An Unexpected Hello*

*Edited to include recipe at the end of the story....

For years, I've wanted to make Christmas cookies with my children, but somehow it never got off the ground.  This year, I set my heart, it would happen.  Saturday night, Rita, Regina, Paul, Anna and I donned aprons. I'd set out foil trays, bowls, cups, spoons, and six recipies.  We made Hello Dollies and Rice Crispie Treats.   We danced and sang to whatever Christmas songs came on the radio but Regina got bored and went to play in the other room in between tasks.  We made the pumpkin muffins and sugar cookies.  Paul joined her.  When Anna asked if she could stop, I allowed them to put on a Christmas Rudolf special on TV.  Rita made it through making the bananna muffins and went to watch. It wasn't the full outcome I'd wanted, but it was. Next year, maybe the happy memory would encourage them to stay longer.  I felt happy and at peace to be alone in my kitchen for the final recipe.

The last cookie wasn't one they could eat anyway.

The signature cookie of the season is my dad's Bourbon balls.  He and Mom would be in the kitchen and he'd roll them powedered sugar to put in a tin for whoever was on the list.  I always wanted to like them, but as a kid I never could.

My mom gave me a cook book from my home parish, where the recipe for Dad's bourbon balls is published.  I'd always just scanned the recipe, but yesterday, I found a side story on the page from my mom, reminding me Dad made these from the time he settled in Beaumont for the clerks of the court such that every year, they'd get requests.

It was like Dad saying, "Hello Beautiful." to have that story, (one I've known but dimly), fully stamped on the page.  I made the Bourbon balls and ate one, plunging into memory.

They tasted better than I've ever remembered.

Recipe for Bourbon Balls (as published in Saint Anne's Church Cookbook), submitted by my mom.

1 12 onz box vanilla wafers
1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons Cocoa
1 cup walnuts
3 Tablespoons Karo Syrup (white or light).
1/2 cup bourbon
extra powdered sugar.

Directions:  Crush Vanilla Wafers into powder.  (I use a ziplock and a rolling pin but a food processor does this very well).  Add powdered sugar and cocoa, mix well.  Chop walnuts into tiny pieces and add to these ingredients.  Add the Karo and the bourbon, mix well. (I used my mixer).  Form the cookies by hand and roll them in powdered sugar.  Place in an airtight tin.  If the batter seems dry, add more bourbon.

Twenty-Five Years of Elephants

In two weeks, they all go back to school and the house will have a different sort of rhythm and I'll wonder how we'll manage life then too.  It's always overwhelming and then not for me.  I can hear my dad's question to me whenever I'd feel overwhelmed, "How do you eat an elephant?"  I'd snarl, "Who'd want to?"  "How do you eat an elephant?" he'd ask again.  "One bite at a time." is the answer.  It meant, stop feeling overwhelmed and get to work.

Today is our actual 25th Anniversary.  It's also the day I said I'd return to blogging.  We held great celebration in honor of twenty-five years of marriage.  If you'd like to read about it, I wrote about the event in last week's Small Success Thursday, but I didn't post here in keeping with having a sablogital until today.  

Besides, we were preparing to launch our oldest out to Cleveland for graduate work. (Elephant).  We bought a third car. (Elephant).  We bought a ticket for the college girl to fly back. (Elephant).  One of my kids started a job. (Elephant), and five of them are in swimming lessons.  (Elephant --schedule, Elephant laundry).  The dryer is not working.  (Consistent annoying Elephant).

Then there's the other stuff like preparing the rest of them to return to school. (Elephant).  We just need to get school supplies, school clothing, finish summer projects and pack up one for college, get another through college applications and a driver's test, get them back on fall time (hah), and start up all the other routines I've ignored in favor of party prep for the past two months.

 There are moments when it feels like I've got fifty elephants to eat and I'm not hungry.

That's the problem with successfully managing a big event.   You don't get a pass on the small stuff afterwards.  Even my own brain is disgusted with me when after preparing to host seventy-five people by making lists, checking them, following through, I promptly forget to look at my calendar and miss a scheduled dental appointment for two children the next day.   My inner nag raged...If you could manage that...then why aren't you able to manage this?  And if I'm honest, a little voice answered, "Because I'm tired of eating elephants."  

