Book Sale

It’s an overcast Saturday afternoon in January, and I’ve been lying on the living room sofa finishing Book of Days by Emily Fox Gordon.  It’s a volume of personal essays, which I like to both read and write.  The blurb on the front cover says Gordon has the ability to strip herself bare.  She’s got that over me, which is probably why her work appears in paperback for $15 USA $17.50 Canada.  I doubt any of you would like to see me strip myself bare in any sense of the phrase. 

It’s not the striptease that kept me reading to the last page.  In one essay Gordon describes her various bouts of psychotherapy, and I get the feeling that, for her, essay writing is a continuation of the analytic process.  She has developed the skill of revealing intimate thoughts, and now instead of paying for the privilege she receives royalties.  I stayed with her because she writes a dandy paragraph, which is an ability I admire. 

I wanted to finish reading the book to make way for the contents of a box I brought from the Plymouth Public Library book sale this morning.  As volunteers, Annette and I arrived at the library at 7:45 and went in the employees’ entrance in the rear.  The early hours of the sale is infested with book dealers, who pound down the corridor when the doors are opened and begin snatching books from the tables as fast as they can. 

They come equipped for the job.  Some have sturdy plastic boxes in which to gather their loot.  Many carry scanners so they can read the barcodes on the books and gather information about their desirability.  In minutes they clean the tables of everything that has resale value. I don’t consider it an appealing sight. 

Of course as a perk for my labor, I’d gathered some books before the sale began.  My interests aren’t commercial, and I passed up many items I knew the dealers would skim on the first pass.  There was giant book of historic maps.  I like maps of all kinds, and the reproductions were beautiful, but where would I put it?  It was a coffee table book, and when I’ve finished my breakfast, I repair to the living room and use the coffee table to hold my coffee. 

There was a slick book of erotic art, but I was embarrassed to leaf through it, and I don’t know where I’d keep that either.  I did get a handsome Moby Dick, which I didn’t need. I already have Moby Dick in the Modern Library edition I bought when I first read it in college, and I don’t want to get rid of it because of the Rockwell Kent illustrations.  But this new one was too fine to leave to the book dealers, and I decided I’d keep it in my bedside bookcase where I could dip into it from time to time. Melville writes even better paragraphs than Emily Fox Gordon. 

When the feeding frenzy died down, I chatted with one of the dealers.  He was complaining that some libraries are limiting purchases to fifty books and some don’t allow scanners.  I said I preferred to put books directly into the hands of readers.  He replied that all these books would eventually find readers, whether they bought them in used book stores or from EBay. This, he said, is the American way.  I suppose he’s right; the marketplace isn’t always pretty, but it supports us all. 

I paid for my purchases and brought them home to be enjoyed by me and my family.  Annette got a couple of cookbooks, and I got a copy of Black Beauty for my granddaughter who’s too young for it now, but will grow into it. When I finished Book of Days I started another book of essays – Through the Children’s Gate by Adam Gopnik. The light is fading on my Saturday afternoon, and I have a lot of pleasure ahead before I sleep.

Contentment

In my teens I took a Kodachrome photograph in a cemetery in Hancock, New Hampshire.  There was a background of wooded hills slightly out of focus and a foreground of a weathered gravestone and a faded American flag. The day was a little overcast so the colors were muted, which gave the picture a mood I liked. I called it “Veteran’s Grave.”

Now, more than fifty years later, I wouldn’t give the shot such high marks. It had mood, but no punch and was a bit of a cliché. At the time I thought it was art.  It wasn’t that I was uncritical of my own work.  I’ve always believed that a wastebasket was the photographer’s most important piece of equipment, except now it’s the delete button. 

My mother had the habit of fishing my rejects out of the trash and showing them to her friends as examples of my brilliance as a photographer.  It drove me crazy, and I told her so.  “I like all your pictures,” she said. 

But “Veteran’s Grave” she didn’t like.  “It’s sad,” she said, “Why can’t you take happy pictures?”  I rolled my eyes heavenward in search of strength.  I was a deeply insightful, artistic photographer, especially if you didn’t look at the pictures that hadn’t come out.  The cemetery in Hancock reminded me of the one in “Our Town,” a play which I had read.  In my adolescent wisdom, I realized death was part of life. 

