Old Times, Not Forgotten

I’ve been visiting with an old friend. It’s nice to renew the relationship.

The friend is Robin Mather, and we haven’t visited in person, exactly. I’ve been reading her new book, “The Feast Nearby.” The subtitle, “How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week),” provides a pretty clear description of what Robin’s been up to lately.

Our lives overlapped for a few years back in the 1980s when we both worked for the newspaper in Jackson, Miss. She wrote about food, I wrote about pretty much whatever. We judged chili competitions together, red beans and rice competitions, beer competitions. (Guess which one I conceived and organized.)

Her book is a reminder of the gentle way she has with words, and her affection for food, not just as fuel for the body, but as restorative for the spirit.

I remember in particular a meal of hers, after a long night of election coverage and post-election revelry for the newspaper staff. As she prepared and cooked it, she spoke of the soul-warming experience of being able to provide someone with sustenance.

At the time, my culinary ability consisted primarily of opening cans, and heating the contents.

But the sentiment stayed with me. Bit by bit, I expanded my range. And some years later I did chicken breasts, herbed pasta and ratatouille for a Valentine’s Day dinner. Not haute cuisine, but enough to surprise – and impress - my date.

Robin’s book is a treasure. It almost made me want to move to a cabin on a lake in the Michigan woods, adopt a dog, a kitten and an African gray parrot, and spend a winter around a heating stove while canning vegetables.

At the least, I will try some of her recipes, which I now feel confident enough to tackle. I’ll share them with that Valentine’s Day date, who is now my wife. And who I still try to surprise from time to time.

Like Father, Like ...

Sooner or later every guy compares himself with his father. Sometimes sooner, and later. How the son fares pretty much depends on what he learned from his father, and how much he appreciates it.

Daddy never taught me how to hit a baseball or catch a football, probably reckoning that those skills and related ones were best acquired in sandlot games with neighborhood friends.

He didn’t bother to show me how to weld, work on machinery or compute production expenses and payroll, perhaps sensing that those staples of his work life were not going to figure in mine.

He did teach me to drive, and as a result I’m pretty darn good at it.

But most of the lessons weren’t formal instruction at all. He taught by example. I only had to pay attention.

He showed that it’s always best to try your best, and to be satisfied with the result. Or if you can’t be satisfied, to try again.

That honesty is not just a policy, but a way of life.

That a man’s word is indeed his bond, but that not every thought needs to be expressed.

That reading is a valuable pastime.

That the ability to laugh - including, and perhaps particularly, at yourself - can lighten a lot of life’s burdens.

That you should do the right thing, even when no one else would know otherwise.

Most important of all, he showed me the importance of treating people right, even when the evidence indicates they haven’t treated you right.

Most of the time I feel that I fall short, because the bar was set pretty high. And that, I believe, is the best way for a man to feel about himself and his father.

Happy would-be 82nd, Daddy.

Who the Hell Are We?

My alma mater concluded a few years back, not unreasonably, that a Civil War icon was not the most progressive image to present on the sidelines of a 21st-century athletic contest.

So, since 2003, Colonel Rebel has been absent from the playing fields of Ole Miss.

A campaign is now under way to replace him, and more than 1,000 people weighed in with suggestions. The original list was winnowed to 11 by the Mascot Selection Committee and that number reduced to five finalists by a vote of students, faculty, alumni association members and, apparently, a large contingent of 3-year-olds. The finalists are:

Horse

Land Shark

Hotty and Toddy

Lion

Bear

To which I say, pardon my abbreviated French, WTF?

Each finalist is accompanied on the committee’s Web site by a claim of its worthiness (“Nothing portrays this sense of Rebel freedom, strength and confidence like a charging stallion,” goes the argument for Horse). And each is clearly ridiculous.

With the possible exception, I grant you, of Hotty and Toddy, the homage to our signature cheer. But the information so far (“The pair may be animals or original ‘muppet-like’ characters”) is too sketchy to build an allegiance on. Painful images of the Phillies Phanatic, as seen above, present themselves.

I am not, mind you, one of those diehard Colonel Rebel fans. As a matter of principle I refuse to wear any Ole Miss gear with its depiction. Besides, as my buddy Rick Cleveland of The Clarion-Ledger helpfully points out, Colonel Rebel as a sideline presence is not exactly steeped in history.

And I take the Selection Committee at its word that, fears of the Sons of Confederate Veterans aside, there are no plans to drop “Rebels” - a nickname that I am, oddly enough, attached to.