We rescheduled, next week. No biggie.  I made my list of today's elephants.  We'll get the physical forms done, mail a package and buy shoe racks to house all the footwear that twelve pairs of feet own, and a shower rod and a curtain.   I will wonder how we managed the past few weeks as this feels taxing in its own way.  

It's why I need still time.  Today.  Today is important.  Today I have to consider, we started down this road with an epic celebration, and all the time since has been built up of little moments of managing, of somehow filling the hours with love, discipline, adaptations, adjustments, humor, surprises, dates, lessons learned and forgotten, seasons and schedules, elephants.  Today is our anniversary.  Today we promised forever, no matter how many elephants we'd have to eat.   At midnight, my husband gave me a beautiful silver and pearl necklace and some stationary.  The stationary has elephants on it.

Twenty-five luminous years passed in the blink of an eye.   Twenty-five years of cakes and wine, feasts and trips, hospital visits and long hours, laundry and gardens, songs, movies, books and games and it is not enough. There's never enough time.  I will never tire of his company.  It has been thus far, a luminous experience, being married to him. The elephants are part of what makes it lovely. Otherwise, it is a story with no plot.  

So we'll watch our wedding tape, go out to dinner, and toast to the next twenty-five and all the elephants it will bring.   Bon Appetit. 

Scene from the party, a gift from the children who attended, to us.

What Fathers Do

When our house flooded back in 1979, my sister was newly home from the hospital. She'd been a premmie like me and spent her first two and a half months at the NICU.   We'd been watching the rain all afternoon.  The sky was black and the ground was saturated.  Then I walked into my room and my carpet squished. 

For some reason, I'd thought the water would come through the front door. I'd been watching the water outside and seen it creeping towards us, but it was still a good five feet from our entrance.  But that was it. The water was coming in.  As kids, we were both delighted and annoyingly loud.  "We're flooding! We're FLOODING!" Our eyes were wide as we'd get way too close into each other's faces and state the obvious with an odd mixture of joy and panic, "We're flooding!" 

Thus began the odd exodus as we were instructed to put everything on top of our beds or on top of tables.  Shoes, stuffed animals, clothes, anything we wanted to keep.  It was fun and felt important to be stacking things.  We soon learned that we had an awful lot of things on the floor.  Books.  Socks.  Games. Dolls.  Things. Things. Things. Things.  Every table groaned.  Every bed was covered.   The block was flooded.  We wouldn't be able to get away via car.

My father loaded all of us, including our dog (we kids thought this was heroic), onto the john boat.  A john boat for the uninitiated, is a metal boat used in duck hunting. It lacks style or coolness but it's light, sturdy, strong and was very effective.  My mom held an umbrella over herself and my new little sister.  Scrambling inot the boat, one of my brothers lost his shoe.  We huddled under another umbrella and were told to be on the look out for debris and snakes. 

My dad had put on his waders and pulled the john boat with all of us in it through the black water in the pouring rain down the street to our neighbor's house.  They had a two story home, which made them ecentric by our standards.  Most homes were long ramblers and built out, not up or down.  Upon arrival, we (the kids) were completely delighted to experience the novelty of another person's home.
We would have 18 inches of water inside our own house by the time the flood crested, but to show you how little kids get it, we kept asking, "So, do you think we'll have school tomorrow?" My dad smiled and said, "We'll see."  I suspect he kept the answer vague to keep us from rioting with joy, for we were now four adults and six kids and a dog crammed into an upstairs watching the water in the streets.

Dad just did what needed to be done.  In retrospect, it was scary and even heroic, but he didn't let us know he was scared and it never occurred to us to be so as a result. 

The next day when the rains had stopped, we begged to go intertubing on the street. (We were told no).  Mom and Dad ferried us out to friend's homes where we wouldn't see the level of devastation done to our home.  We never quite saw it.  Instead of having memories of everything we ever loved being washed away, we had the story of our neighbor's cat that refused to go upstairs and sat on the island in the kitchen watching the water which was only two inches up in their home.  It was decidedly perplexed by the tadpoles or fish that were swimming across the kitchen floor.  This was the memory. 