My mother doesn’t like to look at the dark side.  After a severe heart attack she was cared for by hospice workers, who tried to get her to sign a do-not-resuscitate order. She was shocked.  “I’m not going to die,” she told them. Now at 96, she’s still around, and the good hospice folk have gone on to more compliant patients. 

She still doesn’t like sad, pictures, sad movies, or sad books. As she once told her teenage son, “There’s enough sadness in the world; we don’t have to dwell on it.”  Now that some of my smart-alecky snootiness has fallen away, I’m starting to agree.   I like best the opening scenes of the book where the characters are living happily before they are tested by misfortune.  If Bilbo Baggins had stayed in The Shire, I would have read on and on before I got bored. I tend to agree with him when he said, “We are plain, quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!

I tried to read Adventures in Contentment by David Grayson because I admired the title.  I didn’t know Grayson was the pen name of Ray Stannard Baker, a muckraking journalist.  I gave up on the book. The author was purportedly a businessman who left the pressures of the city for an idyllic life in the country. I have nothing against blossoms, birdsong, and butterflies, but I couldn’t tolerate Baker/Grayson’s admiration of himself for being more sensitive to them that other men.  If I want to read about the simple life, I prefer Thoreau.

Let me be honest.  I get grumpy, I get depressed, and I worry more than is good for me, but I believe contentment is a wonderful gift.  Now I press the delete button on malformed sentences, but I’d rather write about a dinner I showed up for than a misfortune that made me miss a meal. 

Here’s a quote from the poet James Richardson, who wrote, “Knowing how to be pleased with what’s there is a great secret of happy living, sensitive reading, and bad writing.”  That’s my philosophy.

Look at the Bright Side.

Wisdom

Wilfred reached three score and ten

And found he had grown wise

From striving with his fellow men

To victory or compromise.

The human race he understood;

He could advise them, but

He'd learned it was a greater good

To keep his big mouth shut.

Little Red Smokehouse

Location:

145 South Main Street

(Rte. 58) Carver, Ma

Phone:  (508) 465-0018

Hours: Tue. – Sat.11:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Sun. 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.  Closed Mon.

Credit cards: Master Card, Visa, Discover

Website: In the works

Handicap accessible.

My interest in Q dates from a drive to Florida during my childhood.  President Eisenhower’s dream of an interstate highway system had not yet come to fruition, so there was no I-95. Route 1 was paved, but many towns in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia had cross streets of red dirt. We passed slowly through these areas as unreconstructed police officers were rumored to lie in wait for cars with Yankee license plates.  

Riding with my sister in the back seat, I wondered about the barbecue joints with their hand painted signs, but we were not a family of adventurous eaters and sustained ourselves on more familiar fare.  I didn’t taste real barbecue until I reached manhood.  A dinner at Bessinger’s Barbecue in Charleston South Carolina was a life-changing experience. 

From that time on I’ve seldom passed up an opportunity to eat Q.  I was a fan of Little Red Smokehouse in Carver despite its faults, which included a badly-trained and under-supervised wait staff and, toward its close, uneven food. Nearly a year ago word spread that Little Red Smokehouse was to reopen, and I often made detours to watch the progress, which seemed glacial.  Now it’s back, and Annette and I had lunch there today. 

Our waitress was attentive.  She stood by the kitchen waiting for our appetizer of onion rings and rushed them to the table piping hot. “Flag me down if you need me,” she said.  A perfect onion ring is a rare thing, and these qualified.  They were covered with crisp batter that shattered when you bit into it.  The onions were sweet and perfectly done.  No one could have asked for more, but these rings came with a horseradish dipping sauce. I was filled with hope.

While we waited for our main dishes, I took stock of the surroundings.  There were cranberry scoops on the wall.  There was cranberry-rubbed apple-smoked turkey breast on the menu, and cranberry barbecue sauce on the table. This was, after all, Carver.  A background of country music and the curtains made of blue bandanas at the entrance contributed to the atmosphere. 

