How Jean Met Jack

This afternoon Jean & I were chatting & I asked her how she met Jack.

When Jean left the farm, she & her friend Marie moved to Dallas & took a room at Marie’s aunt’s boarding house.

Jean took the bus to work & after a time a group of “kids” with a car began to take notice.

Now, this is from me, not Jean, but she was brunette with blue eyes & quite noticeable.

I asked her what she meant by “kids” & she said – “people my age.”

After a bit, the “kids” offered to give her a ride to work. 

She accepted (saving on bus fare, no doubt).

One day the kids invited her to join them at the “It’l Do Inn” for an evening out.

Jean said, “But I don’t have a date.”

The kids replied, “We have the perfect match.”

So Jean went to the “It’l Do Inn” & met the perfect match & they did the Bunny Hop.

I asked her if he kissed her that night & she said, “No, he did not kiss me for a long time.”

When I asked if that bothered her, she said it bothered her enough to ask her brother, Edsel, & he suggested mouthwash

.

Eventually, there was a kiss.  And a match.  Jack.

And then there was me. 

Tea Party Players & Racism

Decades ago, in another position in my life, I visited the concentration camp of Dachau. 

Three things struck me:  it was too damned clean.  Young people viewing the exhibit & film of the allies rescuing the survivors laughed.  And a monument out front read:

• “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The Nazis used every form of propaganda available to them:  books, comics, magazines, posters, radio, film, fine arts & TEXTBOOKS. 

They did not have the advantage of Photoshop or the Internet.

The Tea Party (who usurped a legitimate event in our history to justify their own prejudices) does have that advantage.

So, an Southern California Tea Party activist and member of the central committee of the Orange County Republican Party, Marilyn Davenport, circulated the picture featured to a number of “friends”.  Again questioning the birth certificate of a citizen.

Her defense was that it was a joke.  She has friends who are black.

While I doubt Marilyn Davenport has ever asked her “black” friends to show her a birth certificate, I also cannot imagine that they would enjoy the photo.

Unless they would be honored to be among their ancestors.

I personally feel honored to descend from such fierce & amazing beings.

As for Marilyn Davenport & the Tea Party - take notice:  There are those of us who will not fall into the trap of your racist & divisive rhetoric.  

There are those of us who remember the past & will not be condemned to repeat it.

Crab Cakes

Today my friend Andres posted “the last Friday Lenten dinner meal before Good Friday. Getting better at making Crab cakes.”

I advised him to go easy on the bread crumbs, to make it all about the crab.

When I lived in Washington, D.C., I made a study of crab cakes.  Part of my job to convince people to spend obscene amounts of money on flowers for whatever occasion, was to establish & maintain relationships with catering managers & salespeople, with restaurant managers, with party planners. 

All of whom fed me, and fed me well, constantly.  So I sampled crab cakes in the best kitchens in D.C. 

But it was an article on the last page of Washington Post Magazine that forever changed my perception of the noble crab cake. 

When I made it, I knew, from the first taste, that this was the best crab cake to ever have touched my palette.  And it was, dear Andres, easy on the bread crumbs, heavy on jumbo crab meat. 

A pinch of bread crumbs, a little mayo, a little mustard, an egg, some lemon, chives or scallions, a dash of hot sauce & cayenne pepper.  Or, if one is very brave, tiny bits of fresh jalapeño. 

Form the mixture into cakes, place on a sheet, & refrigerate for at least an hour to give the patties time to firm up.  I usually broil the cakes, but they can be sautéed in a conservative amount of olive oil – after rolling them lightly in some flour & then some bread crumbs.

I like to serve the crab cakes with the slaw recommended by that original article in the Post:  yellow & red cabbage, green onions & a dressing made of yogurt & lemon juice & whatever spices tickle your palette. 

Now, this is a lot of recipe information for those of you are not particularly interested in recipes or crab cakes.  But these crab cakes are all about concentrating on the essence, on making sure that what could be extraneous in excess, would compliment but not destroy the original flavor of the essence of the recipe.  Its original intent. 

A bit like making changes & additions to a government, to add to it & improve it, & still not take away from its original intention, its essence.

Banning Brown Bear

A staple in the lives of the children who have grown up living or visiting in this house here in Meadows Place is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see?" by Bill Martin Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle.  

So I read in the Huffington Post that this beloved children's book has been banned from time to time, as so many of my favorite books have been banned.

And I wondered why “Brown Bear”.

After all, an omniscient narrator asks a simple question:  “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?”

And Brown bear responds that he sees a red bird “looking at me.”

And the narrator asks the red bird who sees the blue horse who sees the green frog who sees the purple cat who sees the white dog who sees the black sheep who sees the gold fish who sees the teacher who sees the children who see the brown bear & the red bird & the blue horse & the green frog & the purple cat & the white dog & the black sheep & the teacher – all looking at “Me.”

I love this book – I love the memories of my mother reading it to my sons & nieces & nephew.