Mom and Dad deliberately worked hard to keep the harder sharper edges of that experience, the snakes, the thrown away toys and books and like from being taken in and to a large extent, it worked.  They couldn't blunt everything but they did enough such that when we flooded again the next year, none of us felt tramatized, instead we thought, eh, we've done this before. Let's go pile up everything on top of the beds. 

Recovery from the floods was slow. We spent six months I think, eating casaroles and complaining about the hard cold floor.  The day our house was completely repaired, we sat down to dinner in the dining room for the first time and the faithful table that had held so many things for so many months while repairs were going on, collapsed under the weight of a normal table setting for six.  It was both comic and iconic, because I remember everyone's surprised faces as the thing fell. 

We still felt like everything was home because the things which made it home had been preserved. Somehow Dad's 1000 plus books and the record collection that seemed to never get bigger but always had things we loved listening to, his guitar, my little wooden chair from when I was  toddler, the copper wash basin that was my mom's mom's and possibly her mom's, a pale china blue statue of the Blessed Mother and child, the crystal candle sticks that I always tried to take apart to pretend that the crystals were diamond earrings, and the lazy susan on the table survived.  All of these little things that made up the feel as much as the sights and sounds and smells of our home.

We never worried what might happen.  This was part of the core of what I think Dads do.

Mom and Dad made it such that no matter what happened, it was okay.  It was still home.  It was still safe even if everything had been destroyed.

7 Quick Takes

1.  I forgot to post a link to yesterday's Small Success Thursday, so here's one now.

Come join us over at Catholicmom.com to share your week of successes!

 

2.  Decision Time!  She chose it for the art program. It's an intense 79 hours worth of course work in art, including a showing at the art gallery every semester.

The campus is beautiful, it's small and surrounded by gorgeous trees, beautiful architecture and the beach.  But what I think tickled her heart the most, was their crest: 

Which in turn generated this: 

http://legacy.flagler.edu/products/hogwarts-t-shirt

 

3.  We're deep in birthday paloozah now, with Faith's party with her friends tonight, and Regina's actual birthday Sunday, and the need to schedule her party with her friends for after Easter.  Tonight, it's pizza and the second installment of the Hobbit  for Faith and her friends while the boys take in Captain America with their dad.  The older girls will be holding down the fort with the littles and a separate showing of probably Frozen, but they don't know that yet.   

 

I've seen it.  It's a b-movie except for the production value and power ballad.

 

It's immature and sophomoric...I still laughed.  

 

Then there's the hilarious fund raiser Simcha Fisher did where she promised to sing Let it go if they raised $4000, they did.  You can help her friend with the start up business and watch her sing in fulfillment of the pledge here.  I love when she says "Oh shoot."

 

4. Our son Paul is starting to talk and that's leading to interesting and unexpected conversations.  Yesterday, Regina's teacher came over to visit with me in the van in the parking lot. She reached over and chatted with Anna who gave her lots of smiles and was equally chatty back.  Paul looked over and said, "HEY! I'm Over Here!"  So she stopped and said I see you there. He nodded his head, all was right with the world. 

 

5.  Hey Sherry, how is the writing coming?  Well, slowly, but more frequently.  I logged in 3K on The Soul of the Minotaur this week, and 1K on Penelope, who seems to be stepping forward a bit more.   

 

6.   This week is the Erma Bombeck Conference, and I see many of my friends hosting the seminars, and it's hard to not be there, it's hard to feel like this year, writing has been at best, thwarted.  Bad computer, bad timing, I'd planned to host two seminars at the Catholic Writer's Conference Online, but that fell through because of a family emergency, it was scheduled for the Monday following Dad's death.  I cancelled because I didn't know 1) how I would be and 2) where I would be.   I'd submitted The Book of Helen for a few opportunities, but so far, it's like a bad fishing trip, nothing is biting.  I'm reminded of my dad's story about praying to his mother for a fish, and catching a beautiful speckled trout almost immediately, and it was the only fish of the day,  Admittedly, I'd like to get a line in the water this year.  Successfully finishing the second book would be the equivalent of a pretty good fish in my case.    

 

7.  Sacrament Season Starts soon.   We've got one month to First Communion, two months to confirmation and three months until my newest niece gets baptized.  

Marc will be the Godfather. 

 

That's seven, it was more work than I thought it would be.  Happy Palm Sunday and hav a good Holy Week.

