Month: July 2021

“Revolutionists Know”

(July 26, 2021)

revolutionists

need win only once to rule

‘the fight for our schools

‘the woke’ not only teach there

but they control the pursestrings*

*(Of course not always, not all teachers, not all administrators, not all elected school boards, not all appointed – or elected – schools’ superintendents, but enough to allow Critical Race Theory, among so many other socialist/communist doctrinaire curricula, gender non-specific toilets even in elementary schools, going all the way back to recent history: Eubonics and Outcome-based grading of such subjects as non-standard English Composition, America is beset at its foundation with UnAmerican ideas and ideals taught our young people. And not just the kids: corporate and military leadership it too many cases are Woke as well. If you are a parent, have you read your children’s textbooks, do you monitor their classroom and homework assignments – and the work products of your children and their teachers? If you do not ask, you never will know. One of the first things I’d suggest is to push for Partisan Elections for all elected school posts – as well as city councils and other nonpartisan elected offices. The excuse to eliminate partisanship was a ruse just as the increased pay of school board “non-supervisory” elected offices “to accommodate less-monetarily-advantaged candidates and minorities” has, by and large, accomplished neither a widening of the lists of candidates nor produced statistically balanced ethnically diverse school boards. The school boards exist to set policy, not oversee the process of education. Another bill of goods sold to trusting voters. We may not be on track to reverse socialist/communist/egalitarian “Wokeness” throughout our society, but start with the schools. We have had two – or more – generations of trained graduates in many disciplines, especially the communications/language arts and so-called social sciences, but if we do not reclaim our schools – and that includes private and parochial: many if not most of their teachers come from the same colleges of education as do public (government) schools – how we address cultural challenges in “the adult” spheres well may be meaningless.)

by Categories: J Richards

“Gotta Commiserate”

(July 19, 2021)

Went to Hollerbach’s WillowTreeCafe some few days ago. The back of The House did not disappoint – but what’s seemingly new is the tenor of the times Up Front. Spoke with an exec who said daytime Friday service had an estimated 70-percent new hires working the floor. It showed. And nothing more apparently than near meal’s end: The printer our server used to present the bill only worked on one half of the ticket. Fetched boss Chef and exec and he fixed the printer whilst a dining companion had already deciphered the missing vertical side of the tariff herself. But one lingering question remains. Did Hollerbach’s run out of Strawberries? The daisy-wheel pattern of whipped cream looked forlorn without the expected fan of strawberry – with green top retained – as garniture – to the famed, and justly so! – Bee Sting cake. Were no red berries available? If so, then perhaps a second plop of whipped cream might make amends. I know the weekend evening service is important, and our arrival before 5 p.m. well may have highlighted what I perceive as a problem – and I expect with senior management’s attention to this most important detail soon will have training and detail-orientation accomplished. The institution was well-attended by patrons and the waitstaff bustled and moved about. No salt-n-pepper set out on our portion of the long table adjacent to the the outside window-ing just before Jimmy and Eckhart’s stage. Is this new? Sometimes it seemed our service – while rushed – appeared slow and unsure. “Sharing” plates for the appetizer and condiments for the French Fried Potatoes came later than useful. Our dinners were as expected – superb. But the uneven service detracted.

by Categories: J Richards

“Three-Piece Gerund”

(July 18, 2021)

he showed up wearing

a three-piece gerund

quoting fred metz*

*(Originally the last line read: “quoting karl marx” but Mertz, third-wheel to Ricky Ricardo’s Lucy, an even better foil, I believe. The three-line five-syllable stanza pioneered by pal Bruce Clay Jewett, a noted Lance General of Marines circa 1969, is spare yet offers wide possibilities inside the Japanese-inspired Haiku format. Thanks, “Juice.” The “gerund” is a verbal form turned into a noun by the addition of “ing” in most cases: as in “go” and “going?”)

by Categories: J Richards

“Ever’Body Here”

(July 15, 2021)

By J Kirk Richards

In Sanford, Florida, everybody here, rich, poor, black, white, hispanic or asian – with a few dubious distinctions allowed just Loves Watermelon. It’s the unmentioned sacrament. Why unmentioned: ’cause everyone eats it on any particular day ending in “Y.” Most churches make you wait until Sunday. Friday or Saturday depending. But for The Highest of communions add a little salt – table with iodine, or Kosher with nuddin’ and you will have a religious experience.

Now, some say Watermelon is not holy. Then, why do we wait until Memorial Day and Fourth of July to celebrate the great green banded orb or oblong, depending on your particular sect. Some spit and some say sin semillia…as if we don’t all snicker at that turn of phrase. Watermelon is the reason you have to change your tee shirt, the sweet sticky stuff will dribble down and not allow the time-honored “switcheroo” to the inside, as the damning evidence of W-M stain shows right through.

You carry a salt shaker to the garden for two things: tomat’ers and melons: musk or water, makes some difference to us religious folk. With musk melon (refined say cantaloupe) you add black pepper. Freshly ground black pepper adds a vanilla-touch to fresh strawberries and similarly with the muskmelon. But Watermelon is more parochial. Just a hint of salt, please, Ma’am, and I’m fine.

How you eat watermelon is important, too. If you share, shame on you. Get a smaller melon and split it down the middle. Johnathan Swift wrote a Gulliver’s Travels tale about a war concerning how to split an egg (poached, I presume) and were someone to suggest splitting that watermelon in half so each side can not stand on its own, why, Schisms might form to shame Pope Barbara, or whatever her name was back in watermelon-less Avignon, France. Split your melon sideways and do it again to make quarters. Take a rapalla fish boning knive…even a good table knife will do…and run it along the bottom – you can go back and catch the red stuff you missed earlier as a “butcher’s treat” and slide it off onto the platter – or if you are a purist, the five or six sections of newspaper, and then chop the good stuff into wedges.

