Tag: prompt

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Pizza Night

They are asking people not to lick the poisonous toads at National Parks, and it’s kind of a back to the ’60’s moment for me. Yes, I was there. The original “let’s try toasted banana peel with cardamon and pepper” days of experimentation. It was a time of little knowledge, great experimentation, and opportunity. Certain reprehensible memorials to those days remain in my mind.

I was a traditionalist. I tended to stick with more mundane products for getting high and moving into exploratory states of mental enhancement. But at the Folkie Palace, we believed that all suburban “wannabees” deserved their chance to explore the more idiotic fringes of the psychedelic revolution. So Saturday night was the big night for kiddies in from the ‘burbs to hit Beacon Hill and try to be cool. And more than a few wound up at our place on Grove street seeking the hip, cool and memorable experience that only our wall-to-wall mattress Folkie experience could give.

Our spiritual guide, the Monk, would start the action with a reading from some esoteric religious text. Then the Teahead of the August Moon would read dramatically from Ginsburg’s Howl. Then, finally, I’d play guitar through the Doxology, and we’d pass the hat before the spaghetti and meatballs would be served. We had the whole thing rehearsed and divided into segments for ease of performance because it was just a performance we put on for the kids from the suburbs.

At some point in the evening, some pimple-faced 18-year-old would ask if there was any possibility of scoring some drugs. Dead silence would follow. I’d get up, saunter over to the door, open it, and check the hallway. The Canary would do the same with the windows looking out onto Grove street. In turn, we’d whisper, “all clear.” Then the Teahead would wander to the fridge and bring out a cardboard box with four slices of three-day-old pizza. “Five bucks a piece, don’t eat them here.” “But that’s just pizza with some green mold on it!”

The Teahead did his best; I’m exasperated at your stupidity look. ” Hey kid, you ever hear about the poisonous frogs?”, “yeah?”, “Well, you don’t eat the frog, do you? You lick the frog’s back. Well, you don’t eat the mushrooms on the pizza. You get it?”
Slowly it dawned that the mold was a sort of penicillin for the psyche, and the cash got paid.
As the wannabees walked down the street, the Monk hollered from the window, ” don’t be surprised if you get nauseous; it’s part of the experience.

But they were so busy licking pizza that they paid little attention.

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Prepare

The wood is stacked, leaves raked, yard cleaned up ( well, almost). So I must start on the following tasks needed for the coming holidays:

  • The little lights for the windows and plants all work. 
  • I’ve gathered all the materials for the rum-soaked fruitcakes (don’t eat and drive).
  • I’ve bought the fresh poppy seed for Grandma’s poppyseed bread.
  • I’ve started prep for the holiday letter.

There is a lot to do that wouldn’t fit into a paragraph. Thanksgiving is still weeks away, but it won’t work well without preparation. Remember the seven P’s – Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance!

And sometimes, I get a bit fed up with it all. But it keeps me from mourning the passing of my favorite seasons and keeps me from looking towards the one I least like; winter.

Now is also the time of year when I reflect on the fragility of these things. It depends upon family and friends, and pets. It would all be very hollow if it were only me. So let’s see, get sloshed on the rum-soaked fruit cakes, get stuffed alone on poppyseed bread, light lights only I might see, and read my prose in the dark.

It’s more fun to chase the cat away from the decorations. Chastise the dog for stealing food. Make holiday calls to relatives. Listen to our favorite family songs while kissing my wife. And watch my adult children tell stories while they put up the old favored decorations.

As arduous as the preparations may be, most of the pleasure is tied up in enjoying the enjoyment of others. It reflects back on us and cheers us at this time of year.

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Autumn in New England

Autumn in New England is a beautiful time. The colors of the leaves, the brisk days, and the preparations for winter.

Sunday, I finished stacking all the wood except for some twisted cherry knots and cleaned up the four buckets of “mulch” that always comes with the wood. Typically, this would not be a reason to lament all the work to come, but the woods behind the house have cultivated a fine crop of leaves this year.
While I’ve been busy stacking, they’ve been littering. So now begins the long slog through the deep drifts of maple, ash, oak, and other leaves. It’s time to knuckle down, get serious, and get those rakes working. I know that if I haven’t cleared the back by the woods before the end of this month, I’ll lose the battle. It’ll all be there for winter, wet and soggy, matted down, and resistant to raking. Then when the first storm of December comes along, it’ll be too late, and I’ll shovel through the snow and then the mulched layer of leaves.

Autumn in New England. The season that keeps on giving.

