Kansas City Coffee

            Kansas City is a town that’s often associated with such fearsome forces as the Royals and the Chiefs and Hallmark Greeting Cards. It's also a bustling metropolis where one can openly purchase my favorite mood-altering substance: coffee.

            My wife and I recently visited our youngest son, who lives in the Paris of the Plains. Among the places he suggested we visit was a joint called The Roasterie. This business specializes in coffee, so of course they have an authentic DC-3 cargo plane bolted to the roof of their cavernous facilities.

           There is a good reason for the aircraft adorning their roofline. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with a shortage of hangar space at the airport. The Roasterie air roasts their coffee beans and the vintage airplane helps make that point. I think it might have been cheaper to simply stick a sign up there, but what do I know?

            You can smell The Roasterie from a thousand feet. The heavenly aroma of toasting coffee pulled me in; my feet barely touched the ground as I floated along on clouds of freshly-roasted coffee fragrance.

            We soon learned that the people who run The Roasterie take the topic of coffee very seriously. Java is all they think about.

            We took the free tour of their facility. Scores of bulky burlap bags bulging with beans were stacked on immense industrial racks. We were shown some raw coffee beans, which were a sickly pale green. Poor little guys! They needed a vacation in some place that’s nice and warm so they can get some color in their cheeks! And then be lovingly ground into small particles and soaked in hot water.

            Our tour guide spoke rapidly and enthusiastically. I suspect this was because the coffee vapors in The Roasterie are so strong, she couldn’t help but absorb massive amounts of caffeine. By the end of the tour, I too was feeling a contact buzz.

            After the tour came the best part, namely, coffee tasting. We were told that in order for the roasted beans to be properly tasted, they must first be properly ground. I was shocked to learn that “between your molars” isn’t considered an acceptable grinding method!

            I was further appalled to discover that after more than half a century of being a java junkie, I have been brewing my joe wrong!

            Our tour guide lady gave an educational coffee making demonstration. The first thing she did was dump a measure of freshly ground coffee into a smallish cup. She then added hot water; we were told that the ideal temperature is just a smidge below boiling. This seemed similar to cowboy coffee, or egg coffee minus the egg.

            We were informed that the proper method was to let the coffee steep for exactly four minutes. Who can wait that long? I need my caffeine NOW!

            Our guide then demonstrated the method that professional coffee tasters employ when sampling coffee. Using a teaspoon, she scooped off the foam and grounds that were floating on the surface. She then took a spoonful of the luscious auburn liquid, placed it to her lips and slurped it in a very noisy and decidedly unladylike manner. We were told that this how one aerates the coffee and whooshes it across the palate.

            This was a stunning revelation. As a child, I was told that it’s impolite to slurp. All those years of slurping shame have been for naught!       

            The tasting process is called “cupping” and the coffee tasters at The Roasterie might “cup” 20 to 30 coffees per day. Talk about a dream job! We weren’t introduced to any of the tasters, though. My theory is that their super-elevated caffeine levels cause them to move so fast that light can’t keep up.

            Following the tour and the tasting, we repaired to the bar area where friendly baristas offered more free samples. For me, this was like turning a kid loose in a toy store and telling him he could try one of each. Gimmie!

            They also had coffee making devices for sale. Some looked as if they had been designed by Rube Goldberg while others were as simple as “hot water goes in here, coffee comes out there.”

            We finally bid adieu to The Roasterie, but only after purchasing several pounds of souvenir beans. When we got back to the car, I noticed something.

            “Whoa!” I said to my wife. “My clothes and my skin reek of coffee! I won’t have to shower for a week!”

            “Fine,” she replied, “You can just go up onto the roof and sleep in that airplane.”        

           

           

 

           

Last-minute Christmas

            It’s nearly Christmas, which means that it’s almost time for me to begin thinking about considering the possibility of starting Christmas shopping.

            I am a diehard, last-possible-minute Christmas shopper. It isn’t time to begin looking for gifts until the mall security guards are locking the doors on Christmas Eve.

            My wife, on the other hand, is an über Christmas shopper. She has been known to purchase gifts decades in advance. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she has stockpiled Christmas presents for possible future grandchildren that aren’t even yet a twinkle in an eye.

            It’s not as if I don’t like Christmas shopping. I just don’t particularly enjoy the parts that involve driving to the store, dealing with the crowds, searching for the perfect items, paying for said items and then driving back home. Other than that, Christmas shopping is OK.