So I did a bit a research.

It seems that our Texas State of Board of Education, in its zeal to censor any provocative or creative thought provoking books for our children, mistook Bill Martin, Jr., the children’s author, for Bill Martin, the philosophy professor & author of “Ethical Marxism:  The Categorical Imperative of Liberation.”

I am still trying to make whatever connection the Board made between “Brown Bear” & Marxism.

And I am wondering, Texas State of Board of Education, what do YOU see?

Borders & the Abyss

My local Borders is closing.

 

It is where I go for solace, where I go to be alone.  

I buy a cup of coffee, I find a quiet corner & I read.  Sometimes I read a book I brought with me, sometimes I buy a book, sometimes I interview a book.

 

Sometimes I take my lap top & ear phones & write.  

It was my refuge from madness & the abyss.

I used to take the boys to the children’s programs & readings at Borders at the Fountains. 

 

The last time I was there, I wandered to the children’s section & saw kids lounging on the steps, reading & looking at picture books.  I saw children gathered around, listening to a story being read by a character from a popular series.

So I will have to explore my options – what did I do before there was a local Borders?

I hid out in a room or sat at a hammock between the trees Jack & Jean planted.  I went to a restaurant & monopolized a table after my meal was finished. But it did not feel the same – the escape requires books.

Or, I went to a library.  My favorite library is at Rice University.  It is quiet, it has soft chairs & couches & nooks for being alone or for meeting with fellow students or study groups.  

 The central library at U of H is too noisy, unless one finds a floor housing material not sought after by the masses.  The architectural library is a quiet place, a good place to escape madness & the abyss.

But I need something closer.  Which means a library.  I love libraries – some of my favorite & most interesting memories are of Houston’s downtown library. 

I will have to sneak in coffee.

I will have to remember a time without Borders or Barnes & Noble or Amazon.  

When I visited libraries & borrowed their books.  When their books opened up worlds & wonders & my imagination.

When I read books I did not own.  

 When escaping the madness & the abyss was not about a place or an environment, but about another book & something deep inside my soul.

Friendship & Claire’s Dilemma

So today, a really busy day for me at the gym, I went to the restroom, to the first stall, because it is the only adult sized commode in the Girls’ Restroom.  

When I emerged, my friends Cate & Claire (aged four, almost five, & six, respectively) were at the sinks.  Cate washing her hands with Claire watching.   

Claire & I had exchanged greetings earlier & her response to my question about her day at kindergarten was “Fine.” 

As I was washing my hands,  Cate greeted me & I commented that she had been asleep when she arrived.  We bantered a bit about naps & how much better one feels after them.

Then, as I was walking down the very short hall, I heard a voice say:

                    Miss Jaki?

It was Claire, whose day at kindergarten was fine.  So I asked:

                    Do you need something?

And then she began to talk about really happened at kindergarten that day.

                    Well, today a friend of mine at school said something really mean to me.

  

When I asked what her friend had said, she replied:

  

                 She whispered it, so the teacher couldn’t hear & she said that she did not want to be my friend.

I asked her how she responded & she said:  I cried.  

This is something I can understand – I remember the first time I learned, brutally, that someone I liked did not like me. 

Of course, I was 17, not 6. And I did not cry.

We talked at length, about the nature of friendship & why her friend would turn on her. 

 It was an amazing conversation – it finally came out that Claire had worked it out.

Her friend was best friends with another girl & Claire had made friends with the other girl & perhaps, Claire posited, that was the problem.

Six years old.

It occurred to me this evening, that there is a reason that God gave me sons.  I used to think it was revenge.  I now know that I would have lost my mind with daughters.

Boys are different.

Nick once had a friend who decided he was not a friend.  

Because Nick was a really big guy at an early age, I told him that because he was larger than the average bear, he could not pick on  a smaller kid.

 

This kid was smaller – he tormented Nick at school & in the neighborhood – I had meetings with the school.  The response was lukewarm.  I talked to the parents.  They were supportive, but the kid continued.

When the kid began to throw rocks into the spokes of Nick’s very fine new bicycle (gift from Daddy), I said:

                    This is the deal, Nick.  You are going to have to take him out – not on school grounds.  But the next time he does something, you are doing to have to beat him up.

As I write this, I am thinking, I tell Claire to wait it out & maybe her friend will change her mind.

But I told my son to beat the shit out of the kid tormenting him.

Days later, after I advised Nick, there was an incident in a public space.  The kid spit on him.   

(Who spits on another human being?????????????)   I have an obsession about spitting – I cannot stand it.  I once screamed at the Houston Livestock Rodeo when a schoolmate spit next to me.  It is just gross.  No doubt I passed it on to Nick.

But REALLY, who spits?

So Nick tackled that kid .  He did not do him grievous harm.  He just made his position clear.  There was never a problem after that.

So why was the answer so easy for Nick & not for Claire?