Americana

Quick! Think of a food that could be termed 'All-American' - synonymous with the flag and motherhood and good times.

It's such a simple thing, light pinky-red in color, about five inches long and one inch in diamete with little pucker marks appearing at both ends of its cylindrical shape. It's got a bland texture, rather like canned pudding or instant mashed potatoes, An indescribable taste - sort of spicy, but not very. Or meaty, but not really. It's a taste all its own - it's a hot dog!

Hot dogs are almost a religion in America. Little kids love them, or at least that's what television commercials would have us believe. We've all seen that cherubic toddler sinking his tiny baby teeth into a hot dog, wrapped in a white flour, enriched bun, dripping with mustard, relish and ketchup. And we've seen the boy (of course!) and his father, enjoying a ball game with a hog dog in one hand and a soda in the other!

Mother and daughter go to town for a day of shopping and enjoy a hot dog from a street-side vendor. They're featured at parades and circuses and fairs and carnivals - everywhere!

Hot dogs are a staple fare at another all-American activity - the picnic. They're grilled over an open fire (charcoal usually, it's easier) until a thick black coating covers the pinky hue and the indescribable taste is replaced by a carbony, sooty, charred flavor. You see, everyone loves a hot dog even if he really doesn't like it.

Another plus for the All-American Hog Dog is its price, or so the women's magazines tell me. They also say there are a million ways to cook a hot dog. Boil it, fry it, saute it, chop it into pieces and mix it with anything. Pretend it's sausage. Pretend it's hamburger. Pretend it's chicken - but that's going a bit far. Smother it in spaghetti sauce, drown it in barbecue sauce. Mix it with beans. Whatever you do to a hot dog, it's still delicious, versatile and everyone's favorite.

The hot dog is readily available in numerous variations. Small neighborhood butcher shops stock them in bulk, buy one or two or even five. And the deli department of the supermarket has several variations on the theme.

The favorite place to find hot dogs is the huge porcelain and chrome case in the supermarket where they're surrounded by their cousins, luncheon meats. And it's there that I can read the label on the polyvinyl chloride bubble pack: "Contains beef and pork, water, salt, sugar, sodium acid pyrophosphate, spice, smoke flavoring, paprika, sodium ascorbate, sodium nitrite with BHS and BHT added to protect flavor."

From a 1976 advertisement from Hess's Department Store in 
Allentown. At the time, I worked as a copywriter and advertising
designer at Leh's Department Store, just up Hamilton Avenue

(I wrote this piece in 1976 for a writing workshop at Lehigh Community College. The instructor commented: 'A saccharine but biting invective in the guise of a commercial monologue. A sagacious variation on a theme - satire in the Swiftian tradition. Methinks this works more journalistically than fictionally.')

Jeannette

One of my writing heroes, Jeannette (2 n's and 2 t's) Buck died last week at the age of 85.

I first met Jeannette in the delivery room at Charles Cole Memorial Hospital as she stood at Dr. George's side, offering encouragement as I labored to bring forth my firstborn. Jeannette - tender and steady, observing this young couple's joy with a mother's heart, with a writer's heart.

I recognized her when we met again in a writing group organized by Leader-Enterprise reporter Wanda Rader.  Through the years, a group of us continued writing together. Dolores with her stories of  peacocks and Virginia's china, Muriel writing of her junk drawer, my mother writing about her grandfathers, me writing about my Woodstock experience and wishbones and the old neighborhood (a piece that might become a blog post). Other stories by other women who wrote with us now and then - brought together by our love of putting words together.

But Jeannette just wrote and wrote and wrote some more. She became an activist for AIDS awareness as she wrote through her son's illness and death. She wrote about grief, what she called the "loose board" that comes up to whack you in the face just when you think you're moving through it. Her beloved life partner lost to her after the long goodbye of Alzheimer's Disease. She wrote of that, too.

Her "Words Of Gold" in the local newspaper brought a weekly dose of local history, family history and rural life to readers across the country. Former editor, Donald Gilliland spoke at Jeannette's memorial service and among other things, he mentioned that she always met her deadlines - high praise in the newspaper world!

The internet arriving in Jeannette's yellow house on Rt. 49 brought her a whole new audience of readers. I considered it an honor to be on the list to receive her weekly column in an email. Her facebook posts and comments were sometimes silly, sometimes insightful and always well written!

Filed away for a moment like this, I have unearthed our writing assignments put together in a packet all those years ago. And this morning, listening to the rain on the roof, I'm thinking about writing - Jeannette's, and mine too, and I hear her whisper to me "just do it" – and I will.

(I blogged about one shared writing experience here.)

The Flight of Time

"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight..."

That's the snippet of verse that runs through my mind as another summer is coming to its end.