            Finding an item that’s suitable for conveying the kindly feelings that accompany Christmas has always been a problem. This would often lead to panic decisions and gifts such as booklets of S & H Green Stamps and Mason jars full of mismatched buttons. Nothing says “Happy Yuletide!” like a festive ball of lint that has been lovingly and recently – it’s still warm! – collected from the clothes dryer screen.

            Let’s face it: it’s hard to know what to buy for some people. Back when I was a kid, the fallback gift for a man was a pocket square. Uncles all across this great land of ours probably have dresser drawers full of pocket squares.

            When I was growing up, the default Christmas gift for me seemed to be socks. It was always disappointing to pick up a promising-looking box and realize, based on its mass and lack of interesting rattles, that it contained socks. My heart had been set on a jet pack! Besides, what message does the gift of socks send other than “Your feet reek!”

            Aletta, a neighbor lady, gave me a model car kit for Christmas when I was about eight. My guess is that assembling the model was supposed to give me insight into the automotive manufacturing business – minus the labor and supply chain problems, of course. 

            Ideally, the box containing the model car would be opened carefully. Its instruction sheet would be gently removed, studied in great detail and scrupulously followed. This is pretty much the opposite of what I did.

            Excited at the prospect of owning my first car, I ripped the box open, sending tiny plastic car parts skittering across the floor. I tossed the instruction sheet aside, figuring that directions are for sissies. I still use this approach when traveling.

            I was eager to get started and began to randomly glue car parts together. I soon learned a couple of things regarding model car assembly.

            First was that there were some very good reasons for having an instruction sheet. It turns out that there is a very specific order that needs to be followed when assembling a model car. For instance, the engine and transmission should be installed before the hood and fenders, not after.

            Second was that model glue is surprisingly strong. Say that you have to remove the hood and fenders to allow the installation of an engine. The fenders are likely to snap before their glue joints give.

            I also learned that model glue has an atomic attraction to my skin. And my clothes. And my hair. There is no way on God’s green earth to remove model glue from hair, so a guy has no choice other than to cut it out. This is more difficult than it sounds, especially when you don’t have access to a mirror.

            The final step was applying the car’s decals which were released from a special sheet of paper by soaking it in water. This caused the decals to become so slimy and fragile that they would rip if you so much as breathed on them. You need the hands of a neurosurgeon when applying model car decals.

            After nearly an hour of intense effort, my model car was finally done. It listed to one side and was riddled with random splotches of glue and hair. The fenders were crooked and the decals looked like wads of wet tissue that had been thrown at the car and left to dry. None of the wheels turned except for the steering wheel, which kept falling off.

            Even so, I was proud of my miniature roadster. I was racking my brains for a way to properly thank Aletta for her thoughtful present when I stumbled upon the perfect gift: a nice new pair of socks.                                             

 

           

             

           

           

 

           

                                   

             

The Gut Bug

            An uninvited and unwelcome guest came to our house recently. His stay was short – only about 48 hours – but his visit left us emotionally and physically drained.

            I am speaking about that nasty intestinal bug that has been making the rounds lately.

            My wife was the first to sense his presence.

            “I don’t feel so well,” she said to me one morning. “I’m kind of urpy and my tummy is rumbling like Mount Vesuvius shortly before its epic eruption in 79 AD, a historical fact that one can look up on Wikipedia and use at times such as this.”

            As Chief Medical Officer of our household, it was my duty to diagnose the patient. This consisted entirely of taking her temperature via the proven scientific method of placing a hand on her forehead.

            “You don’t have a fever,” I said. “It’s probably just something you ate. I told you we should have thrown out that potato salad! When we bought it, the Colonel was still just a private!”

            “I’m going to lie down,” was her only reply. The fact that she didn’t point out that it was me who had insisted on keeping the leftovers told me that she wasn’t kidding about feeling ill.

            I was performing important journalistic research – watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons on the internet – when I heard some strange sounds emanating from the bathroom. My wife seemed to be calling for someone named Bork.

            “You OK?” I asked when she staggered out of the loo.

            “What do you think?” she replied. “My gut feels like it’s been worked over by Mike Tyson! I yakked so much, I saw a taco that I ate in 1973!”         

