Posted on July 31, 2004
I’m not a strict vegetarian, but I do limit the amount of red meat I consume. It’s because my mother, my grandfather, and my great grandfather all died of cancer in various parts of their digestive systems. So, given current medical opinion, it makes sense to eat fish and fowl instead of cow and pig.
But last night I broke down and enjoyed a large, juicy filet mignon complete with sautйed mushrooms and steak sauce.
We hadn’t gone to some exclusive steak restaurant where steak was the piece de resistance on the menu. Nor had we been invited to some friends’ home for food on the grill. No, I had complete control over the menu and I had chosen both the filet mignon and the fresh mushrooms at the supermarket earlier in the day.
I looked forward all afternoon to biting into the succulent meat. I fantasized about its flavor, its melt-in-your mouth tenderness, its concession to decadence on my part. And, even though I overcooked it according to our tastes, it did not disappoint.
See more 10 Minutes in category Dining/Food
|
Posted on July 29, 2004
Summer’s flying! It’s almost the end of July, and I am reading only my second book of the season. It reminds me of when I was between eighth grade and high school, and the local library sponsored reading clubs during June, July, and August.
My friend Carol and I joined them in eager anticipation of reading about civilizations far distant from our own in urban St. Louis, Missouri. We’d trek to the library at Styx School, about four blocks south of my home, and return laden with wonders between hardbound covers.
“You would like this,” the local librarian told us on more than one occasion. I cannot remember that woman’s name, but I surely do remember some of the readings she recommended.
There was Song of the Voyageur, a story about emerging love set in what is now Minnesota. There was A Lantern in Her Hand, another early settlement story. And then there was Mara, Daughter of the Nile.
Recently, Carol tracked down two copies of Mara, Daughter of the Nile and presented me with one for my birthday. She kept the other for herself, so that we could read the book together and recall the joys of our teen years. After finishing the book as an adult, I must say that Mara stood the test of time; even as an adult I enjoyed it immensely. And I was impressed that two teenage girls with a lot on their minds besides reading could follow the tightly woven plot.
I wonder if today’s youth find satisfaction in haunting the local library. I hope so, because there is so much to be learned in that hallowed building, so much that stays with one through the course of years. Rereading Mara, Daughter of the Nile is only one proof of this.
See more 10 Minutes in category Me/Family, Nostalgia
|
Posted on July 27, 2004
Getting divorced is a lot like getting burned. I mean physically burned. Even after the incident is over, the person hurts and can’t really be touched for awhile.
I recently had dinner with a friend who was officially divorced just the week before we met. She had been working her way out of the marriage for a year or so, but the final irrevocable moment when the judge granted her the divorce was a shock. There was no going back and nothing in her future would be the same.
I once worked in a hospital; perhaps that’s why the burn analogy seems particularly appropriate. People with serious burns are never the same. The actual accident may recede from their minds, but the effects remain forever. Slowly their bodies mend, even more slowly do their psyches.
That night at dinner, I tried to touch my friend in many ways. I told her to take each day as it comes, that I’d be glad to talk — or listen — if she needed someone, that her present feelings were normal. I said all the things that are true but that don’t really make it hurt less. If she had been a burn victim and I a nurse, the same situation would have applied. In the end, it’s time that heals. When we parted I wanted to put my arm around my friend, draw her close, and give her a hug. But I held back. My touch would have been too painful.
I was burned once, so I know.
See more 10 Minutes in category Changing Scene, Me/Family
|
Posted on July 26, 2004
The Arts Section of yesterday’s Sunday Chicago Tribune features an article about four aging female singer/artists who have all released albums in what some would call the sunset of their recording careers.
Annie Lennox is 49, Patti Scialfa 50, Patti Smith 57, and Loretta Lynn 69. Each dropped out somewhere along the straight trajectory of stardom to raise children and be homemakers. And each is back.
I’m not enough of a music critic to judge if their new albums are worthy; what I like about the whole scene is that I am smack dab, age-wise, in the middle of these singers. They give me hope.
We are all of the generation where women chose between career and family. Some of us might have thought otherwise back when we were in choice-making mode, but the truth was you couldn’t do justice to both worlds. And you didn’t get much help from the male side either.
So now, other women besides Lennox and Company are coming of age again too. Now they are at the end of their child rearing years for which they sacrificed their careers. Why can’t they – no, we — pick up those careers? Not in full bloom, maybe never in full bloom, but certainly in emerging blossom. Why can’t we record our own symbolic albums in whatever arenas we choose?
Some might assert that Lennox and Company has certain benefits the rest of us don’t. Maybe they banked the monies they made prior to dropping from the spotlight. Maybe they had famous husbands or lengthy careers early on or whatever. It doesn’t matter. If we don’t light our own candles now, the world will never know what cursing-in-the-dark we prevented.