 

My Brother Runs for Our Dad, and For Us

My younger brother runs in marathons and teaches high school English. This is the brother that almost lost everything in a fire, but his dog was saved, as were many important sentimental things, and the rest has been replaced.  For the second year, he is running to help raise money to address/cure Alzheimer's.  Our Dad suffers from it. But Dad is still Dad. 

And as my mother wrote:  He is still funny. He puts on a great show for visitors...when the nurse was here yesterday, he brought a book to the table that he had once read...on Plato and Aristotle.   (I was sure the nurse was going to dismiss us, when she saw what he was reading). But she also saw through all that. I think it was his way of saying, I did not always have this disease. I once was a brilliant man, and could remember everything.  

My fundraising goal: $350.00
My fundraising progress: $390.00

This past Christmas, my father proved that Alzheimer's hasn't taken everything. While most of his sentences falter after the 7th or 8th word, my mother and I were amazed by his sudden recollection of the first 18 lines of Geoffrey Chaucer's prologue to the Canterbury Tales. ...There aren't many of my students who can do that after three weeks of memorization and study.

Still, my family knows first hand that Alzheimer's worsens over time. A progressive disease, the symptoms only increase. In the earliest stages, memory loss is mild. With late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment.

According to the Alzheimer's Association website, we have new 2012 stats. Now it says that 5.1 million Americans are currently living with this disease. Of course, this will only increase over the next 20 years rather significantly. Additionally, there are over 10.9 million unpaid caretakers at work with these patients. These are the wives, husbands, children, neighbors, and colleagues who give of their time, talent, and treasure.

So again, I run for my mom, a caretaker of my grandmother and now my father. She's wonderful, I love her, and I want to run in gratitude for her selfless service to our family.

For all those families dealing with Alzheimer's, I run. You are always in my prayers.

For my brother and sisters, my uncles and aunts, my cousins, my nieces and nephews —for all these people who love Dad as much as anyone ever could, I run. (I also miss you all. We need to hang out.)

Finally, I run for Dad.

Peace,

Dan Green

If you see me running by, feel free to scream all words of encouragement you have. Here are some suggestions:

"GO GREEN GO!" (Watch out for saying it too quickly and making it sound like "Go Gringo!" People might find that offensive.)
"Dan the Man"
"Go Badgers!" (Spring Hill)
"Ruined for Life!" (JVC)
"Go St. Thomas!" (Work)
"Yeah Beaumont!" (hometown love)
"Go Pim!" (POWER IN MOTION)
"Sr. Verde!" (for my Spanish speaking friends)
"Look out! There's a mad man behind you! RUUUUUUN!" (just to see what happens).
"Go Mr. Wonderful!" ...It's a new nickname, but I like it.

If you can support his run, the link is here:
http://www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com/Donate/PersonalPage.cfm?MID=8136&CRID=33&CID=295
I lifted the writing from his page and my mom's note.

Return to the House at Pooh Corner

Written by my sister, Jennifer Sanders

If I close my eyes now, I can go there. The bonfire is massive, tediously constructed from driftwood the family has collected all afternoon. The air is salty and warm, while the evening breeze provides a respite from the mosquitoes. There is an assembly line for s'mores, and the family gathers to hear stories and songs. I pop a freshly made s'more into my mouth, rewarded with a goey, chocolatey mess on my face and fingers. Dad has a guitar, and he begins to play.

"Christopher Robin and I walked along under branches lit up by the moon..."

A Loggins and Messina classic, I smile and sing along.

"Posing our questions to Owl and Eeyore as the days disappear all to soon..."

A song about slowing down enjoying the innocence of childhood...Dad is belting it out, and the rest of us can't help but sing along.

That memory is a beautiful one. I treasure it. It came to me this afternoon as I was nursing my 6 month-old daughter, Lucy. I have been reflecting on the meaning of Advent on this eve of Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete, meaning rejoice, reminds us to wait in joyful hope.

Since my dad has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, this type of waiting has become difficult. More often than not, I shake my fists at God. But other times, when I am touched by grace, I grasp beauty in the midst of my families' suffering.

Jesus reminds us that, "...unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 18:3). Dad is surely becoming like a child again. Stripped of all things, he is humbled and vulnerable, an image of the incarnation.

I think again of my dad playing guitar down at the beach, and the words of that song.