            My wife is prone to exaggeration and hyperbole, so I patted her on the head and told her to go back to bed. I was certain that the picture wasn’t nearly as bleak as she had painted it and that she merely had some minor stomach issues.

            Throughout the day she made several more verbal visits to the lavatory. In between times I would offer her 7-Up and soda crackers, but that only caused her to blanch and bolt for the bathroom.

            I found this deeply troubling, mainly because I was worried that I might also be stricken. But I decided that getting sick wasn’t an option. I simply would not allow it! Using nothing but the sheer force of will, I would avoid the dreaded fate of driving the porcelain bus.

            And it worked – for a while. By the next morning, I had the distinct feeling that a mighty maelstrom was brewing in my digestive regions. As the thunderheads of nausea gathered and boiled, I vowed that I wouldn’t let the gut bug win.

            My wife had by then pretty much recovered. She checked in on me at midmorning. “How are you doing?” she asked.

            “It feels as if an EF5 tornado, which, according to Wikipedia, can have winds in excess of 200 MPH, is churning its way through my innards!”

            “You always exaggerate everything! It’s probably just a minor stomach thing.”

            I languished in anguish for half a day. There were times when I thought that my determination might successfully beat back the enemy, but this was swiftly followed by the sense that the invaders were about to breach my defenses.

            Just when I was beginning to believe that hostilities might end with an uneasy ceasefire, a tsunami of profound emotions swept over me. The kind of profound emotions that, as a rule, causes a person to sprint for the bathroom.

            Once there, I was faced with an extremely pressing dilemma: which end should I hold over the toilet first? What followed is probably not what they had in mind when they minted the word “multitasking.”

            Afterwards, I was engulfed by a deep feeling of relief. I crawled back under the covers, glad that the storm was over. But it wasn’t over.

            Several additional urgent bathroom visits took place over the course of the day. My wife tried to help by offering 7-Up and soda crackers. Of what use would such things be to a man who, in the professional opinion of our family’s Chief Medical Officer, was clearly dying?

            At some indiscernible point, some invisible corner was turned. Less than a day after they had materialized, most of the symptoms had disappeared.

            We knew that our unwelcome houseguest had left when we could sit upright and watch TV without feeling woozy. We sipped weak tea and nibbled on saltines, both of us murmuring that this was a feast fit for the gods.                   

Sparkles The Adventure Cat vs Evil Cat Food-stealing Squirrel!

Acts of Kindness

            This is the season wherein our thoughts turn toward performing acts of kindness for others. A prime example of such a thing might include sending a bolt of cloth to Lady Gaga so that she doesn’t have to traipse around in a dress that’s made of luncheon meats.

            Speaking of vittles and bad taste, this is also the time of year when many suffer due to issues regarding food. For many of us, this discomfort comes from consuming excessive amounts of chow, but there is also the distress that involves lutefisk.

            Once upon a time, I heard that lutefisk should only be consumed during the months that contain the letter “r”. Many lutefisk lovers would contend that this rule should be expanded to include the months that contain a, e, i, o and u.

            This may be difficult to believe, but there are some who would turn up their noses at a lye-soaked, fish-based, food-like substance that has been dried outdoors where seabirds fly over. A few have even gone so far as to say that they detest this delicacy, so – let’s be brutally honest here – they are nothing less than Lutefisk Haters.

            Lutefisk Haters have such an intense aversion to the stuff that they gag at the mere thought of being in an area where lutefisk may have been served at any time in the past or might possibly be consumed sometime in the future. I know this is so because my wife is such a person.

            Given the depth of emotions regarding this issue, it’s amazing that we are still married. Few things warm my heart more than a traditional lutefisk supper on Christmas Eve. But my wife can’t stand lutefisk, so we compromise by not having lutefisk.

            I might make a few discrete inquiries of some people who are “in the know” and learn of a church basement lutefisk supper that I can attend “on the sly.” But I think my wife knows what I am up to during these “business seminars” because she insists that I burn my clothes as soon as I get home.        

            Another source of misery that rears its discordant head at this time of year is choir practice.

            As a kid, I was forced to be part of numerous Christmas choirs. Note that I didn’t say “sing in.” I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty sure that I invented the art of lip-synching.

            As soon as Thanksgiving was over, choir practice would begin. Back then, federal law mandated that kids be in at least two Christmas choirs, one for the school Christmas concert and a similar event for Sunday School. You would think that after all that choir practice I would sing like an angel, but no.