I noticed a card in a plastic holder on the table that announced the availability of De Loach Russian River Pinot Noir.  The description claimed that “delicate notes of anise and baking spices lace the fruit to unfold a rich palate of black cherries supported by medium fine grained tannins.”  It was perhaps not the sort of beverage available in those rustic southern eateries of the fifties, but I’m no purist.  If the meat is good, folks can drink what they want. 

My pulled pork sandwich was on golden slabs of Texas toast.  The meat was tender and smoky and better than I remembered from the restaurant’s first incarnation.  The moistness of the meat was enhanced by the crunch of creamy coleslaw.  There was a mound of crisp shoestring fried potatoes. 

Annette’s shrimp on grits caused her a little anxiety as it arrived covered with a sauce of tomatoes and peppers, but the grits were as creamy and fluffy as the finest polenta, and the sauce didn’t overpower.  The pineapple upside-down cake we had for dessert was baked as an individual serving, but was plenty for two fogies.  Instead of being in a ring, the pineapple was in bits and was accompanied by an equal amount of dried cranberries. 

If this were a restaurant review for a newspaper, I’d have to make at least two more visits before going to press.  There are certainly many things on the menu I want to try.  But since it’s a blog entry describing my lunch, I’ll just say that I expect Little Red Smokehouse to be an asset to the area.  Everything we tasted was good, and we plan to make the journey to Carver to eat there again and again.  I wish the management well for their sake and for mine.  They’re off to a great start. 

A Good Fire

Companions

Blessings of Fogiedom

Don’t laugh at me,” Annette said.  She had been reading about budgeting techniques and had a formula about needs, wants and savings. She wanted to discuss how we were managing according to the plan. 

I didn’t laugh, but I’ve been in the business -- not the financial business, the writing business.  Writers get stuck for something to say, and any plausible idea will do when a deadline is at hand. Wisdom is rare in the popular press.  Still, discussing the proportions of our spending made us think about our habits.  Classifying things by wants and needs helped us remember that there are still purchases we can do without. 

I thought of the scene from “Dances with Wolves” in which Kevin Costner’s character John Dunbar sits and smokes with the wise Indian Ten Bears.  Dunbar says, “I pushed him to move the camp, but he only talked of simple pleasures. He reminded me that at his age a good fire is better than anything.”

I may never achieve Ten Bears’ simplicity, but I know what he means.  Retirement has made available the luxury of the siesta.  I do not speak of a power nap, which is a technique to increase productivity.  The executive justifies a tiny dose of shuteye on the theory that he’ll leap up from it a dynamo of energy and roar past his competition, which has been plodding wearily while he recharged. I’m talking about the pure luxury of going to sleep in the daytime. 

To a retiree, time isn’t money.  I close my eyes and the brightness of sunlight reflected from snow floods in the windows and seeps through the skin of my eyelids, reminding me that this isn’t the routine of nighttime repose; this is perfect indulgence, the sweetest sleep of all. The pillow feels particularly soft, and slumber envelops me like a loving embrace.  Then, of course, the phone rings. 

Reading is another of the great luxuries of fogiedom.  I stroll past the shelves of the Plymouth Library a wealthy man, plucking a volume to take home.  In times past only the lord of the manor had such an array at his fingertips.  At my home computer I enter a title into the field of the Old Colony Library Network or OCLN and put it on hold.  In a few days it will be available for me to pick up. 

I never lack for companions whether I’m enjoying a quiet day at home or stuck on a wooden bench in the Registry of Motor Vehicles waiting for my number on the screen. Writers, ancient and modern, surround me.  At my age I’ve given up the illusion that I can keep up with the latest best sellers, and this gives me time to reread some of the books I remember with so much love.   

In the winter, like Ten Bears, I have a fire.  I drag the comfortable living room chairs up to the hearth.  Between them I place the Chinese garden seat I use for a side table.  It makes a great place to read, eat, or drift into the land of dreams. 

Creation

In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.

  - Ellen DeGeneres

Did God invent a match to use

When first he lit the Big Bang's fuse?