See more 10 Minutes in category Things to Ponder
|
Posted on July 25, 2004
Collectibles have come into their own. I have a friend who collects penguins and another who likes unusual mugs. The penguin lady has hundreds of them, from greeting cards and room deodorizers. The mug lady has a dining room wall covered with hooks to hold her mugs. She believes in using her collection and lets you pick your mug when you come for coffee. I always choose the one with the Irish Blessing.
Then there’s my friend who likes books on war. They can be photo books or biographies or novels, just as along as they have war, any war, as their theme. Knowing how structured and rigid this person can be at times, I think maybe he is a frustrated military man who secretly lives out his personal dream of glory via the printed page. I once reminded him that the pen was mightier than the sword, and he laughed heartily at the irony.
I also have a friend who likes anything to do with frogs, a fellow free-lancer who fancies fountain pens, and a favorite aunt who owns many hand-stitched quilts. I’ve even slept under some of them, my favorite being the bridal wreath pattern that graces my cousin’s four poster bed.
I’ve read about people who collect thimbles, Waterford Christmas ornaments, or Winnie the Pooh memorabilia. I’ve read about others who collect authors or old instruments or postcards of faraway places.
The list of collectibles is endless, the number of collectors even more endless. What they have in common is a sense of satisfaction and pride in possessing something they view as special. Some collectors pour over their trove daily; others put a new acquisition on a shelf and let it go at that. But all of them feel good about it.
Although I’ve never seen it on any list of collectibles, what I treasure also makes me feel satisfied and proud. Happy and complete. When time permits, I reminisce about how I came by the particular object of my affection. I try not to take them for granted, although I’m sure I have. But the nicest thing about my collection is that it is interactive. I give and I get. It’s the ying and yang of collecting.
I collect good friends.
See more 10 Minutes in category Me/Family
|
Posted on July 24, 2004
There are many courtesies extended in small town life, and when you move from the Big City to a smaller burg they catch you off guard at first.
For instance, people actually come to a full stop – rather than the rolling variety – at four-way-stop-sign intersections. In addition, they pay attention to that old rule about the person who arrived at the intersection first having the right to pass through first. I’ve had cars wave at me that it’s my turn, whereas in Chicago they’d just as soon run you over.
Most business transactions include some social element. At LaSalle Federal, the local bank, they know me by name and never fail to ask how Earl is or encourage me to have a great weekend. If I need a copy of a cancelled check, it is faxed to my home without question. At Chicago banks, you have to pay a fee and then wait two weeks for the copy to arrive via snail mail.
When someone comes to your home to fix something, I’m used to having to pay for it on the spot. But here in St. Joseph people do the work and bill you. Your word is your bond and they trust that you will pay. It works well, because in a small town you undoubtedly run into that person again; and this is a great incentive to be up front and honest in business dealings in the first place.
One afternoon I drove over to Three Oaks, a small town several miles down the road from St. Joseph, with a friend. We were gabbing and not paying attention as I parked the car on the main street. We got out, still yakking away, and started our tour of the local shops. About an hour later, we returned to the car. How surprised I was when we realized that we’d not only left the car running the entire time with the keys in the ignition but also that the car was unlocked.
I shudder to think what would have happened in a Big City.
See more 10 Minutes in category Small Town Life
|
Posted on July 23, 2004
Two days ago, I went with my friend Carol to see “Fahrenheit 911.” She had seen it before; and, being a left wing liberal, she wanted to make sure that I, one of her oldest confidantes, saw it too.
Of course, I wasn’t dragged kicking and shoving, since I am somewhat of a left wing liberal myself. Besides, I had already read about Michael Moore’s film and his depiction of President George W. Bush and was curious to go with a fellow liberal. Earl does not fit the category.
I’ve never seen another Moore film, but I’ve read a lot about them. “Roger and Me” and “Bowling for Columbine” cemented his reputation as a burr under the establishment saddle. If they are anything like “Fahrenheit 911,” I can understand why. Carol and I were the only ones in the theater, so the film was obviously preaching to a very small choir.
For me, one of the most telling moments in F911, was when Moore approached various Congressmen in Washington to invite them to encourage their sons — probably mostly middle to upper class — to enlist in the military. He had already made a case that many of the current enlistees are young men and women who have a difficult future ahead of them in the towns where they reside. He also noted the irony of having our country being protected most by those who have enjoyed the least of its many advantages.
Not one Congressman said, “Yes, I’ll run home and tell my son that he should quit school and enlist so that he might risk his life in Iraq.” A couple Congressmen even refused to talk with Moore.
In fairness, the movie makes some assumptions that cannot be documented. One of these is to extrapolate what President Bush was thinking at the time of the 911 attack. To my knowledge, he has never revealed his specific thoughts as he visited an elementary school in Florida that morning. Regardless, Moore hypothesizes for us.