"But I've wandered much further today than I should, and I can't seem to find my way back to the wood..."

All of us wander far from the path God would have us take. God asks us to be like children: docile, humble, innocent, dependent on Him.

Surely, my father is back on the right path. Looking at my dad and this disease with human eyes, he is lost, wandering, aimless. Yet, at the same time that we here on earth are losing him, he draws ever closer into God's mysterious and loving embrace.

I gaze at my sleeping baby as I rock back and forth, and I know that my dad has found his way back home. I pray that God will lead all of us back home into his loving embrace. I will see my dad again. One day he will be whole again.

And we will sing together.

"At the end of the day, I was watching my son, sleeping there with my bear by his side. So I tucked him in, I kissed him, and as I was goin', I swear that old Bear whispered, 'Boy, welcome home.' Believe me if you can, I've finally got back to the house at Pooh corner by one. What do you know there's so much to be done? Count all the bees in the hive. Chase all the clouds from the sky. Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh.

See you at the beach, Dad. I love you.

Hey Beautiful*

*Originally ran on November 11, 2007.  Was written for Dad's birthday of that year.  

Dad always answers the phone to me, “Hey Beautiful.” It always makes me smile.

My dad reads German theologians for recreation. He also puns constantly and loves Notre Dame, the Astros, fishing, hunting and 99.9% of all classic English literature. He is Texan. He is Southern. He is Catholic.

When I was a kid and he was mad, even if I wasn’t the person who did anything, I went to my room and cleaned. The thundercloud would roll by and see a virtuous kid doing only right stuff. This was the image I strove to maintain. I had figured out it would keep me out of trouble. It did, and my parents got a clean room out of the bargain, by allowing me to think I was manipulating them.

I remember him teaching me how to do flips off the high board and how to drive. He taught me to rig a lure for fishing and retrains me when I forget. He didn’t yell when I wrecked the car again. He met all my dates. He made me watch Casablanca and The Quiet Man. He bought me a guitar and a silver bracelet. I can gut a fish, train a dog and make Coq au’Vin today because at some point, he taught me. I cannot do algebra. He tried to tutor me. I know something of Latin. He made me take it. I scream like a banshee at Notre Dame Football. He showed me the game and helped me come to obsess over it.

Dad drove me to get ice cream when I lost my wallet at Christmas. Dad took me out to lunch when I worked at his office. Dad asked me to paint some crabs on the fireplace at the beach house and helped reel in the 40+pound Red Fish I had hooked. Dad danced with me at the Debutante ball and I wished, oh how I wished, he was at the table with me, for my date was boring.

Senior year at Saint Mary’s College, he wasn’t coming to Father/Daughter weekend. I tried to be offhand about that, I wished he could be there but knew money was tight. The Sunday before the Father/Daughter weekend, my then boyfriend proposed. That Friday, Dad was on a plane.

As my roommate and I got dressed to go out to dinner with him, Dad was serving as her dad for the night too, I said, “Just watch, the first thing Dad’ll say is “Why do you want to marry my daughter?” Annie laughed and disagreed. “I’ve met your Dad, he won’t say that.”

We picked up Marc, my fiancé at Notre Dame and drove to the restaurant, Dad, Marc, Annie and Me. No sooner were we all seated, then my father said, “Why did you ask my daughter to marry you?” Annie and I looked at each other and bust out laughing. Marc was left with two giggling girls and no help. He rallied. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Dinner was fun.

That summer I worked at his office. I went on walks with him sometimes when we were both dieting. We’d talk about food and how much we missed it. We’d argue over wedding plans, band vs. DJ, morning suits vs. Tuxes, receiving line vs. announcements by the band.

Eventually, My Dad sang the Notre Dame Fight song to me as I walked into the Church to get married. It helped me to stop shaking. I remember Dad’s smile as he walked towards me at my wedding reception to have our dance, but I do not remember the song.

Sometimes he sends me papers by his favorite theologian, Von Balthazar. I dutifully try to read the treatise, “Does Original Sin Exist?” but I want to scribble back a short post-it, “Yes. Next Question.”