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Mahan and the Mermaid

 If you read the “about my stories” page on my blog, you’d see that I love and appreciate sea stories. These generally have the approach of TINS – this is no shit. In other words, ” I heard this from my buddy, who served aboard the USS Pig Tail when it happened.” Sea stories do not have the classic “they lived happily ever ending.” More likely, they end with everyone heading off to the Blue Anchor for an evening of carousing.

Well, to each his own. But each genre has a perverse “you just know this didn’t happen” take on things. For example, visiting the Unseely Court for fairy tales and mermaids for sea stories. So there is a sort of connection.

Mahan was married to a mermaid. It seemed unlikely that a stunning daughter of the sea would pick Mahan, the Navy’s most unkempt and alcoholic Bosun’s mate. When we first heard about it, we figured it was an alcoholic hallucination. But in fact, that’s what the marriage certificate said. Mahan was seen every month driving to the pet store to get the twenty-pound bags of Miracle Sea to add to her required bath water. On the few occasions that Stella was seen in social company, she was always in long green sheathlike dresses that seemed as though it was actually “her” rather than clothes. Her tiny feet seemed an afterthought and not natural. She always hung on Mahan for support and had a way of flipping her legs about that didn’t seem normal. The other Navy wives and girlfriends thought she was odd, used no cosmetics, and loved the seaweed salad at the harborside sushi restaurant. But Mahaan was smitten, and Stella was smitten with Mahan.

Their families did not get along. Hers objected to her marrying a member of her people’s age-old exploiters. And his family found her background too “fishy” and improbable. Being of old Irish stock, the Mahan family knew about the “special” people of Ireland and wondered aloud why he couldn’t marry a proper Irish Sidhe and not some watery tart.

Stella and Mahan felt confident that the families would reconcile when the children came along. But the grandmothers to be argued endlessly about whether the birth should happen in the hospital or nearby harbor. Mahan, his father, and his father-in-law sensibly left the delivery location to them.

Then they laid a course for the Blue Anchor, bought multiple rounds for the house, and left birthing to the ladies.

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Good Taste, or Tastes Good?

The world is full of boundary lines. Territories are mapped and defined by rules that people create. As a result, they can be gratifyingly obscure, like societies in which membership gets restricted to membership in the descendants of the Mayflower or a Confederate Army veteran.
Having been excluded as a young man from many exclusive groups, I became somewhat of a specialist on reasons of exclusion: Just not the right sort of person, wrong class, wrong ethnicity, too poor, or my personal favorite, too coarse.

I found that I was so rarely in with the in crowd that I affirmed, proudly, that I was in with the out crowd. We are a sort of “Flavor of the Day” group, but hey, if you didn’t like chocolate coconut orange cream too bad.

Select group exclusionary principles have existed since the first Cromagnon established a hunting group that excluded his Neanderthal cousin Charlie. Snobby societies since have followed likewise.

But that’s OK; I have no interest in membership in groups proud of their genocidal ancestors or ancestors who were insurrectionists.

The “Flavor of the Day Club” has lofty principles and only wishes to exclude those peons, those lower orders, incapable of appreciating Apricot sushi ice cream. After all, good taste is universal…except when it’s not. We are currently accepting nominations for membership. Those without proper credentials need not apply.

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Waypoint

I’ve known people who fixed their finest moment, an apex of life when they played hockey in high school. Others have pegged their years in the Navy, college, or a professional career. I’ve always had hopes that they moved on to other personally significant moments in life but are not mentioning them because of modesty.
The people I’ve most admired in life move from high point to high point in life. The high points may be very modest, but the goals in their lives are constantly moving and are not static. For example, a prominent anesthesiologist I knew was dedicated to mastering watercolor painting. The best guitarist of my acquaintance was continually dipping into cookbooks to master new approaches to preparing food.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with being fond of past high points. However, holding them up as the ultimate in life is a bit limiting. It implies that the rest of your life was a giant extensive bore.
The goals do not have to be very high. The breakthroughs are personal rather than financial or career-making. And the sense of achievement is lasting but not limited, because you are moving on to the next waypoint in a prosperous life.

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Hold The Muzak

How can I say this…the long retail slog towards Christmas has started. Yesterday I visited my doctor for an immunization, and on the way home stopped at the big box bookstore for a treat. It was low but insidious. Christmas music, on the second of November. 

Oh, Lord! Do I have the stamina to withstand two months of Chestnuts Roasting in an Open fire, Here Comes Santa Clause, and Silent Night? Can I do this without becoming a grouch or, worse, a grinch?