Make pickles of the rind if you like. Compost if you don’t. The new seedless – so called – varieties still have some immature seeds when ripe. But what fun is it to spit a baby brown seed seven feet if you are lucky and are a known blow hard? But in most cases, blessings said and fingers, forks or knives dig in. Ain’t done until you’ve had to go off to micturate at least once. And wash those soiled fingers each time, huh?

Lots of ways to enjoy watermelon. I’ve even made cold soup, straining the pulp of seeds before whizzing in a blender or cuisinart. Some add sour cream. Some add vodka. Some, gin. Rum gets a chance, too. Best way is an old wooden picnic bench, buttworn so no splinters need apply; a big glass of ice with just a smidge of tea – sweet or not makes some difference to me – and find a spot where the shade doesn’t move too much.

Anyone showing to table with a hot dog gets doused with icecubed tea. This heah’s a sacred tradition, not to be sullied by mere food.

Saw a guy once with a bib eating watermelon. Wassamatta him: his mommie don’t do laundry?

Speaking – ok: typing – of which I have one nice 12-pounder crying “it’s cold in here” on the bottom shelf of the fridge – with one of them two-pounder canon-shot toy watermelons Texas grows so as to qualify for federal aid for the underprivileged resting on top of That Big Boy. Gonna give the bauble to some deserving passer-by as I go chin-deep in sweet red juice.

See Ya’!

by Categories: J Richards 1 Comment

“Lucky Past Belief”

(July 13, 2021)

my life has been all

bout a mad, bad cereal

with marshmallow stars*

*(Never once have I been tempted to try Lucky Charms, Cap’n Crunch, or any of a myriad other “new” cereals designed to pump sugars and candy – what? a cereal called cinnamon toast? Gotta be *&^%$#@* me!) – though I did worship at the alter of Sugar Frosted Flakes for a few years until my mother decided three eggs over hard, bacon, sausage, toast with pineapple preserves, two Duncan grapefruit halves (or waffles or pancakes added) and two or three 16-ounce glasses of milk should keep me from complaining for fifteen minutes or so and by then I’d be off pedaling my bike and mower-in-tow with gas can and oil can (and canteen of emergency water) to greet the sunrise and begin a full day of July lawnmowing for cash. The calories would not take me to supper. I made sure I had at least one yard to mow within a half-mile of home – AND LUNCH! No wonder that lady announced to her husband after his retirement: The cook also has retired. She didn’t mean it. Home is where Becky Feldman’s daughter more often than not would dish up four separate breakfasts for her three (oops, gotta count Dad, too – Four!) boys. I did her nearby shopping, and my garden contributed and dad’s citrus, too, though there was this big freezer in the breezeway and there was The Locker Plant on 13th Street where quarter- and half-steers were resting for their turn to dump into the raging maws of maw’s mayhems. So, we had little money: all four of her boys worked but she only took money from the mad monster who thought he ruled his roost. I loved breakfast. Still do. Even Parris Island did not cure me of breakfast. I just avoided the so-called scrambled eggs served from the steam tray. Filled up with pancakes, bacon, sausage, grits, cereal and milk and cut up citrus and melons. And then I saw some Yankee Marines putting milk on top of their buttered grits! That was a treasured moment and a time of instruction to those sad sacks. When I got out of Infantry Training Regiment I was introduced to The Line going into breakfast past the steam tables and into the galley where cookie would scramble you eggs or serve ’em sunny side howeveryouwant’em, and go back out and slather real butter and douse real maple syrup on stacks of hot pancakes. Needed a metal tray to go with my eggs-n-such fancy-ish plate. Milk. My gosh! All I could guzzle, and not wishy-washy skim, lo- or no-fat or even those fancy new 1- and 2-pecenters.

Today I treasure my big-size shredded wheat with fruit-of-the-day (often banana, blueberry and strawberries swimming in milk around three rafts of the wheat stuff. I tolerate Post Raisin Bran rather well, and think Kellogg should stick with Battle Creek history lessons. Tony The Tiger nothwithstanding.

Steel-cut oatmeal and that northern treat Wheatteena (sp?) are fine excuses to add more butter, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to anything that will sit still on the plate.

Make my own corned beef hash, though downtown’s Colonial Room does a fair rendition, if a mite paltry on the size. Even tried Red Flannel Hash with a leftover baked beet a time or seven.

Never could understand Dad’s love of sunny-side-up eggs. Learned my scramble technique from Jacques Pepin and his pal Julia Child and now tolerate slightly moist fixin’s unlike one brother’s insistence the scramble could pave roads.

But the kinds of calories I used to shovel past my tonsils required the furnace fully engaged or I’d die at fifteen a round globe to compete with mommie Earth. Hard, sweaty work is what you do to reward yourself with The Best Meal of The Day. Especially when you got a real nice modestly thick steak to top off the meal. Best in a white-hot small Lodge cast iron skillet and turned so quick the cow doesn’t know it’s been moved. Of course both biscuits with butter AND honey and both white and rye toast. But that’s just for dessert.

Now, I’m more sedentary and must munch mem’ries of past gluttonies. But I can cook up and serve myself three – or five – breakfast plates for a full day of eatin’ one or nine days a week, can’t I? We call that Breakfast As Supper, ’round here. Wonder if any of that goes good with Mac-N-Cheese?

by Categories: J Richards 1 Comment