Dad has had many heart surgeries, but the one I remember is the one in 2000. I arrived after the surgery had taken place, and sat in the living room with Danny and Joe and Jennifer and my newly crawling son, feeling how empty the house felt with Dad in the hospital. When we went to visit at the hospital, Joe and Danny attempted to move Dad by lifting the recliner he was in, and dropped the chair. I was terrified, but Dad was okay. He showed me the stitches that ranged all over his body. They had cut open his chest, taken out his heart, stopped it, cut away things and put everything back together and stitched him up. I looked at the long line of black threads on his legs and arms and it looked like a large black rosary to me had been carved onto his body. It hurt to look but he was alive and so I looked anyway. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time.

Just before we left, a former partner of Dad’s, dropped by to check on Dad. I had a long-standing dislike of the man ever since the firm restructured and Dad left it. I occasionally had called to jam up the 1-800 line at the firm but knowing this was childish, I had stopped. I had even thought of returning the wedding present he had given my husband and me, a dessert server, saying, “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth,” but again decided it was small minded. Seeing the man visit my Dad at the hospital, I thought, “Damn, now I’m going to have to forgive him.”

Dad held no grudges so I couldn’t either, much as I might sometimes want to…really. That ugly stuff still doesn’t matter. He still calls me and says, “Hey Beautiful.” because that’s how he sees me and how God sees each of us. “Hey Beautiful.”

And by saying that, over and over, eventually, we come closer to becoming it. 

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Motivation for the Marathon (Guest Post by my brother Dan)

My family and I are slowly losing my father to Alzheimer's. It is very hard to see the man, whom I have always revered as one of the smartest I've ever known, gradually forget his own history.


Luckily for all of us, Dad still has his quick wit and ready smile. Despite the disease, his Irish charm shines through whenever company arrives, he holds a grandchild, sits with Mom, watches Notre Dame win, or sings a song. I pick up the guitar, we play a Kingston Trio song together, and suddenly the world makes sense. We have Dad.

However having lost my grandmother to this degenerative disease back in 1997, I know there are tougher days ahead. There will come days when Dad forgets the words to the songs. There will come days when Dad forgets more than that. Despite the wonders of the patch, and other equally impressive medicines, this disease cannot be stopped.

Alzheimer's worsens over time. A progressive disease, the symptoms only increase over years. In the earliest stages, memory loss is mild. With late-stage Alzheimer's, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment.

According to the Alzheimer's Association website, 5.3 million people are currently living with this disease. Additionally, there are over 10.9 million unpaid caretakers at work with these patients. These are the wives, husbands, children, neighbors, and colleagues who give of their time, talent, and treasure.

So for my mom, a caretaker of my grandmother and now my father, I run.

For my brother and sisters, who love Dad as much as anyone ever could, I run.

For Dad I run.

There is no cure ...yet.

And just so you know, I plan on putting in that much more effort on the 26.2 mile course for every 100 dollars I can raise. (If you could see me right now, you'd know that my arms are extended really wide to suggest the level of extra effort I will give. ...They are really stretched).

For all those families dealing with Alzheimer's, you're in my thoughts and prayers.

Peace,

Dan Green

If you see me running by, feel free to scream all words of encouragement you have. Here are some suggestions:

"GO GREEN GO!" (Watch out for saying it too quickly and making it sound like "Go Gringo!" People might find that offensive.)
"Dan the Man" (It will be on my shirt)
"Go Badgers!" (Spring Hill)
"Ruined for Life!" (JVC)
"Go St. Thomas!" (Work)
"Yeah Beaumont!" (hometown love)
"Go Pim!" (POWER IN MOTION)
"Sr. Verde!" (for my Spanish speaking friends)
"Look out! There's a mad man behind you! RUUUUUUN!" (just to see what happens).

SISTER'S NOTE: To donate to Dan's run for our dad: http://www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com/Donate/PersonalPage.cfm?MID=5754&CRID=29

Thanks!

Disney and Me

When my family went to Disney World, my father didn't like it. He felt annoyed at Epcot Center and the various mock ups of cultures most of all. “It’s like the world without God, sex or vegetables,” he complained. We kids rolled our eyes and offered him some of the better fare found in the Italian section. “Relax Dad, it’s fun.”

Flash forward a few years and we took a family vacation to Vegas. “Well Dad, here they have the sex and the vegetables.” I joked. I thought he might actually say he’d prefer Disney. When I asked him to weigh the two, he never answered.