But we can do better than this load of dreck. We need a mascot that represents dignity, not to mention one that can be defended without dissolving into helpless laughter. A mascot instantly recognizable, universally esteemed, quintessentially Mississippi. A mascot we can be proud of.

To wit, the Catfish.

Now, that’s Ole Miss, by damn. And tasty, too.

This Won't Hurt a Bit

Take one dodgy family medical history, add in a couple of slightly perplexing test results, combine with a doctor who never met a medical procedure he didn’t like, and you get this:

“I want you to have an angiogram.”

When? you ask.

“Today,” he says.

Dim recollections enter your mind. Angiogram. Isn’t that the exam in which they scootch a wire up a bloodway into your heart and have a gander? From an entry point in an area where a man least wants a pack of strangers meddling? Won’t that be ... unpleasant?

“They’ll make you comfortable,” the doctor says.

Your ideal state for a procedure of this level of invasiveness could best be described as “unconscious.” As you were the last time medical personnel peered around in your inner regions. This theme dominates your thinking as you make your way to the friendly local hospital, where you move along with surprising speed to a room filled with people in beds along the wall, separated by retractable curtains. A nurse named Pam takes you into her care.

“You’ll be comfortable,” she says, as she pokes a needle into a vein in your left arm. A needle that feels distinctly larger than those used to extract blood. A quite attractive young physician assistant stops by to tell you what is soon to happen, which includes the possibility that something resembling the spring in a ballpoint pen will be permanently inserted into your heart tubing. Oh, and there is the rare but occasional bleeding. And heart attack.

You are then wheeled into another room where you edge onto a table beneath a big light. Two more nurses there promise to “make you comfortable” with a cocktail they will inject as soon as the doctor arrives. You ask that it include a Jack and water.

The good news they provide is that it appears the entry point for the scootching can be your wrist, instead of that other place. As a precaution, though, both places are washed with a soap that feels oddly cold. The doctor arrives, the cocktail flows, and he inquires as to its impact. You ask if it can be augmented with a single malt scotch, preferably from the Islay region.

At some point during all this, perhaps while your mind is wandering off to Scotland, the scootching occurs. A dye is injected, with the resultant sensation that you are taking a warm shower, but only on the inside. The dye allows an image to be seen on a screen, an image the doctor shows you. It looks to you like a map of the Amazon and its tributaries, but to the doctor it signifies something else: everything in your ticker, he says, is A-O.K. Those previously perplexing test results must have involved a false positive, he says. No big deal.

At which point, for the first time all day, you feel very comfortable.

Gooooaaaallll!

Inspired by the World Cup, I’m trying to give a damn about soccer. Any kind of damn. It isn't easy.

Part of the reason, I know, is that the only soccer I've ever witnessed in person involved a field full of 8-year-olds running around somewhat randomly, every now and then kicking the ball in no particular direction. I quickly realized that the only way for this to be entertaining was to have a blood relationship - and I mean a close one - to someone on the field. I didn’t.

I’ve seen professional soccer played on TV, and did appreciate the difference in skill level. Those guys certainly have a way with their feet - stutter stepping, juking, hands unemployed - why, I bet they’d be naturals on the Riverdance stage.

But the result seemed all-too-similar to that of the 8-year-olds: one or more players would scheme to get the ball close to the relevant goal, and then some opposing player would intervene and kick it WAY THE HELL to the other end of the field. At which point the process would take place again, in reverse.

It was a little like watching a basketball game in which nobody makes a shot, with the occasional minor drama of someone bouncing a lob pass off his head toward the basket.

My effort to get excited is further complicated by the fact that I have no particular allegiance to my U.S.A. home team. A couple of countries that I could support for genealogical reasons - Scotland and Ireland - failed to qualify. (Slovenia made it! North Korea! What’s wrong, Scotland and Ireland?) England did qualify, and is, in fact, considered one of the stronger contenders. But I have a curious lack of enthusiasm for the English team. Maybe, because of David Beckham, I unfairly associate it with the Spice Girls.

Still, I know that some sort of rooting interest is necessary if I am to give that damn. And so, after careful consideration, I’ve decided to support Brazil, the five-time winner and favorite.

Am I shamelessly boarding the bandwagon? Not at all. It’s just that my extensive research determined that, of all the teams, Brazil has the coolest jerseys. Shirts. Whatever.

BFF

My best friend died a year ago today.