Before the Bang there was no space.

To put the world He'd need a place.

There never was a pump to prime.

You want a week? Create some time. 

To make a man, conceive of dust.

To give him kids, whip up some lust.

Imagine the Creator's glee

When first He hit on gravity.

I squint to get my rhyming right.

I never would have thought of light.

                       

The Best Chinese Spareribs I Ever Ate

The recipe muse, whoever she may be, sings to Annette in moments of crisis.  She has certain ingredients and is out of others. The supper hour is at hand so she improvises.  So it was with these ribs, which she found marked down at the supermarket.   

Ingredients:

5 to 10 good meaty spareribs

¼ cup soy sauce

2 tbs. white sugar

2 tbs. gin

1 tbs. chopped fresh ginger root

1 large garlic clove peeled and smashed

Directions

Mix the soy sauce, sugar, gin, ginger and garlic until the sugar dissolves.

Add the ribs and stir to make sure they are coated with the marinade.  Let stand in the refrigerator from twenty minutes to all day stirring every once in a while to make sure all parts of the ribs are kept wet with the marinade.

Place the ribs on a sheet of foil in a sheet pan. Baste them with the marinade, and bake them in the oven at 375° for twenty minutes.

Turn the ribs over, baste them, and cook for another fifteen to twenty minutes. 

Notes

Annette did this with five ribs, which was the number that was in the package that was marked down.  I had three and she had two, which was enough for supper along with the spinach with sesame oil and the fried rice she made to go with them.  She figures there was enough marinade for ten ribs.  I think you could push it to twelve.  You can double the marinade recipe if you’re feeding a crowd.

Defying Winter Without Airfare

Usually I can endure winter until at least February before I’m reduced to making tropical drinks, but snow is predicted for tomorrow, and I’m ready.  I’ve had enough snug winter evenings with popcorn, a fire in the fireplace, and smoky single malt Scotch.  Cocoa only reminds me of the danger of back injury incurred while walking to the car.

I once stayed in small hotel in Bermuda.  The food was unbelievably bad.  I thought the appetizer of cold ravioli sounded creative, but it turned out to be three Chef Boyardee patties on a lettuce leaf.  The bartender was a Bermudian named Wellington, and his talents were extraordinary. We asked him if he had a specialty, and he certainly did.

He claimed it was a secret recipe and wouldn’t reveal how he made it, but I ordered it throughout our stay and watched.  Wellington was quick with his hands and never made the drink the same way twice, but I learned from him.  His drinks contained three elements – fruit juice, liqueur, and rum. 

I practiced when I got home.  I found Wellington’s method was hard to screw up, and there’s room for infinite variation.  Pineapple juice is a good base. The big can is cheaper per ounce so long as you don’t leave it to spoil in your refrigerator, which always happens to me. I suggest the six-pack. Mixing your pineapple juice with the fresh juice of an orange brightens it up. 

I usually go for a blend of rums.  Meyers Jamaican dark rum is a good staple to keep on hand. It will work by itself, but can be mixed with silver or amber rum for a more complex flavor.  I’ve heard of putting cranberry juice into the mix, but to me it diminishes the tropical feel.   Try pomegranate. If you just want a red color, a little grenadine will do the trick. 

On one evening I spotted Wellington using banana liqueur and on another apricot brandy.  These have become my staples, but there are plenty of options, and you might dig out old bottles that have worked their way to the back of the liquor cabinet. Exercise your creativity, and if you don’t like what you come up with, you can fix it.  One hazard is getting the drink too sweet, but a little lemon or lime juice will remedy that. 

What you’re making with your fruit juice, liquor, and flavorings is a punch.  You can make it potent and serve with ice it in a highball glass.  I tend to make it weaker and serve it in a glass beer mug. 

What you’re after is an island mood so a garnish is essential.  Maybe it will be just a bit of orange, lime, or pineapple stuck on the top of the glass.  To my way of thinking maraschino cherries are inedible by anyone over the age of eight, but the color is festive, so use them if they suit your style.  Subtlety is uncool in tropical drinks.  If you’re the type who pockets paper drink umbrellas, dust them off and pop them on.  