            It’s not like our choir directors didn’t try. Quite the opposite. She – our directors were always female – would gesture vigorously as she cajoled us with such instructions as, “Open your mouths!” and “SING!” and “I can’t hear ANY of you boys!”  

            There was a good reason she couldn’t hear any of the boys: none of us were singing. Boys who actually sang often became the object of derision. Their still-developing and fragile sense of manliness might be called into question; the term “sissy” might be trotted out. 

            The choir didn’t suffer due to my chronic nonparticipation. I had experimented with singing in the privacy of our dairy barn and was appalled by the results. The noises that issued from my throat startled me and caused me to think that perhaps someone was choking a toad. The cow that I was milking agreed, making her opinion known by lifting her tail and releasing a burst of methane.

            And our choir directors always seemed to have such high ambitions for us! This was the cause of much suffering on both sides of the baton.

            I blame the recording industry. My theory is that our choir directors had listened to recordings of professional musicians singing Gregorian chants and thought, “By golly, there’s no reason why our choir, which is made up of musically inexperienced farm kids, can’t sound exactly like that!”

            To hear a good example of this, go to YouTube and type in “Chanticleer” followed by something such as “Shenandoah” or “Stille Nacht.”

            See what I mean? There is no way a normal human kid choir could produce that type of harmonizing! Their poor choir director must have gestured her arm off.

            Compared to the members of Chanticleer, I have a negative level of musical ability. So the way I see it, my not singing was nothing less than a selfless act of kindness.       

Storing Stuff

            “Where is that thingamajig?” I called out to my wife as I pawed though the junk drawer.

            “What thingamajig?” she called back.

            “You know. The one that I have to use to adjust the legs on the washing machine.”

            “I think it’s in the junk drawer.”

            “That’s where I’ve been looking and I am not seeing any thingamajig!”

            “Not that junk drawer! The one over on the right!”

            “Never mind! I found it in the bottom junk drawer!”

            So goes another exciting Saturday night at the Nelson farm. I find this troubling on several levels. For one, I was actually looking for a doohickey and misspoke when I said “thingamajig.” But I didn’t want to tell my wife – good ol’ what’s-her-name – lest she think that I’m growing forgetful. 

            Second of all, how many junk drawers do we have? Are they multiplying? Will we be digging for something someday and discover that our junk drawers have junk drawers?

            And most importantly, where do you draw the line between someone who is wisely conserving their resources and an overly-passionate hoarder who gets a syndrome named after them? 

            My wife and I have developed a storage system for our stuff that we call “pilot.” That is, we pile it here and we pile it there until we grow tired of re-piling the stuff and throw it out. Then we go buy new stuff.

            The same system can be seen in the way we use our refrigerator. The fridge is basically just a place where we store leftover food until it’s time to give it to the dog.

            “Where’s that last slice of pizza?” I may ask my wife after scanning and rescanning the contents of the refrigerator until I have stood in front of its open doors long enough for icicles to form on my buttons.

            “I tossed that out to the dog a long time ago,” she might reply.

            “What?! That pizza was still good!”

            “You’ve got to be kidding! It was made during the Eisenhower Administration! It had more life forms on it than the floor of a boy’s high school locker room!”

            We have all been in homes which are kept so impeccably clean that you suspect its owners chase after individual dust motes so as to capture them before they can land on anything. The sort of home that would make Martha Stewart look like a pitiful slob.

            And we have also visited homes that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Homes that don’t have floors or walls, only paths between the soaring stacks of stuff. You don’t dare sneeze lest you set off an avalanche and have to be rescued by a St. Bernard that has been specially trained to sniff out people who have been buried by junk. Knowing my luck, the dog would have consumed the contents of his brandy cask by the time he found me.

            Our home is somewhere between these extremes. Because we are in the Holiday season and might have guests, a flurry of cleaning and rearranging and chucking out has been taking place recently.

            “What are these keys for?” asked my wife during one of our housecleaning forays.

            “Good grebe! Those are for the ‘74 Pinto that we traded off 30-some years ago! That tinny little car was probably taken straight to the recycler and turned into Spam cans.”

            “So should we throw out these keys or not?”

            “I dunno. Let’s put them in the ‘maybe’ pile.”

            The shop/ garden shed is my exclusive domain, so my wife has nothing to do with how and where the tools are stored. Which means that things are pretty messy out there.