The vintage photograph at the top of this post was in a tray of old Kodachrome slides, photos taken by my grandfather, this one likely in the 1940s. It's a photo of Mollie Spicer Beach, my mother's first cousin. I recognized her here though I only knew her as an older lady with thick, curly white hair and lips glossy with bright red lipstick, the kind that always left a little trace on the coffee cup.

It's a beautiful, essentially autumnal photograph. I wonder if she knew she was going to be her uncle's model when she donned the red coat, tied a kerchief on her head and selected the matching red pumps.

The snippet of verse also came to me from my grandfather. He often used it in his weekly newspaper column when reminiscing about the good old days.

It was easy to find the entire poem, written by 19th century poet Elizabeth Akers Allen. "Rock Me To Sleep" found popularity during the Civil War.

Some dispute arose when another (male) writer claimed to have written this verse though it is generally accepted that she was the author. Critics pointed out she wrote better poetry.

With all its sentimentality and nostalgia, here is "Rock Me To Sleep."

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again just for tonight!

Mother, come back from the echoless shore,

Take me again to your heart as of yore;

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—      

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—      

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—   

Take them, and give me my childhood again!

I have grown weary of dust and decay,—   

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;

Weary of sowing for others to reap;—   

Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!

Many a summer the grass has grown green,

Blossomed and faded, our faces between:

Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,

Long I tonight for your presence again.

Come from the silence so long and so deep;—   

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Over my heart, in the days that are flown,

No love like mother-love ever has shone;

No other worship abides and endures,—      

Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:

None like a mother can charm away pain

From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—      

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,

Fall on your shoulders again as of old;

Let it drop over my forehead tonight,

Shading my faint eyes away from the light;

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more

Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—   

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long

Since I last listened your lullaby song:

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,

With your light lashes just sweeping my face,

Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—      

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

More From My Notebooks

I'm enjoying reading through my writing exercises. That word - exercise - conjurs up thoughts of arithmetic exercises or phonics exercises or the physical exercise we're encouraged to do every day. We writers need to exercise our writing muscles much like we exercise the muscles that keep us going.

The day's prompt was" The simplest things of all"  ... ready, set, go, write for ten minutes, keep the hand moving, no good, no bad.

and I wrote ...

What is simple, if I really think about it. Is it simple to make a cup of tea?

Perhaps if you have only a box of Red Rose tea bags in the cupboard and a kettle of boiling water on the stove. But here the simple task begins with choice. Herbal or black or green? Tea bags or loose tea. Where's the tea ball? Where's the tea kettle?

Then I hear her voice. "I had a little perforated spoon that had a hinge and a latch. Perfect for just one cup of tea. Do you know where that is? I could use it. All there is here is generic tea – not even Lipton or Tetley, some nondescript brand."

A simple cup of tea is now complicated by all that has gone before. In the back of the cupboard is a small round teapot. It's made of a white and blue speckled pottery and once had four footed mugs to match. One of the mugs remains today and it's in the cupboard with my rotating collection of mugs for coffee and tea.

The simple task of making a cup of tea ushers in the difficult task of sorting through the memories.

The teapot and mugs were a going-away gift from co-workers when we moved from Allentown back to the farm in 1976.  I wonder if Gaby is still alive, if her troubled marriage survived, if she ever lost that extra weight she carried with such shame. Louise, the one who named our photo-typesetting computer Horace, is gone now but the sound of her voice whispers in my ear.

Again, get back to the simple thing – a cup of tea.

End of 10 minutes. Pen down

 The following one was also in that notebook - not from writing practice but more as a journal entry.

"Dear President Trump,

Today my granddaughter and I went out to breakfast at a lovely little restaurant with outdoor seating as we're still in the midst of the pandemic you so badly handled in those darkest days of your presidency.

I asked that beautiful little nine-year-old what she'd write to you if she had the chance. She said the following to me: "President Trump, your behavior makes me feel absolutely farty. By that I mean smelly, foul, disgusting."

From My Notebooks

 Plumbing one of my writing notebooks today. Advice from writing guru Natalie Goldberg is to avoid reading what you've written for at least a year. I filled this notebook before I began to add the date at the top of the page but it's from this prompt: A favorite teacher ... ready, set go, write for ten minutes, keep the hand moving, no good, no bad.

Always my mind goes to Mrs. Austin, third grade, Charlotte's Web, the green hall. The smells of third graders - their lunch boxes and their mother's laundry soap and the chalk and the textbooks and the stuff the teacher sprinkled on the throw-up before the janitor got there.

She read to us every morning just after attendance was taken and milk money handed in. It was my favorite time of the school day. I was lost in the story right at school, at my desk. Toby Tyler who ran away to work in the circus; wonderful Wilbur and patient Charlotte and her babies and Fern, who leaned on the fence to watch and listen.