These days, I am inundated by my almost six year old’s commercials for Disney. She wants to be a princess for Halloween, selects Disney films for her afternoon TV time and sings along with the Disney CD’s in the car. I have begun to understand a bit of my father’s resistance to the magic kingdom. Ariel is anorexic, Pocahontas is a Native American Politically Correct Barbie doll, Belle is an intellectual snob who wants more than a provential life, meaning she wants to marry a rich guy. Meanwhile, Cinderella remains a helpless puppet of fate and Sleeping Beauty never gets to choose anything. Jasmine never gets to fly solo, and the only princess I ever really liked, Mulan, my kids don't watch.

I want my daughters to be strong independent and loving women when they mature, who choose spouses that encourage them to grow in creativity, intelligence and spiritual depth. I do not see these lessons in the many DVD’s that my daughter so loves. I read her stories of strong women and try to show other points of view, but the princesses in their sparkling dresses are siren like in their irresistibility to my six year olds’ bright blue eyes. She has begun asking in that sweet six year old voice, if we can go to Disneyland on vacation.

Now I am a soft touch, but even I can see the dollar signs floating away as she speaks dreamily of meeting Ariel and Mickey. We have a large family and the idea of managing my many offspring in that large amusement park causes instant migraines. I can summon any number of adult rational reasons to say “No.” but so far all I can muster is a weak-kneed “We’ll see.” I also know when I bring this up with her father, his response will be similar. The epic struggle between the very strong desire as a parent to somehow present all that is wondrous and fun and delightful to your children and at the same time not go bankrupt will erupt. Past experience would seem to indicate Disney has the edge.

Secretly I begin searching the internet for deals, maybe I will do a limited trip of a few, to squirrel away a few memories. Days are coming when I will have to worry about the CD’s and DVD’s far more than now, for the time when she becomes sixteen and sullen and wears clothes that will make me cringe far more than the dripping with pink sparkling confections she currently favors. I gulp hard at the idea of her maturing and suddenly feel far more benign about the Little Mermaid, Snow White and every other Disney Princess. Disney may not have God or vegetables, but it has a monopoly on my six year old’s imagination and heart and suddenly, that doesn’t seem so very bad.

I’ll supply the Church and carrots, and you know what I learned, “It’s a small world after all.”

P.S. My profound apologies if I’ve stuck that song in your head now as a result of reading this blog, just plug your ears and start singing the Star Spangled Banner until it goes away or you could try Humor-Blogs.com

Every Breakfast Tells A Story...

My favorite breakfast in the whole world is blueberry pancakes with syrup and Jasper county sausage on the side. The problem with this combo was that it used to require tremendous coordination of my parents, not to mention the postal service.

Before the internet and 24-7 mail order catalogs, maple syrup didn’t exist in the south. My grandmother from Dunkirk, New York would to ship it to us once a year for Mom’s birthday. Mom would parcel it out like a miser, for fear its golden taste was being wasted on young moppets who might have been just as happy with Mrs. Butterworth.

Dad grew up on sugar cane and caro syrup and enjoyed experimenting. He’d buy boysenberry and blueberry and blackberry flavors. We liked the colors but not the taste. We knew what the Good Stuff was.

Then one day, Dad was cleaning out the cupboards of extra stuff. He was consolidating the peppers into one space, doing inventory for a grocery shop. When he found three different types of mustard, he began interrogating no one in particular, asking “Why do we have three jars of pepperocini? Did you know we have four different kinds of olives in this pantry and over fifteen separate types of jam in the second fridge alone?”

Mom could have said many things at this moment, but she wisely responded, "That’s why you are clearing out the stuff dear." And left the room.

Dad got efficient and ruthless in his cleaning frenzy, to the point of being reckless. He consolidated the syrups, all of them: the boysenberry, strawberry, the cheap log cabin and the sugarless into the biggest tin of all, the Pure Grade A Dark Amber Maple.

My childhood was a fairly happy one, but I remember, this was a grave sin.

Suffice it to say, Mom got a new tin of Grade A Maple Syrup and it is now considered sacred, such that she eyes every new different bottle of syrup that darkens our door with suspicion.

Now getting the Jasper County sausage was a separate issue all together, shrouded in secrecy.

