. Since I know you are the people that count I will consider this an important victory.

“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, 

"It made a difference for that one.” 

― Loren Eiseley

You grow up. You learn things. You learn from your parents. You learn from your school. You learn from your peers. You learn from books. You learn from adventures won. You learn from chances missed. You learn from failing. You learn more in a life-time than the library of congress has words. You become overwhelmed by the shear volume of information there is to learn. Maybe humans are going to lose to the computers, but computers are nothing compared to a human brain. I don't know what the future will bring but there isn't enough memory in all the servers in all the earth to make something dance, or create, or bend the rules, or feel emotion. This post isn't about machines, or computers, or even learning. This post is about the people we learn from. (like Mrs. Waldron who taught me in 8th grade that you don't end a sentence in a preposition).

We lost Burt last week. He was one of my select few. You get facts from a million places but you learn how to  "be"  from only a few people. Coach taught me how to be part of a team but I haven't seen Coach in 30 years. PWT taught me how to work but I haven't seen PWT in 15 years. Dick taught me how to laugh, how to bluff, how to drink like a man instead of a boy, how men act as friends but Dick died 20 years ago. Dad taught me about my word, and honor, and how a man handles responsibility but Dad died 3 years ago. Burt? Burt was Loren Eiseley's star thrower. A practical man that knew with every fiber of his being that you only accomplished things one step at a time. It was the lesson I had the hardest time learning. My way was just seeing the big picture and trying to swallow it whole, or seeing the big picture and being overwhelmed. My way was worthless.

Burt never had to buy more stuff.

Burt's way was the way this country was built. Burt's way was why we won Darwin's race for most of the 20th century. Burt's way is the only way we are going to get things in America back on an even keel. There are things that are bigger than me and you; war, debt, the environment; things that can only be tackled one step at a time. One starfish at a time. It's on me now. Dad and Coach and PWT and Dick and Burt aren't coming through the front door anytime soon. No Fathers, no Dutch Uncles to keep me on track.

I can't even remember my hat! God help us all!

One time I was at a social event. I was young, I had a snoot full, and I had the whole crowd roaring. Every once and awhile I hit a groove and I can be pretty funny. It's a tough thing with funny though, sometimes you can be funny ha ha, then sometimes you can be funny at the edge ha? but with a snoot full the edge can be pretty hard to see and if you jump over it then back quickly enough anyone that notices is laughing too hard to object. So I was on a roll until people where pretty much laughed out and it was time for dinner or presents or whatever and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Sure I danced all over the edge, but it wasn't really an edge anyway but more like a line in the sand that was all smudged before I got there. The 50's were dead long live the 80's. 

What line?

Burt laughed as hard as anyone, but in a quite moment he got me aside. I tried to get in front of whatever he was going to say but I was as shocked as I've ever been when he stopped me with "Don't , I don't want to hit you." Burt was the last man on earth that I ever thought would get riled, and he was so quietly riled it stopped me cold. "There are lines." "They aren't the same for everyone" "You have to see them anyway" Suddenly I was seeing those lines really clearly. Where had they been ten minutes ago? "That was funny, but that doesn't mean you say it around my wife and daughters".

I started playing the whole last hour over in my head and while I could still hear the laughing I could also see the edge and ever time I went over it. Bad taste, bad taste, rude, bad taste, mean, rude, bad taste, really mean, offensive, bad taste, Damn! suddenly I was feeling like an ass. " I don't even think they noticed, but I did." Yeah, I felt sheepish, I didn't want them to notice either. Burt just shook my hand. "Just because it's funny doesn't mean you have to say it".

So I learned two things that day. One was obvious, watch your mouth a skill I still struggle with, but I also learned that there is real power in the quiet guy showing disapproval. There is real menace in those that never play at menace. From battling with brothers to throw downs at work I had been so drenched in male bluster that nothing really got through anymore. But the thoughtful engineer type guy? The TV Cleaver's dad? With the quite level delivery? Bam! Point made.

Burt and Coach and Dick and PWT were the Dutch uncles that kept my young self alive, well and socially acceptable. They're all gone now one way or another. It scares the crap out of me. Even with their help I couldn't remember to measure twice much less keep my foot out of my mouth. They were a whole generation of reasonable men all class and polish marching along to some inner rhythm that made a whole country great. I can't even tie a tie and have the knot look right.

Burt built things. He took care of business. If he had an ego he kept it to himself. He wanted to know how things worked. He protected his family from loud mouth snots. He served his country. He served his community. He served his friends. He served his family. He didn't hit me. And he threw starfish everyday because that's what men do. Because that's all you ever can do.

I never talked about spiritual things with Burt, so I have no idea what he believed about God, heaven or hell. I never saw him get sentimental. He was a scientific man not given to flights of fancy. Still if you look at the world the right way there is fancy enough in the practical to more than go around...

A star thrower made of stars. "Is that an echo of some inner rhythm? Can I follow the cadence? Just shut up and go. The world needs you one star at a time. Thanks Burt".