I still have the build-up to our Thanksgiving ( here in the States), and I understand that between bird flu and supply chain issues, the rush to the freezers with the turkeys will make Black Friday a stroll in the park. It is almost enough to make a teetotaler like myself lust for a drink of the Golden Egg Nog they have already started pushing in the stores. Ick!

Don’t get me wrong, the holidays at this time of year are my absolute favorite. Nothing is mundane about lighting the first Christmas lights at sundown on Thanksgiving, preparing a holiday dinner, or listening to sappy songs. These things light off old memories like fireworks on the fourth of July.

So I guess I’ll put my earbuds firmly in place every time I go into a store for the next two months, play Tom Waits or ZZ Top, and buggy through the schlock. I love the holidays,

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Perspectives

The Prison Point Bridge runs like an arrow across what once was Miller’s River. The water had, long ago, been filled in for railroad yards, an old glass factory, and a slaughterhouse. I was freshly back in Boston from Canada.

It was November now, and the last warm touches of October crimson had fled from the oaks in the parks. I arrived in Boston last week with my cat, a guitar, and a pack. Finding housing had been a chore.

A lead took me to a rundown Single Room Occupancy on Temple Street. The proprietor was a little shrimp named Bernie, who initially insisted that he had no rooms available but invited me in for coffee when he saw my cat. Over coffee, he explained that he ran the house primarily for his old Merchant Marine buddies and a few selected others. Unfortunately, his friends were beyond their “looking for a ship” days and needed homes. Bernie provided this for as low a price as you’d find. After coffee, he led me to the door, but as I left, he said, ” Hey, Carreras? Did I ever ship out with your dad? Nico, Nick, or some such?” I replied that my dad had been a Dollar Steamship Lines sailor and later American Presidents Line. “Carreras, come on back; your dad was a shipmate. I got a room at the top, but it’s warm.”

It was too warm. All the steam heat rose to the crows’ nest I occupied, and I had to leave the door and window open all winter. My cat loved this. He became a frequent visitor to all the rooms in the building and soon filled his scrawny kitten body out to a full muscular cathood from treats. Since he cleaned up the building’s rodent population in a week and terrorized a few small dogs in the neighboring buildings, he soon won the title of Grey Menace. No mouse, dog, or bare toe was safe from the Menace. The Grey Menace introduced me to the other tenants. If I was searching for him, he was with Jay, Tom, or Alfred.

As Bernie said, the residents were old sailors. The list of lines they had sailed for was long and glorious. But few had much to retire on, and none had family that wanted them for an extended stay. One described the situation, “Well, Carreras, we’re on the beach permanently.” A few worked as “lumpers” at the fish pier, helping to unload fish, but most just picked up odd jobs around the Haymarket. They cleaned the market stalls and replenished their food stocks with what they could scavenge.

On occasion, you’d get one of them talking; they’d transport you to pre-war Japan, China, or the Caribbean. They spoke of the ships they served on, what years, who cooked, and if the food was good. They did not recognize the urban landscape the way a landsman would. Most of us see our cities from the inside out. 

Even if you grow up in a coastal town, the sea is a fringe. Not for them. It was a view from the docks. They recognized ports not by the landmarks you’d expect but from the harbor and its entrance, the navigational features, wharves, piers, waterside districts, and places they frequented.  

Later on, when I learned sailing and coastal navigation, I realized how valuable this perspective was. A port looks entirely different from the water than from the pier. Distances are different. You go around to a location by the long path of roadways. On the water, you go over to the other side.

Perceptions are different; the optics of what you see and how you perceive it can vary daily and by the time of day.

Next time you take a cruise, whale watching, fishing trip, or harbor cruise, practice this alternate way of looking at your world. Your old and familiar will be different and new.

A change of perspective is a good thing now and then.

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Absolute

Here’s something I know from experience: most people can’t tell really gruesome from fake blood on a Halloween costume. 

Work in an emergency ward or operating room dealing with lots of trauma, and your taste for comic grue and spooky darkness recedes. You learn to place the real deal in perspective. You are much too involved in rectifying your fellow humans’ idiocy, creative violence, and cruelty to play head games with mere blood.

Play acting with the offside of life can be healthy to a point, but I’d suggest that for many, their lives are well insulated from reality. They watch awful stuff on Netflix with a particular fixed stare, then shudder and talk about how frightening it was.

The real fright was happening on their news feed, super storms, massive fires, famine, and whole countries sinking under rising tides.

They’d pay attention if only the music score were playing behind it. It needs eerie strings, swelling wind instruments, and ominous percussion, a harmony warning of the awful things on the other side of the door.

But absolute horror doesn’t come with a scored soundtrack on Video On Demand.