He also bombards the viewer with item after item about the Bush Administration. Perhaps some people will take this information at face value. What it did instead for me was make me want to learn more, to attempt to document what Moore said was the truth. Or to discover an error.
Given this is an election year, I think the film’s ultimate value lies in energizing one to learn more about the candidates for the upcoming presidential election. Maybe one test of their worthiness could be their answers to the question: “Would you encourage your child to enlist in the military?”
See more 10 Minutes in category 2004 Election, Politics
|
Posted on July 22, 2004
There must be something in the chemical solutions for permanent waves or hair coloring that makes beauty salon owners want to give their businesses off-center names. A look in the local telephone directory confirms this.
I’m browsing under “Beauty Salons” and find Cutting Corners, The Cutting Edge, and The Cutting Room, all in proper alphabetical order. I give the owner of Cutting Corners the benefit of the doubt by assuming the establishment is at two intersections, rather than assuming the name is a mission statement.
I grant that The Cutting Edge implies the most current trends in hair cutting, but that’s not particularly what I want. Haven’t you noticed that a person who works with hair all day has a different idea from yours of what edgy means? And The Cutting Room? Well, this phrase has another life in the world of film, and things usually end up on the floor there because they are not very good.
Running my finger down to the letter ‘S,’ I notice more creativity at work. There is Shear Design, Shear Heaven, and Shear Magic. Don’t salon owners know that shearing is what shepherds do to sheep with a shears, which is a much larger industrial version of a scissors?
Would you want to go to a stylist who didn’t know the difference? Me neither.
My favorite name for a hair salon, however, belongs to a now defunct little shop in Libertyville, Illinois that was called — with apologies to Humphrey Bogart — Hair’s Looking At You. The first runner-up is Curl Up and Dye on Chicago’s north side. Some enterprising salon owner is bound to come up with the idea of combining both names together.
See more 10 Minutes in category Things to Ponder
|
Posted on July 21, 2004
My assistant, Kyle, hasn’t emptied his trash for ten years. Not that kind of trash; I mean the trash folder on his computer.
I was surprised when he revealed this as we worked on my web site last week. I’m a rather compulsive person for tossing things out; and I admit that it’s come back to haunt me a time or two. In both my paper and virtual file worlds.
But ten years, Kyle?
“The trash takes up almost no space on the hard drive,” my computer-literate companion explained. “And I’m concerned I might want to reference something later. It’s happened a couple times already.
“Once I asked a question of a professor via email. The same question came up a couple years after, and I had the old email to refer to. I also got into a dispute with an Internet provider about service. They disagreed with me, but I had a record of the day I signed up, every time I’d contacted the technical service, and what transpired.”
My problem is I have taken the word trash literally. Trash is to be thrown out, its use having been exhausted. Trash is something that is no longer necessary to keep around.
But in the computer world, this isn’t really the case. What passes for trash, or what Word calls recycling, is more like the hard copy letters, proposals, and responses I kept when everything went into folders in black metal file cabinets. One hospital I worked at kept its most current three years in its Medical Records Department, and anything before that was relegated to the basement catacombs next to the morgue.
In the future I’ll be less eager to empty my computer trash folder, but I do think manufacturers should call it something different. How about Reference Desk?
Posted on July 20, 2004
This year over Spring break my family and I went to Disney World in Florida, and it made a believer of me. I believe in Tinker Bell and in Snow White’s castle and that Peter Pan never grew up and in Mickey and Minnie and that people can work together.
* * * * *
I wrote that paragraph almost fifteen years ago when the concept of writing ten minutes a day was fresh in my mind. That opening and the following four paragraphs compose the entire mini-essay, and I am struck with how some things never really change. Only the proper nouns are different.
* * * * *
The first day we were there we learned that 70,000 other people were there too; and that it takes another 30,000 employees to run the place smoothly. We learned that standing in line in the hot sun may not be the most pleasant of time-passing activities, but it can be done so that it is an acceptable alternative to pushing and shoving. We never heard a cross word from visitor or employees.
When Tinker Bell actually appeared and flew from the castle to Tomorrowland, there was a collective gasp from those whose belief in fairies had been rewarded. The believers knew if they clapped hard enough, she would appear. There was even a gasp from the skeptics too.
In the two weeks since we returned home, the United States has conducted bombings on Libya, the space program has met new problems with the explosion of the Challenger, Congress is still debating aid to the Contras, and the local papers have been filled with more-than-the-usual amount of murder, mayhem, and mania.
Disney World is far away, but I still believe. I believe it should be the real and our present world should be a fantasy. If only clapping our hands would make it so.
See more 10 Minutes in category 2004 Election, Travel, Writing
|
