The Gift of the Betty Crocker Magi

(a very short piece of fiction based on a number of actual events)

They arrived en masse late one afternoon. The kitchen was a mess, and a plumber was trying to coax water from the faucet into the sink full of yesterday's dirty dishes. Dinner wasn't showing any sign of materializing out of the clutter.

They had trouped into her house á la surprise party, carrying paper plates and a chocolate cake. "How nice!" she exclaimed with false enthusiasm. Their purpose was to spread the joy that Christians know, but as far as she was concerned, the only thing spreading was crumbs. She thought about how she liked cake with ice cream rather than piety.

She'd had some experience squashing rapture. Once many years ago, her first husband invited two Mormons to their house. It was the holiday season, and besides loathing proselytizers, she was busy. The three wise men sat in the living room discussing Jesus; she wrapped Christmas gifts on the dining room table, tolerating the visitors until one of them gave her husband a knowing, sympathetic smile.

"You have no idea who or what God is," she announced loudly to the followers of Joseph Smith. It wasn't as immediately effective as if she'd proposed to slip into something more comfortable and break out the martinis, but they soon headed for the door, convinced there was no likelihood of diverting her from the road to Hell. The thought of that evening always amuses her.

"I don't really like your chocolate fucking cake,” she said sweetly. (Like them, she believed in the power of The Word).

The Betty Crocker Magi fled more hastily than the Mormons had, just as the plumber announced, "There!" and water began to flow into the sink.

While washing the dishes she decided to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. She wasn't really very hungry, but she would say a prayer of thanks to her god for this food, and she would smile.

Amen.

The Great Bank Robbery

It was a hot summer afternoon in Potsdam, a lazy college town that had turned its students and teachers out to summer pasture. The merchants were complaining about things being “slow” (as they always did at that time of year), yet they, like everyone else, were secretly enjoying the quiet of the off-season. Then it happened: The Great Bank Robbery of 1987.

It certainly wasn’t on anybody’s list of expected occurrences, so the robbers had the advantage of surprising the employees of Community Bank’s tiny satellite location. While they had the element of surprise on their side, they had the distinct disadvantage of being the only three black men in a white Cadillac convertible within probably a hundred miles, and that in a county full of rednecks in pickup trucks.

The local police quickly jumped into action, although they weren’t exactly sure what sort of action they should jump into. By 2:00, Alfred, the town’s one black businessman, had been arrested twice by two different State Troopers, only to be immediately recognized by the local chief and turned loose, his apologies to Alfred gradually morphing into a string of expletives aimed at the visiting forces.

The police did manage to set up roadblocks while the robbers were driving around town trying to decide which way to leave. It would later be learned that they had come to Potsdam on the invitation of a local professor who hoped to do them some social good, but apparently they were in such a hurry to make the most of the opportunity presented that they hadn’t bothered to get their bearings. Someone reported seeing the trio studying a map in the hospital parking lot shortly after the commission of the crime.

At 3:00, Alfred was arrested again, freed again, and decided he might as well go home for the rest of the day.

Lost, confused and road-blocked, the robbers eventually decided to ditch the car and make their get-away on foot. The Cadillac was found at the south side of town, on the north edge of the great swamp.

Meanwhile, the local coffee counters were a-buzz with speculation as “Three men and a Cadillac” began to take on gangland proportions. Not everyone, however, had heard the news. Irv Thompson, high-school English teacher, was home relaxing in blissful ignorance of the excitement... in his house bordering the swamp...

News of The Event reached Vic Jarvis early in the day. He was the proprietor of Vic’s Barbershop and Figure Skating Leotard store, and one after another his clientele wasted no time in giving him the scoop. “Just in case,” Vic set his scissors aside, took his pistol out of storage and placed it in readiness for any would-be robbers. He’d never had any black men come looking for haircuts (or leotards, for that matter), so he figured he’d know them for what they were if three came knocking on this afternoon. Maybe it was the latent figure skater in him, maybe it was just good common sense, but Vic was nervous.

When the location of the found Cadillac was announced, Vic’s fears reached panic proportions. He grabbed the gun, flipped over the “OPEN” sign, jumped in his car and sped south. Although he didn’t know it, Vic reached Irv’s place about the time the first of the bank robbers quietly and peacefully gave himself up.

Bursting into his friend’s living room, gun in hand, alternating frantic questions concerning Irv’s well-being with excerpted news bulletins, Vic made an immediate and profound impression. The idea was that Irv should have the gun to protect himself; an idea punctuated by the deafening blast it made as Vic endeavored to show Irv that it was safe because it wasn’t loaded.