            To the untrained eye, my shop might look as if it had just been hit by a small indoor tornado. But I know exactly where everything is. Kind of. To within 30 feet or so.

            Last summer I told my wife that I was going to mow the lawn and thus needed the checkbook.

            “Why would you need the checkbook to mow the lawn?”

            “Because. The mower’s grommet confabulator needs adjustment and it takes a special tool to do that. So I’m going to run to town and buy one.”

            “But I thought you already had a confabulator doodad.”

            “I do. Technically. OK, I admit it! I can’t find the dumb thing! It’s out there in the shop somewhere but it’s decided to hide from me! It’ll be a lot quicker if I just go buy a new one.”

            “Well, you’ll have to help me find the checkbook first. I think it’s somewhere here in one of these junk drawers.”    

    

                        

Thanksgiving Day Doings

            It is Thanksgiving time, a traditional holiday that was started by the Pilgrims, a group of intrepid voyagers who decided to put ashore not far from the site of present day Boston due to the fact that they were nearly out of beer.

            Sadly, Sam Adams Brewery wouldn’t come into existence for several more centuries, so the Pilgrims had to make do that awful substance known as “lite” beer. This and the total lack of televised parades and football games were among the many harsh privations that our pioneering forebears were forced to endure.

            Things have changed tremendously since that first Thanksgiving. For instance, the average modern American will now consume more calories on Thanksgiving Day than were contained in the entire original Thanksgiving feast.

            They say that the most important exercise you can perform during the Holidays is grasping the edge of the table and pushing yourself away. Like many, I find it nearly impossible to follow this brutal exercise regimen. Plus, pushing back from the table only puts me in closer proximity to the kitchen counter which is loaded with plates full of yummies, some of which I have sampled only a couple of times. Certainly that luscious lefse could stand more scrutiny!

            And like many, my waistline gives testimony to my failure to perform these dinnertime push-backs. But it’s not my fault! The forces aligned against me are simply too powerful.

            For example, there once was a time when I would only catch an occasional glimpse of a cooking show on TV. Watching such programs made me feel like when I was a kid and stumbled across the Ladies Foundation Garments section of the JC Penney catalogue. Whoa, what have we here? Boo-yah!

            Nowadays, there are entire networks that are dedicated solely to food. It’s nothing but food this and cooking that! Salacious terms such as sauté and baste and glaze are tossed about with total abandon. Bingeing on a cooking network is roughly equivalent to constantly hearing, “Hey, big boy! Want to watch while I whisk up some meringue?”

            It doesn’t help that many of the chefs on such shows tend to be ladies who are, shall we say, “experienced” in the field of food. Ladies who are comfortable with the fact that they have done very few tableside push-backs. But this only makes every salubrious snack seem even more tempting. “Never trust a skinny cook” is the axiom I live by.

            The ubiquity of the Internet and the soaring popularity of social media have only made this situation worse. Even on such family friendly and trustworthy sites as Facebook, one can see such tawdry headlines as:

·         Ten Ways To Drive Him Wild (Rice) On Thanksgiving Day!

·         Your Man Will Cry After Tasting This Onion-Free Stuffing Recipe!

·         Breast Or Thigh? Why Not Both?

·         Change “No, Thanks” To “Yes, Please” With This Willpower-Destroying Apple Crisp!                 

·         Not His Mother’s Whipped Topping: Seven Secrets For Disguising Cool Whip

            And the list just goes on and on! After being constantly bombarded by all these subliminal – and some extremely liminal! – media messages, it’s no wonder the average guy finds it impossible to “just say no” when a sultry voice whispers to him, “Would you like seconds?”

            After stuffing ourselves silly on Thanksgiving Day, many of us will commence to lying on the couch or the Barcalounger or the garage floor (any horizontal surface will do) like a herd of beached seals. The difference is that seals, if threatened, will actually rise up and do their best to escape the perceived danger. In the immediate aftermath of our epic Thanksgiving feast, most of us are so comatose we wouldn’t move even if a great white shark were to walk into the living room and ask to see the menu.

            The original Pilgrims would never have brooked such nonsense. They spent the first Thanksgiving in the New World eating and playing games and generally whooping it up with their Native American friends. And no, this did not involve visiting a casino.

            What passes for games in modern times is the act of watching football games. This entails a certain element of danger if by “danger” you mean “it’s entirely possible that I could sprain my wrist while opening this bottle of beer.”