Mark Twain in Heaven

A great light reflecting off the golden street

Hurt my eyes and I couldn’t see much,

So I complained, and someone gave me a pair of smoked glasses,

And I saw everything clearly. 

That worked so well I asked for a cigar and got one.

I was a mite nervous about asking for a match

Because they’re called Lucifers,

But the fellow figured out what I needed and handed me a box of them.

Seeing things so well was damned humiliating,

And I should have felt glum, but couldn’t manage it. 

Then an angel came up and shook my hand

And told me he thought Huckleberry Finn was a great book.

I thanked him and said I used to be a pretty smart fellow,

But I was wrong about a lot of things.

“Everybody is,”

The angel said.

What's the World Coming to?

There may have been periods of world history when life went on in the backwaters of civilization without alteration as decades and even centuries drifted slowly by; but even these sheltered havens eventually suffered change, which is the normal condition of life. Fogies since ancient times have lamented the weakening of old customs and the dissipation of the young. 

In my junior high school days we were afflicted by assembly speakers, who warned us that the postwar prosperity of the fifties was making us soft. Usually they mentioned the fall of Rome, which they instructed us was occasioned by moral decadence similar to comic book reading and listening to Bill Haley and the Comets.  They hadn’t seen Elvis yet.

Now it’s my turn to shake my gray locks at the dissoluteness of our youth.  I heard it whispered only yesterday that school children learn no more cursive writing than it takes to sign a loan agreement or a credit card slip.  I’d already noted that the young don’t have the mental capacity to calculate in their heads what a garment will cost if it’s forty percent off. 

The evil has spread beyond the schools to other institutions in town.  My bank tried to give me a line of credit, which would prevent a steep penalty should I overdraw my checking account.  I like to imagine boardroom meetings behind closed doors.  A bright young executive says that a certain percentage of customers (he has the estimated number) will consider this as freedom from worrying whether or not they have enough money when tempted to spend.  The interest rate is exorbitant, and the board members smile when the projected income flashes on the Power Point screen.  I wrote a check without funds while in college, and a bank officer paid a call on my father, who rolled his eyes and made a deposit to keep me afloat. 

Much has been lost. 

Being a fogy, I look for what remains.  I’m amazed at the number of things I need that I can find at Charlie’s Hardware in North Plymouth. Actually I don’t have to find them; they’re set before me when I ask.  Recently I replaced my Swing-A-Way can opener.  The new one is exactly like the old, and fits in the same bracket on the kitchen wall.  It has a crank so I don’t have to plug it in, and I know it will last for years, although eventually the blade will get dull.  When you get to be my age, you begin to wonder if you’ll outlive appliances.  Another recent purchase was a pane of glass to replace one that was cracked in a picture frame. The clerk supplied a screwdriver and helpfully kibitzed while I took the metal frame apart and replaced the glass. 

What I seek is human contact so when I leave the place of business I’ve had a pleasant encounter.  It’s not just a fellow fogy who’s paid to greet me at the entrance to a mega-store; it’s friendly one-on-one contact.  Despite computer-generated annoyances, I’m loyal to the Pilgrim Hill Road CVS because the pharmacist treats me like a friend. 

I could go on about how common personal service used to be, but my purpose isn’t to bemoan what is lost, but to treasure what is left.  There are still restaurants where they greet you by name when you walk in the door, and bars where they remember what you drink.  A book store where they’ll discuss your tastes is better than a website that will ship a book to your door or downloaded it onto your Kindle.

We need to support friendly places because they’re getting rare and could disappear.  We’d be left in a cold, impersonal world where, instead or seeing a customer as a person  who messed up his bookkeeping, institutions calculates the probability he’ll use his limited cursive writing skill to sign a check backed by money he doesn’t have.   

Untrimming the Tree

I learned early on not to throw Christmas tree trimming parties.  When it comes to decorating the tree, I consider myself an artiste, and I work alone. Ornaments like the dragon, the mermaid, and the snowman who flies among the stars need to be displayed at eye level.  Bert and Ernie from "Sesame Street" must be near each other.  The felt owl and other durable objects go on the lower limbs where they can be batted by the cat or whacked with the dog's swishing tale.  