The town’s memory of that eventful day has faded with time. The fate of the bank robbers and their collegiate co-conspirator is forgotten by most of us these years later – most of us except maybe Alfred who still shakes his head in wonder at honky stupidity, and Irv and Vic who occasionally look at a hole in the fireplace mantle and chuckle at how lucky they both were when the shot was fired.

This is a true story. I have changed the names, and 1987 is my best guess at which year these events actually took place.

Two Wrongs Can Make a Write

It’s said that two wrongs don’t make a right. Maybe so, but three rights make a left - and two rights get you right back to whatever it was that you left. All of which makes me wonder if I’m right and whether there’s anything left to write right now and if this blog is a writing ritual or a wordwright’s righting rite. Yeah, right. G’night.

Anathea

I was once a movie star. Black and white was the medium, so I guess you could say it was an art film, and there was even a sex scene. It took considerable acting skill to keep the bathing suit straps from showing above the sheets and still create some sense of erotic shenanigans for the camera, and the thing was necessarily short: in a four-minute movie there isn’t a lot of time for plot development, let alone fornication.

The filmmaker was on his way to a career in fashion photography, but in 1966 R.I.T. saw to it that her Professional Photography graduates were well-rounded. “Film” was not an elective. The studio was the living room of an apartment in the slums that bordered campus in those old downtown days. The plot would be long-forgotten except that it was based on a song; a song that I also sang for the sound-track: Anathea. (Her brother steals a horse, gets caught, chained up and the judge says “Hang him.” She goes to the judge with gold and silver to buy brother’s freedom; Judge says keep your money, all I want is your ass, so she beds down with him then hears the gallows groaning. The song isn’t clear on exactly what she does next, but it ends up with “Thirteen doctors can not cure him, thirteen shelves of drugs can’t heal him.”) Take that, you sonofabitch. Tears all around. End of movie.

You laugh, but I’ve seen lots of worse films.

Note: I was going to include a link to the lyrics, but apparently Judy Collins has taken action to have them removed from the Web. Strange... I did finally find a copy at: http://zen-lunatic.com/wp/?page_id=4 While you're there, check out the entry "dad's wisdom."

Busy Bees

Hoe rows; mulch beds; thin carrots and kale; net blueberries to protect from hungry birds; pick and freeze black-caps; dead-head perenniels; be-head garlic; feed flowers; fence for coons; weed asparagus bed; tear up strawberries and re-plant: the only ones in the garden who work harder - a lot harder - than me are the bees, and they never stop to rest.

Bread Bakers, Listen Up!

In the old days (say the mid-1850s), the rural family baker had a flour barrel. From it she – you can be sure it was a she – made bread, pancakes, biscuits, and any other “breadish” baked goods. The barrel was not only her storage place for maybe a hundred pounds of flour, but it also served as her mixing bowl.

When she wanted to make bread, she removed the barrel’s lid, made a small “well” in the flour, and then poured in the rest of the ingredients. Careful mixing allowed the liquids to pick up the necessary flour, and when enough flour was absorbed to make a dough of the proper consistency, the baker would remove it and replace the lid on the flour barrel. The initial mixing complete, she could knead the dough on the table and then let it rise according to whatever recipe she was following.

I have baked a good many loaves of homemade bread, but pouring the liquid ingredients for a couple of loaves into my month’s supply of flour would make me pretty nervous, especially if I was depending on that bread as a mainstay of all three of the family’s daily meals every day of the week. Great-grandma could have showed me how, but she’s just looking at me thoughtfully from her old oval frame, seeming to wonder why I wouldn't rather use a bread machine.

John Brown's Body

Our son’s recent four-day visit was very enjoyable from start to finish, winding up with the trip to Saranac Lake's little tiny airport to put him on a little tiny airplane that would return him to New York City. As he flew off to the metropolis, we drove over to North Elba and visited John Brown's farm.

The caretaker of the historic site is a descendant of John Brown and is passionate about the man and his cause. She is a wonderful story-teller who held us spellbound with her emotional vignettes, told with perfect theatrical timing. We hung on her words as we went through the house, some of which is furnished with Brown's own things, the rest with period pieces.