            But after all these centuries, the main reason for Thanksgiving remains the same: to gather with friends and family and to give thanks for all our blessings. And that goes double for these comfy new pants with their stretchy waistband.

             

A Murder Mystery

            It isn’t often that we are asked to witness a murder, so my wife and I felt impelled to accept the invitation.

            We were told to go to a supper club located in the tiny town of Lake Benton, Minnesota. As we entered the club, we instantly perceived that a huge mistake had been made.

            A reunion was being held for some high school we’d never heard of. Not wanting to admit that anything was amiss, we and the other attendees mingled and chatted. Questions about how things were going in each other’s lives were asked and the usual high school reunion-type answers were given. That is, the impression was created that everything is simply wonderful.

            One particular woman was wearing a very striking red dress. And by “striking” I mean “cut clear down to here.” Her nametag, which was difficult to read due to its close proximity to some cleavage, implied that she was Jennifer. Jennifer had a very hands-on personality.

            As Jennifer and I chatted, she touched my shoulder and my arm, overtly violating the invisible three-foot no-go zone we Midwesterners all carry around. When Jennifer departed to mingle with others, my wife fixed me with a look that would melt titanium.

            “What’s on that business card she gave you?” she asked.

            “Says here that Jennifer specializes in tantric massage.”

            “Your tantric doesn’t need any massaging!” said my wife.

            Fortunately, a moment later my wife’s and the entire room’s attention was diverted when a fracas broke out between two women. There was a flurry of pushing and yelling; loud, derogatory statements were made concerning each other’s morals and recent ancestry. The adversaries were quickly separated and restrained, so the catfight was stopped before it could really begin. I felt vaguely disappointed.

            We were about to be served our meals – I was looking forward to my sirloin – when one of the attendees stood up and began making a speech. He waxed nostalgic about the “good old days” in the high school that we’d never heard of, making special mention of Kathy, a world-famous movie star classmate whom we’d also never hear of. When Kathy rose to thank him, he impetuously grabbed her and planted a long and passionate kiss on her mouth. Lipstick was exchanged.

            Kathy responded by coughing and gagging and falling to the floor. Several people rushed to her aid, but moments later she was declared dead!

            Shortly after Kathy’s lifeless body was carried from the room, we tucked into our meals. That might sound cold, but it wasn’t like we could do anything for her. I thought about calling “dibs” on Kathy’s dessert, but decided that this might seem a bit too callous.

            The room buzzed with discussion regarding the cause of Kathy’s demise and who might have done it. We realized that some of the conversations we’d had with certain guests during social hour might have contained clues.

            I pointed out to our tablemates that some of the so-called ‘clues’ might actually be red herrings. 

            “Will you shut up about Jennifer?” said my wife.

            About the time that our cheesecake arrived, a police inspector named Sherbert Holmes strode into the room. He announced that no one could leave until he had questioned key suspects.

            His inquiries revealed that Kathy had numerous enemies in the room, many of whom might have wanted her dead. Even Kathy’s best friends agreed that she could use a little killing. Such is the life of a world-famous movie star!

            Holmes’s keen intellect soon ferreted out the truth and the guilty party was arrested and hauled away. We toasted this investigative success with a cup of after-dinner coffee.

            I chatted with Sirrina Martinez, the lady who was responsible for the evening’s adventure. Sirrina is the Event Coordinator with the Lake Benton Convention and Visitors Bureau. I asked her what had engendered the idea for a whodunit dinner theater.

            “When I was little, the TV show Golden Girls was big at our house,” she replied. “In one episode the girls attended a murder mystery dinner theater. Ever since then I have wanted to do an event like this.”

            Have you directed anything before?

            “No, this was my directorial debut. None of this would have been possible without our wonderful community volunteers. Funds raised tonight will go toward the Lake Benton Opera House. Our hope is that we can host more community events like this.”

            As we drove home, my wife and I discussed the evening’s happenings. How is it that we missed all those obvious clues?

            “They arrested the wrong person,” said my wife. “It should be a felony to wear a dress that’s that red!”                       

 

                                               

           

           

           

           

           

War Stories

            In 1943, at age seventeen, Dad joined the Navy. He spent the next couple of years aboard a battleship that routinely traded gunfire with the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Japanese Air Service.