Mrs. Austin's voice was a little gravely and now I know it as a smoker's voice. She was slender and not as tall as Miss Edwards next door. She wore cardigans and wool skirts and sensible shoes and glasses with little wings on the brows.

She promised us she'd stand on her head if we all got our spelling words correct. This was a problem for me. I couldn't bear to think of her upended, skirt falling over her head and exposing her underpants.

At the beginning of the school year, it seemed impossible for there were always the kids who missed two or three words every time. But in the spring, spelling had improved or the words were easier and I began to worry again. I solved the problem by making sure I missed one word each time to save my dear teacher the embarrassment of exposure.

Falsifying

Yesterday: The former President of the United States (I thank God every day that he is indeed the FORMER President and pray to God that he will never, ever be returned to that office) was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a court of law in New York State. Falsifying business records is a felony. The former President of the United States is a convicted felon.

Arthur came in from the high tunnel late afternoon with the news that the jury had come to a decision. We sat down on the couch in the living room to await the news, flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News when PBS was not providing special coverage. We settled on MSNBC and it was stunning to watch as each of the 34 counts was read, to see the expressions on the carefully-curated personalities on the screen. We looked at each other "Thank God. Now what?" 

And now the analysis, the endless speculation about how this will affect the coming presidential election with this man - a felon convicted of falsifying business records to keep his tryst with a porn star (when his third wife Melania was recovering from childbirth) out of the public eye just before the 2016 election - will likely be the nominee of the Republican party.

I wrote the following many months ago and it's been sitting in the drafts folder and every time another story drops about how horrifyingly immoral and depraved this man - Donald Trump - truly is at his core, I pull it up again but then back it goes in the drafts folder.

But today, pondering again, I'm clicking on publish.

Our former president is the man who was recorded as he uttered these words when meeting a young woman for publicity and as we have been forced to observe, he is always first in line for publicity. "I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."

This is the man who was elected as President of the United States in 2016 and continues to hold so many in his grips - perhaps by the pussy. 

A long time ago,  just entering the working world, I went to work for a small company that published weekly magazines distributed free of charge at supermarkets and newsstands. My boss was a woman and she ran the small organization although I knew there was a man behind the scenes who occasionally checked in at the office though he lived a hundred miles away. The first year there was a company picnic at a small amusement park and he was there with his wife and a couple of kids. A nice guy, and so was his wife. But then there was the time I happened to visit the office after hours only to discover this nice guy and my boss tangled up on the sofa. Family man, successful businessman but ...

Flash forward to the time I was sitting in another office in a business setting, waiting for a meeting to begin, having to listen to two men bantering about some other man - a business acquaintance - and whether or not he had ever had sex. It wasn't long after that when I shared that uncomfortable experience with female work colleague and she remarked that those men were not of the caliber we expected in our workplace - or any workplace.

I have often thought about her observation in the years since. What exactly defines the caliber of person fit to be the leader of a business or organization or church or our country? 

Am I idealistic in thinking that the leader of our country, at his or her core – the soul that we all confront in the wakeful moments in the night - is a person who is motivated and driven and guided by the greater good, by compassion, by love?

In his own words, Donald Trump has told us, time and time again, who he is and still folks - even our other elected legislators - put that aside and instead focus on some kind of manufactured personality - almost Christlike if you believe the hype - carefully curated, polished and propped up to divide and conquer - yes, conquer, this big country of ours.

And, if the majority of voters decide to make him President of the United States, then what?

   

A Small Serendipity

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so." -- Mary Jean Irion

That was the writing prompt for my online writing group yesterday. "Go for 12 minutes," said the moderator. I was stopped by the name of the person to whom the quote was attributed. And then I wrote this ...

Mary Jean Irion – Gracious, soft spoken, beautiful, well-coiffed hair, bearing that calm demeanor I so admire and aspire to. Our paths crossed at Alumni Hall at Chautauqua Institution. Institution is a hard, harsh word for this place, this Chautauqua – going by CHQ these days as a nod to the youngsters. A magical place for me, this little arts community I've visited so many times I cannot count, often dreaming of immersing myself full time there instead of just a week or a day in summertime. "That rare and perfect tomorrow."

Perhaps Mary Jean Irion wrote those words from the porch of "Fernwood," her cottage, one of the so-called historic cottages, in other hands these days.

Mary Jean welcomed writers to Chautauqua each year with Writer's Day, launched on a Sunday when admission to the gated grounds is free. My little writing group planned a day there – two carloads of us making our way through the foggy morning along the interstate that borders that long lake.

Somehow we all missed the weather forecast - those days before the Weather Channel or cell phone weather apps and it was cold with a stiff breeze coming off the lake.

We shivered through the morning offerings and at lunch, Mary Jean reappeared, her arms loaded with all matter of sweaters, sweatshirts and afghans to make our way more comfortable.