Of course we no longer have a dog or cat, but tradition must be maintained.  Some ornaments are so old they have to be put in the back. One such is the construction paper Santa Claus Annette made in Brownies.  He adorned her mother’s tree as long as she lived and now has a place on ours.  There is an angel that hung on the first tree in our first apartment.  She’s made of a champagne cork with cardboard wings.  She’s now too fragile and shabby to be displayed and stays in the ornament box like a museum piece that rests in a drawer in the subbasement.  Every Christmas we look fondly at the vestiges of glitter and the halo held above her head by a common pin. 

Solitary as my decorating may be, it’s more exciting than undecorating.  The evening before the task we dim the lights and look at the tree with a melancholy resignation.  When I was eighteen months old, I bawled when my parents took down the tree. I thought it was a magical thing that would stand in our living room forever. 

Now, sixty-nine years later, the enchantment isn’t entirely gone, but I know my duty.  Off come the ornaments to be packed away.  This year we made a cut.  As you age it becomes necessary to divest yourself of material encumbrance. We made two discard piles: one to be offered for our children’s trees and another to be given to the thrift shop. 

This meant that we held each object and reminisced about it.  There was the ceramic streetcar we got in New Orleans, the silver bell that came from Spain, the straw gondolier’s hat from Venice, and the beautiful princess my son-in-law’s family sent from Russia.  We talked about the ceramic replica of Bug Light signed and dated by our friend Fran Barnes. The skating raccoon in scarf and stocking hat had lost his mojo and had to go.

This careful examination of our treasures one by one took some of the sadness out of packing them away. Talking about them was a charming way to pass a winter afternoon.  Now there’s one less box on the top shelf of the front hall closet, which means there’ll be a smaller probability they’ll cascade onto my head when I go to get them down.  Now that the weeding is accomplished, there’s not an ornament left that cannot make us smile. 

The analogy of a museum display holds true.  The Christmas ornaments are a collection assembled over the years.  Some are valued for their artistic merit like a beach scene painted on a sand dollar.  Others have great antiquity and historic importance. Like a museum display, they were wrapped and packed and stored away, but they still endure.  I like to think of them passing down the generations, divided up, some damaged and failing future cuts, but some, the remnant from our Christmas trees, bringing pleasure for a long, long time.    

On Turning Seventy

Nick yourself on a falling star

Or fall on fallen starlight.

Steady your feet in a whirling bar

As you quaff the foaming brew of night.

Reel a fish from the twinkling sea,

Harpoon a charging whale,

Belch a laugh of giddy glee

And gulp the galloping ale.

Whiz on a dizzily flying dart,

Quench the dry with the wet,

Ride the cosmic apple cart

Magnificently upset.

Breakfast Nachos

This is a breakfast to make on a Sunday morning. It goes well with coffee, Mexican chocolate, and especially tequila sunrises. Food from warm climates is particularly welcome on winter days.

Ingredients for the nachos:
4 eggs
1 link chorizo
¼ cup cilantro leaves chopped
1/3 cup grated Monterey jack cheese
1/3 package tortilla chips
ranchero sauce – see below.

Note: Don’t be too fussy here. Mexican chorizo is authentic, but Portuguese is readily available and does fine. Your supermarket's Mexican grated cheese does well. 


Ingredients for the ranchero sauce:

14 ounce can chopped tomatoes. The fire roasted kind are good in this.
1 medium onion chopped
1/2 a green pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 jalapeño pepper seeded and finely chopped
1 tablespoon of cilantro stems finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil

Note: This doesn’t make a particularly hot sauce and will be suitable for the timid.
*****

Make the ranchero sauce. In a skillet sauté the chopped onion in the olive oil until translucent. Add the green pepper and the jalapeno. Sauté until soft. Add the tomatoes, cilantro stems, and cumin. Cook for five minutes.

Note: five minutes is a minimum cooking time. I turn the heat down and let it simmer while I’m making the coffee and other drinks and begining the next step, The sauce should be thick, but if it gets too dry, add a little water.