            Dad served on the Washington, one of our nation’s premier battlewagons. As kids, my siblings and I would pester him into sharing a few of his war experiences but often found his stories hard to swallow. A ship with decks that were made of 16 inches of solid steel! Guns that could hurl one-ton projectiles 25 miles! Waves that towered as high as our windmill! Did he really expect us to believe any of that?

            Dad passed away 20 years ago, so the stories about his time aboard the Washington are lost forever. Or so I thought.

            Some random connections recently put me in touch with Al Colton, who was a friend of Dad’s and one of his shipmates. Al turned 90 in June. He and his wife, Loretta, have been married for 67 years.

            I asked Al about his time aboard the Washington.

            “I was in the Navy Reserve when Pearl Harbor happened and joined the regular Navy as soon as war was declared. I spent the entire duration of the war on the Washington. At first we were assigned to convoy protection in the North Atlantic, but then we were sent over to the Pacific.”

            How did you meet Dad?

            “When Leonard came aboard, he was this skinny little farm kid from out in the sticks. There were some older sailors who liked to pick on guys like him, so three other old salts and I took him under our wing. Leonard was a wonderful guy. The four of us became the best of friends.”

              Were the storms as bad as he described?

            “Nope, they were worse. Sometimes the waves would be so high, they would break over the bow of the ship and flood the deck with three or four feet of water. A guy could easily get washed overboard.”

            Dad had a souvenir bullet that was the size of a bratwurst. What could you tell me about that?

            “Your dad was a forward gunner in Battery Four. He operated a 20 mm automatic cannon, which was the smallest gun on the ship. I was Gunner’s Mate Third Class and was in charge of his battery. The 20 mm cannons were antiaircraft weapons that opened up whenever an enemy plane got to within a mile or so of the ship.”

            Was the Washington ever attacked by a kamikaze?

            “Not really. Our battleships were so well armored, the kamikazes pretty much left us alone. They went after our aircraft carriers and it was our job to protect the carriers.”

            Dad said he once saw a Japanese plane fly by so close, you could have hit him with a potato.

            “I remember that! The plane flew past just off our starboard beam and maybe ten feet above the water. As he went by, the pilot turned his head and looked at us and grinned so big you could count his teeth. Seconds later the plane got hit by a shell and turned into a fireball and tumbled into the sea.”

            What was it like when they touched off those humungous 16 inch guns?

            “We weren’t allowed to be topside when they did that, it was simply too dangerous. The muzzle blast was tremendous. It shook the whole ship.”

            What is your most memorable experience from your time on the Washington?

            “That would be the battle of Guadalcanal. Most of the battle took place at night, so we had to depend on our radar. Japanese naval forces had sunk a couple of our destroyers and damaged several other of our ships. We snuck around and got a bead on the Japanese battleship Kirishima and raked her with our big guns. The Kirishima went to the bottom a few hours later. They say the outcome of that battle changed the course of the entire war.”

            It must have been awfully scary with all that shooting going on.

            “I was too young to be fearful. I think that was true for a lot of us, including your dad.”

            What can you tell me about the anchor tattoo Dad had on his left forearm?

            “I had nothing to do with it! All four of us ended up with similar tattoos. Let’s just say that we liked to have fun when we got shore leave.”

            I deeply appreciated the opportunity to speak with Al. I thanked him for his service and for bringing history – and in a small way, my father – back to life. 

                       

           

           

           

           

           

                       

           

             

           

           

Listen to me on the Minnesota Farm Network!

Cow Tipping

The doctor pressed her stethoscope against the cow’s flank and thumped her finger against the bovine’s belly as if she were checking on the ripeness of a gigantic, hairy watermelon.

She had big brown eyes and weighed perhaps 110 pounds. The lady vet, that is; the cow, a Holstein, clocked in at about three-quarters of a ton.

“She has a displaced abomasum,” murmured the lady vet. Like any good dairy farmer, I knew that cows have a multi-chambered digestive system that is more complicated than the seating arrangement at a royal wedding. It had never occurred to me that a cow could somehow lose track of one of her stomachs.

“Not misplaced. Displaced,” explained the lady vet patiently. “Her abomasum has floated around to the wrong side. Nothing can get through, like when you twist a garden hose.”

Wanting to assuage the suffering of my unfortunate ungulate, I asked about options. “We could operate,” said the lady vet, “Or we could roll her.”