My dad gives his clients, his friends and his family and those who know about it, two wonderful gifts at Christmas time; a five pound bag of rice from the Beaumont Rice Mill (our ancestors started and some of our family still own it), and a five pound slab of spicy pork sausage known only as Jasper County sausage. Dad hunts ducks in LaBelle and thus has contacts with all sorts of people from the South East Texas area, including apparently this mysterious sausage man.

Once a year he clears out the Suburban and drives to Jasper County, (we don’t know where) and comes back with his truck filled to the gills with fresh processed meat which we then dutifully wrap in butcher block and red cellophane and tie with green ribbon. Then the freezer is stuffed and we begin the sausage runs around town, delivering spice, rice and good cheer as we go.

The only thing I think I know about the Jasper County Sausage man is that one year he got a new helper. That year the links were shall we say, extra spicy. Almost inedible by some standards, but I found if you drenched them in maple syrup, all that was left was the pleasant after burn of eating something hotter than usual for breakfast and feeling you had conquered any chance of being labeled a wuss, (and all before noon).

Now we have tried over the years to learn the name and address of this man. Somehow, Dad always manages to duck us, I think it tickles him that we have to take it on faith that this sausage will reappear each year. Once, my younger brother even tried to tail him to Jasper but Dad lost him on the back roads. In recent years, however, he has taken Mom. I suspect he has sworn her to secrecy.

Still, while maple syrup and jasper sausage are filling enough on their own to supply all the calories necessary for running a few marathons, they need the plain comfort of fresh pancakes. Pancakes are the Larry to Curley and Moe in breakfast.

For years, my parents had used the very sensible (you are too short, you are too young) rationale to keep me from the griddle. However, when my mom went into the hospital two months early with my sister,I thought it had become necessary for me to master making breakfast for my brothers and myself.

Could I have made cereal? Yes but that’s too easy. Could I have made scrabbled eggs? Yes, but I had been making those for years and those were boring. Could I have made oatmeal or grits? Yes again, but I didn’t think of those because, well, I wanted pancakes.

Now most pancakes are fool proof but then most of my functional cooking life, I have personified fool. A Mensa member I am not. After I wrecked the kitchen, my Aunt stepped in to do clean up and save my bacon, or at least, my pancakes.

Still, after years of practice, I can now flip them with a practiced ease and make my own favorite breakfast thank you very much, I just have to get Dad to cough up the info on the sausage man.

Maybe I can bribe Mom with some Maple Syrup.

As American As...

Baseball, Mom and Apple Pie...

I debated leaving out that phrase to let the reader fill in the blank as part of the conceit.

Everyone and their dog has used this cliché to describe some aspect of life in America, from illegal immigration to massive credit card debt to the latest model SUV with extra cargo space, a DVD player and heated leather seats. Googling the phrase to discover its orgin only muddied the waters of what it means to be “as American as” that game with a stick and nine players, your biological maternal unit and granny smiths chopped and mixed with a good heaping of sugar and tapioca baked to gooey perfection.

The web search for “American as…” lead to Music, Drugs and Movies, a tag for a Flowmaster Exhaust system and a What kind of Chocolate Pudding are You quiz that I refused to investigate. There was an ad for Jim Salestrom, a musician who someone loved as much as…you guessed it. I also found a screed on how politicians HAVE to like baseball, Mom and apple pie, as though those were bad obligations. Though I suppose cherry lobbyists would appreciate slight modifications, not to mention Hockey Players or for that matter, Dads.

Even old Bartlett Quotations let me down as I could not trace the source of this tried and true phrase that has been used to describe so many and so much while revealing so little. These words have been used to justify cookies and milk at snack time for kindergartners from super unctuous nutrition police in Lembke, though I don’t actually think Lembke is in America. Money management used it to describe the need to save for retirement. Five pages back in the Ask Jeeves search, were sites dedicated to both love and hated of all things Walmart, and a promotional page for a Portland Oregon Radio Station. Ten pages deep into Google, there was a scary website I also wouldn’t visit, hotboxingnews. I'm sure it's very heart warming and patriotic though.

I guess the need to equate one thing with another and ascribe virtue and appeal is very American. Think I’ll grab a pizza, watch some football and call my Mom.
What can I say? I’m still something of a traditionalist.