*****
Make the nachos. Preheat broiler. Remove casing from chorizo link and slice it lenghwise into quarters. Cut the quarters into quarter-inch wedges. Sauté in a non-stick skillet. Remove and drain on paper towel leaving fat in skillet. Spread tortilla chips 2 or 3 deep over the bottom of a shallow casserole dish. Fry the eggs sunny side up in the chorizo fat. When they are firm enough to move, place them on the chips and spoon the ranchero sauce around them.

Place the chorizo around the eggs. Sprinkle the cheese over the dish, leaving the egg yolks exposed. Place the dish under a preheated broiler just the long enough to melt the cheese. (Too long will overcook the egg yolks, which should be runny.) Sprinkle the dish with the chopped cilantro.

*****

Extras

Garnish the dish with pickled jalapeño slices, which breakfasters can use to their discretion. Guacamole goes well too. The fresh kind you find in the produce department will do fine.

Ghost Story

I live in the house my father grew up in.  I remember it as my grandparents’ home.  The square newel post at the foot of the stairs reminded me of the tower of the First Parish Church in Plymouth, and I associated it with old fashioned values and respectability. 

I was alone in the house on a dark, rainy afternoon shortly after I moved in when my grandfather’s phantom appeared on the lower landing of the stairs. He was wearing the conservative business suit he almost always had on. 

“What are you doing here?” I said, forgetting in my astonishment to be afraid. 

“I live here,” the specter said.

No you don’t, you’re dead.” 

With that my grandfather disappeared, not with a slow fade, but an instantaneous vanishing.  Only then did the chill set in. 

Both my children, separately and without consulting one another, believed there was a ghost on the stairs.  Part of the reason lay with the ghost shaped-shadow a lamp makes at the upper landing by the built-in shelf where I keep my poetry books.  There is also the fact that, when the sun goes down and the temperature drops, the stairs sometimes creak. The sounds may seem to start at the bottom and ascend.

The stairs are built of blonde oak, and I mainly think of them as "the golden stairs.”  When you live in a house long enough, every part becomes associated with memories. We would say to the children at a certain evening hour, "It's time to go up the golden stairs. When I use them, I remember ascending holding a little girl by the hand heading for bedtime stories and a long goodnight.  

As for my sighting of my grandfather’s specter, it was a figment of my storyteller’s mind. Psychologically, it was an assertion of my right as one of the living to occupy the house in a style and manner of which he might not approve.  Metaphysically, it never happened.  I assure you that, as the spiritualists say, the house is clean. At least I think it is.

Staying Home

Your imagination is fueled by advertisements.  There you are photographing a rhino from a Land Rover or surrounded by smiling children in an African village.  Moonlight turns the sea to silver while, dressed in romantic finery, you stand with your loved one on a cruise ship deck. Perhaps you reside in a golfing community where you’re never lonely so long as you can drive, chip, and putt.  This and so much more can be yours if you’ve invested wisely and the checks don’t bounce. 

But chances are you’ll spend a good part of your retirement in your home.  It’s a circumstance to be planned for.  I slept on a cot in a tent in the Sahara, and it was a memorable experience, but in the long run I wouldn’t trade it for the comfort of my own bed. If I’m sleepless at 4:00 a.m., I can’t step into the starry dazzle of the desert night, but since I’m retired, the alarm won’t jangle in two short hours, and there’s a real pillow hidden behind the sofa, should I decide later on I need a nap.  Long experience has taught me how to make a cup of coffee and a dry martini exactly the way I like them.  The celebrated comforts of home are the product of many adjustments over a long, long time. My advice is to travel on occasion, but otherwise stay put. 

If you absolutely must move to a retirement home, remember an interior decorator puts looks ahead of comfort every time.  Ten shower heads provide more chances for things to go wrong, and one will bathe you just fine. Family photos cheer you better than objets d’art.  Stand firm against kitchen countertops that require special care or an island you have to walk around to do your work.  A plain stove will suit your needs, and professional BTUs might burn the soup.  Use the money you save to buy furniture and appliances that will hold up as long as you will.  