Before going down for his funeral, I started jotting down notes about some of the memories we’d created over our 40-plus years.

Each one had long-since taken shorthand form for us; a few words that instantly transported us back to a specific point in time:

Chinese Genetics. The Lightning Storm. The Accommodation Bar. Throw Double-Ones. Evil Roy Slade. The Best Meal Ever. The Worst Night Ever. Is This a Purse, or What? You Sugared the Eggs. Bulls Strategy. Beat the Dolt.

And so on. I had 58 when I stopped, but there are more.

Each one still transports me.

Some tales inevitably grew with the telling. In Beat the Dolt, our account of a college intramural football game, the number of touchdown passes he threw me inched up over the years. No matter. Friendships don’t rely on facts.

I can still hear his voice, and the to-the-point way he started every phone call to me (“Rogers? Furby.”). I can feel his handshake, left hand gripping my upper arm, as he warns me to drive carefully. I can see him in the distance of Victoria Station, 1988, as he stops, puts down his bag, and thrusts both arms over his head, triumphant: two Moss Point boys together in London. England, beware!

We talked and argued endlessly over God, politics and sports. He made me laugh more than anyone else. He saved my sanity more than once.

Our last conversation was by phone, him in a hospital room in Mississippi, me in my kitchen in New York. He was to have more tests the next day, yet another effort to find out what was wrong, to see what could be done to fix it.

“Hang in there, boy,” I said.

“I will,” he said.

But he couldn’t.

I’ve put a candle on the mantel today. It’s in memory, and honor, of the light he brought to my life.

The candle will go out. The light will not.

Kills Bugs Dead

Anyone who doubts the adhesive power of TV advertising on the brain should take a look at some of the stuff rattling around in my head, in some cases even after decades. See how many you can put a product to:

__ _______ will clean your whole house, and everything that’s in it.

____ _____ means fine tobacco.

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.

My baloney has a first name, it’s _ _ _ _ _

_______ tastes good like a cigarette should.

There’s nothing like the face of a kid eating a _______ ___.

_____ takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with _________.

Everything tastes better when it sits on a ____.

Everything’s better, with __________ on it.

How ’bout a nice, ________ punch?

See the U.S.A., in your _________.

Mmmm, mmmm, good. Mmmm, mmmm, good. That’s what ________ _____ are, mmmm, mmmm, good!

____ has a better idea.

_______ cleans while it shines.

The beer that made Milwaukee famous, simply because it tastes so good.

You’re smoking neat, you’re smoking clean, with __________ today.

Have one, have another, it’s that kind of beer.

Have a ____ and a smile.

Betcha can’t eat just one.

_____ has been shown to be an effective, decay-preventive dentifrice when used in a conscientiously applied program of oral hygiene and regular professional care.

______ is a candy mint! _____ is a breath mint!

Show us your ____ pack.

A ______, a ______, a wonderful wonderful toy.

588, 2-3hundred. ______!

So pure, it floats!

Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

Won’t sink to the bottom of the bowl.

_______ consumes 47 times its weight in excess stomach acid.

Nothing says lovin’ like something from the oven, and _________ says it best.

Silly rabbit! ____ are for kids!

Choosy mothers choose ___.

____ cleans like a white tornado!

You got chocolate in my peanut butter.

_________ kills germs on contact.

A ________, a ________, delicious whole-wheat biscuit, baked only by Nabisco.

It’s not fried, it’s ______ _ ____, and I hepped.

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is.

Now you know, and you can take all bets, that when you smoke all seven filter cigarettes, you’ll find some too strong, some too light, but ________ got the taste that’s right.

But wait, there’s more!

And indeed there is. Commercials aren’t the only thing from TV filling up my head. But that’s a topic for another time...


Answers: Mr. Clean, Lucky Strike, Alka Seltzer, Big Mac, Oscar Mayer, Winston, Hershey bar, Timex, Pepsodent, Ritz, Bluebonnet margarine, Hawaiian Punch, Chevrolet, Campell’s soups, Ford, Pledge, Schlitz, Parliament, Old Milwaukee, Coke, Lay's potato chips, Crest, Certs, Lark, Slinky, Empire carpets, Ivory soap, M&M, Seven Seas salad dressing, Rolaids, Pillsbury, Trix, Jif, Ajax, Reese’s Cups, Listerine, Triscuits, Shake ‘n Bake, Alka Seltzer, Viceroy. The headline and art refer, or course, to Raid.