August 2022

Spam (and scalloped potatoes)

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

Comfort Food

It’s really stupid, but I particularly like Spam.  Yes, Spam –the luncheon meat – spiced ham. I was raised on it.  And then when we moved to Hawaii, we discovered it was like the state food.  I think their Spam consumption rivals their pineapple consumption.   Hawaiians eat Spam by the truckload.  You can get a Spam breakfast sandwich at the McDonald’s.  There is Spam sushi.  I am not making this up.

I like it fried with eggs.  I like it right out of the can at room temperature.  An old friend of my mother’s used to grind it up and make a ham salad sort of thing with it.  That was good too.

But I particularly like my Spam with scalloped potatoes.  That’s how my mom served it.  But she used Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup to make the potatoes.  Later, she started buying the boxed kind.

When I was 15 or so, I went on a tear to learn how to cook things from scratch.  I was given the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  I still have it.  I still use it.  Their scalloped potato recipe is to die for.  Really.  Well, it is with some modifications.  As I learned to cook, I also learned that most recipes geared toward the general populace are lacking in spice and pizazz.  I am very fond of savory foods. And pizazz.

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The Origin of the Tooth Fairy (A fairy tale for Julien)

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Photo by Mimipic Photography on Unsplash

“No!  Not like that.  Gently, gently.  The children will be sleeping and you mustn’t wake them.”

“Why?” Frannie asked her forehead all wrinkled with concentration.

“All I know is what they told me when I was training.  Both you and the children will be cursed from that day forward if the child sees you.”

“Because of teeth?”

“Because they saw the magic. The children are led to believe that we exchange the teeth for money.  Very few of them ever ask what we want the teeth for.  They mustn’t know that we turn the teeth into money. 

“But…”

No!  Stop. I don’t know why. It just is.  Think of it as a rule.”

“I’m never going to be able to do this.  It’s too hard.”

“It is not. It just takes finesse.  Let me show you again.’

Florence used her wand ever so gently to brush the tooth out from underneath the pillow.  She circled the tooth clockwise three times with her wand, and then lightly tapped the tooth. In a moment, the tooth was transformed into a pile of gleaming quarters.

“That’s more than the last one. What’s up with that?” Frannie asked.

“Don’t know. The wand decides how much money.  It’s always different.” Flossie then used the wand to sweep the gleaming quarters under the pillow one by one. ‘Sometimes it’s paper money.  That’s a little trickier to get under the pillow. Most of the time I just use my hand.  Slow and careful like. “

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Today is my 63rd Birthday

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Today is my 63rd birthday. I give to you today a repost of the entry wrote I about my 25th and my 50th birthdays. Today will be far quieter, but I wanted to drop in to say that my 50s were wonderful and my sixties, Covid aside, have been good. I think I’ve got this aging thing down.

The following was written 4 days after the epic party when I could finally write about it without crying.

Birthday Morning Glory

Approaching my 25th birthday, I had a midlife crisis. Having always been precocious, the early advent of said crisis shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it was.

At 25, so I thought, I had to grow up and be an adult. I needed to pay my bills on time, get my oil changed, quit wasting money, and become a responsible (unmarried) matron.

Appalled at such a future, I threw myself a birthday party – the last blowout of my misspent youth before donning sensible shoes and alphabetizing my spice jars.

At the time, I lived in Milwaukee with the ex who was not yet a husband. We had a house in the city on a tiny lot in a solid, staid working-class neighborhood. Knowing the party had the potential to get out of hand, we invited the entire neighborhood thinking if folks were invited they were less likely to complain.

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Where I’m From

/ wvfurandroot / 8 Comments
Photo by Morten Andreassen on Unsplash
I am from moving boxes and the smell of Kiwi shoe polish on combat boots.

I am from a home that was a group of people not a place.

Where the only constant was the Naugahyde sofa my brother teethed on,
And being the new kid.

I am from cross country road trips on Rt. 66 and missing an exit in St. Louis.  

The Wigwam motel in Arizona and bathrooms you had to put a dime in the slot to use the toilets.

From mountains and oceans and deserts and verdant forests.

New telephone numbers and addresses and looking at maps to fix myself in space.

From “Daddy do we need gas yet?” and not “are we almost there?”

Where network television offered a routine – I watched Gilligan’s Island in California, Hawaii, Virginia, North Carolina and then as re-runs in every state since then.

I am from “You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

I am from the places that when folks ask where I’m from, I say everywhere and nowhere.

I am from Taps at sunset and men chanting cadence while running, standing with my hand over my heart at the movie theater when the national anthem was played.

And classmates whose fathers never came home.

Long-stay motels while waiting on housing and using an ironing board to do the worksheets my last teacher gave me to work on until I got back in school again.

I am from 30-day leaves, the ever-present green Stanley thermos in the car of the moment, and crisp uniforms.

And not being able to hang anything on the always white walls.

New churches, new schools, new friends, and all new clothes for the new climate.

I am from 29 addresses before I was 29.  

And now I am from a ramshackle barn in a ramshackle state where I’ve lived and loved for 37 years.  On a dirt road where home is now a place as well as a group of people.  Where I hang things on colorful walls and throw boxes away. Where I’ve had the same phone number for eons and friendships older than a couple of years.  

I am from Almost Heaven in the heart of Appalachia and happy to be here.
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