Tradesmen you know and restaurants where you’re known calm you in times of stress.  Plymouth, where I live, isn’t a town where you recognize everyone you meet, but I seldom go out without greeting someone by name.  In my home the love of surrounding objects isn’t crass materialism; each has a story and relates to a period in my life. Sometimes I’m comforted just by looking at the woodwork. 

Pots in which we cooked great food and dishes from which we ate it line the pantry shelves.  The artist from whom we bought a painting looks down from a wall.  Dust jackets of books that were ripped by my daughter when she was a two-year-old are missing from the half of the set she got to before I got to her.

The fireplace where a cheerful fire crackles once belonged to my Grandfather, and I remember when our dog Bowser, lying close to the flames, caught spark on his tail and howled.  Grandpa Talbot, fearing Bowser’s immolation on the braded rug, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him out into the snow, where he cooled his singed appendage and scratched to get back in.

Just outside is a Kwansan cherry tree my grandmother planted.  Actually she bossed while a group of men, including my father, dug the hole, inserted the sapling, filled the hole with water, chemical fertilizer, and manure and closed it up.  I was a small boy, but it was an occasion to remember. Like the tree, I was developing roots. 

Americans are a people with a tradition of moving on.  Some friends of mine, who lived in a house on the water in Falmouth, pulled up stakes and built a home in Arizona, where they’re surrounded by desert and have a mountain view. The pictures they showed me are lovely, but I’m not tempted.  Grandma’s cherry tree blossoms pink in the spring and turns burnt orange in the fall. In the winter it wears a mantle of snow. That’s plenty for me. 

Grandma Talbot's Cherry Tree in Winter

Welcome

My grandmother used to say, “It’s hell to get old.”  Usually it was when she couldn’t find her sewing box, but I very young then, and I remember it because “hell” was a strong would for her to use. 

Having arrived at a state of fogiedom, myself, I perceive that old age, like other periods of life, has its blessings and afflictions.  In this blog I won’ t emphasize the aches and pains, but I’m not adopting the philosophy of AARP Magazine, which would have you  believe that old age is exactly like being young, only better. 

Their hero used to be Colonel Sanders, who allegedly started a billion dollar fried chicken business while in his dotage.  They don’t talk about him any more because he’s, you know, d-e-a-d, which is a four-letter-word they never use.  Despite the cruises and the business ventures and the golf and the shuffleboard, old age is a stage of life that always ends rather badly. 

This means we need to take advantage of as many opportunities as we can.  I’ll be writing about places I go and things I do.  Some times we have to rouse ourselves and get out into the world.  Naps are nice too. 

Having left my youth behind, I’m not under the delusion that you’re interested in my every mood.  I promise there’ll be plenty of thoughts in my stream of consciousness that won’t make the cut. I wrote a newspaper column for many years and tried to offer what I thought people wanted to read rather than what I felt like saying.  I’m planning to do that here.  I won’t even afflict you with pictures of my adorable grandchildren.  A cute saying might slip in from time to time, but I’m determined to use restraint.

I call the blog Fogiedom because, in the words of the younger generation, it’s where I’m at.  (Actually they may not say that anymore.  My children used to tell me I should never attempt contemporary slang. It was just too embarrassing.) Anyway, you don’t have to be a fogy to read this blog.  With any luck you’ll achieve this distinguished condition eventually. Even if that’s a long way off, you might find something of interest.

Welcome readers. I hope we all have a great time.

A New Year's Toast

Tonight we stand upon the cusp of time. 

The future spreads before us, and the past slinks off behind.

We have felt the chill of a dry martini

And the icy breath of the Reaper asking if we were OK

After we lumbered up the stairs. 

But here we are. 

The aged year has done his best and worst.

Shambling toward his fellows, he proffers neither harm nor good.

We turn our eyes to the infant. 

Will he be a bratty child, a nasty adolescent, a villainous old man? 

That’s the thing about a newborn – you never know. 

To this babe we lift our glasses, for only he can bring us anything. 

Courageously we celebrate time -- the stuff of life.

The only way is onward.

To the New Year!