In 1846, Brown, who was living in Ohio, heard of "Timbucto," the community started by Abolitionist Gerrit Smith. It was a colony of sorts located in the northeastern Adirondacks which offered free 40 acre parcels of land to blacks. In 1849, Brown moved there to help teach these colonists how to farm. He bought 244 acres nearby (the site of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site we visited), but quickly realized that most of the Timbucto land was unfit for farming and only the hardiest of the colonists would be able to survive there. In 1851 he went back to Ohio, but in 1855 returned with his family to North Elba and the farmhouse and barns were built. His wife and a couple of his daughters lived there, but he only visited sporadically because of his anti-slavery activities in Kansas and Ohio. The famous Harper's Ferry raid took place in Virginia in 1859; Brown was captured, tried, and then executed on Dec. 2, 1859. The Civil War broke out shortly thereafter, arguably (by this caretaker at least) partly as a result of John Brown’s martyrdom. He is buried at the farm in North Elba along with two of his sons and ten other raiders killed at Harpers Ferry.

According to this caretaker, John Brown’s affection for “negroes” and belief in equality was formed very early in his life through his own experience rather than because of the strong religious fanaticism many people attached to him later. She is friends with Russell Banks, author of Cloudsplitter, and although in love with his earlier book, The Sweet Hereafter, she could not bear the fictionalization she encountered in Banks’ portrayal of her ancestor.

You may someday visit Lake Placid’s resorts, drive up the Whiteface Mountain Memorial Highway, enjoy the view from atop the ski jump or visit the bobsled and luge runs and the skating rinks. Maybe you’ll cheer on the competitors in the Iron Man competition or cross-country ski race, perhaps you’ll paddle a kayak or canoe, and maybe you’ll enjoy a wonderful meal at either the Mirror Lake or Interlaken Inn. But while you’re there soaking up all that Olympic Village excitement and fun, take a couple of hours to quietly experience John Brown’s home and meet his descendant. You won’t be disappointed.

Link to information about the farm: http://www.nyhistory.com/gerritsmith/nelba.htm

Dishes

I have a weakness for dishes.

A slice of bright lemon pie picking up the yellow of flowers on an antique plate... or the deep red of pickled beets atop dark green leaf lettuce on a stark white one... or the traditional Thanksgiving feast mounded upon blue Spode... Pretty food, pretty plates... The pleasing presentation of good food enhances the experience of eating it.

Here you see chilled honeydew soup with its green, limy, mint coolness, in a green leaf-like bowl: pretty to look at, delicious to slurp.

Chilled Honeydew Soup

Flesh of 1 honeydew melon (seeded)
1 tablespoon of honey (more or less)
3 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lime juice (more or less)
¼ cup of fresh mint leaves (loosely packed) from the garden

Buzz it all in the blender, and then chill it for several hours. You can garnish it with a thin slice of lime or a small sprig of mint.

Hmmmm..... maybe it’s food - not dishes - that I have a weakness for.

From my home to yours, happy summer!

Having a Hart

photo by WizenedEye.com

How do you catch a woodchuck? I catch mice and voles with peanut butter, sunflower seeds can lure chipmunks, the two gray squirrels who terrorized the Accounting Dept. at work were suckers for Doritos, but what would interest a hedgehog?

It turned out I was able to rush him and scare him onto the front porch. Once he was cornered there, I made a lot of noise, banging my hoe on the sidewalk and shouting to keep him scared and in hiding behind a lawn chair while I dashed to the barn for the bigger Havahart trap. He was just considering making a run for it when I returned. More banging and arm waving bought time to get the trap open, set and along the porch wall, then a bit of herding with a broom, and VOILA! - I had captured Punxsutawney Phil! He now has a new home several miles from my garden.

One spring a few years ago I rounded up a large snapping turtle who had chosen my garden as her egg depository. The capture involved a metal garbage can and a shovel – dangerously close to the electric fence, I might add – and I’m here to tell you that Mrs. Terrapin was one fierce, hostile critter. In comparison, this woodchuck was sweet indeed.

But the Pesty Animal Capturer Life-time Achievement Award goes to my friend Dale who, in his 20+ years of service to the local school district, captured and relocated more than sixty skunks. Did he ever have “a problem?” Only once, when, trap full and loaded on the back of his pick-up, a friend came along and asked, “Watcha got under the tarp?” – punctuating the question with a loud thump of his fist on the truck bed...

Note: A "Havahart" is a humane, "catch alive" trap. Once captured, the animal can be taken to a suitable habitat and released.

America's Wreckage
photo by WizenedEye.com © 2006