It pained me to point out the obvious, namely, that the cow likely didn’t own anything worth stealing. Lots of cowhide, but no wallet.

 “What I mean is that we would lay the cow down and roll her over. Sometimes when we do that we can get the abomasum to shift back into place.”

I replied that this plan sounded excellent except for the “lay the cow down” and “roll her over” parts. My experience was that it’s extremely difficult to tip a cow, urban legend notwithstanding. Did I mention that the lady vet weighed perhaps 110 pounds? And I’m no Hercules.

 “Not a big deal,” she replied. “We’ll just use the lariat.” The lady vet produced a lariat and looped it around the cow in several places, employing some mystical rope-tying technique that must have been handed down to her by a sage old cow shaman. In any event, when all was ready she grabbed the rope and hauled away and the cow responded by gently laying down. Then came the exciting part.

Cows do NOT enjoy being grabbed by their legs and rolled back and forth. Much cursing and sweating and grunting and dodging of flailing hooves ensued. Did I mention that the cow weighed three-quarters of a ton? And I’m no Hercules.

At length the lady vet called a halt to our labors. She again thumped upon and listened to the cow’s flank. Breaking into a grin, she said, “I think we did it!”

 And so we had. We let the cow rejoin her herd mates and she moseyed over to the bunk and commenced to munching hay. I was deeply pleased. The cow had dodged the surgery bullet and I had learned that cow tipping is a real – and useful! -- activity.

I asked the good doctor what types of animals had come under her care. “Snakes, rabbits, birds, you name it,” she replied. “If it was on Noah’s ark, I’ve probably treated it. Lizards. A camel. Water buffalo.”

 Impressed by her repertoire, I decided to put the lady vet to the test. I pointed to a nearby mother cat who was zealously grooming herself. The cat did this a lot; her life seemed to be an unending stream of bathing emergencies. “Probably has fleas,” said the lady vet. “Stop by my office and we’ll give you a special shampoo for your cat.”

Hearing the words “shampoo” and “cat” in the same sentence evoked emotions akin to hearing the words “nuclear” paired with “bomb.” Even so, it seemed like an astute diagnosis.

 Our farm mutt had been hanging around this whole time, observing the goings-on like a furry, unpaid supervisor. I showed the lady vet a spot where the canine’s coat had become thin and patchy.

“Could be ringworm,” she said. “Stop by my office and we’ll give you a special ointment.”

I asked the lady vet if casual exposure to said ointment and/ or shampoo would be hazardous for humans.

“No,” she replied. “But it would likely clear up any fleas or ringworm you might have!”

Striving to hide my sudden feelings of deep gladness, I asked the lady vet about some other symptoms. They included foul moods and intestinal bloating and cramping, which were inevitably followed by explosive eruptions that, reportedly, were loud enough to be heard in the next county.

“What species are we talking about?” she asked. I admitted that the symptoms described were actually mine.

“It would be totally unethical for me to treat a human,” she said. “But I could probably do a quick exam. Here, let’s loop this lariat around you and we’ll get started!”

You Stinker!

There is a group of people who are disdained for the way they smell. Not so much for the methods they use to smell, but more for the aromas they exude. This downtrodden demographic is commonly known as “guys.” The subgroup of this group that suffers the most is known as “husbands.”

Let’s face it: women have a much more acute sense of smell than men. Females can detect a single malodorous molecule at a hundred paces. Guys, on the other hand, can’t tell if a baby needs changing until the diaper’s odor has become strong enough to stop a charging water buffalo. This is just one reason why women are generally better mothers than men.

 It’s nearly always news to a guy when his wife informs him that he stinks. Certainly he may have noticed how those vultures fainted as they flew overhead. But that didn’t necessarily prove anything; after all, the vultures, being guys themselves, were probably playing it for laughs.

 Skillful husbands can intuit when their impending personal odors might be offensive to the female olfactory system. As such, many husbands have perfected the tactic that is known universally as “silent but deadly.”

“Oh my Lord!” a wife may suddenly exclaim in the middle of a gripping episode of Breaking Bad, “What did you eat? Week-old road kill?”

 “What?” the husband might protest. “I don’t smell anything! It was the dog!”

“We don’t even have a dog!” This is why the marriages that last the longest are those that involve household pets.

Foot odor has long been my personal albatross. Taking my clodhoppers off at the end of a long, hot day could empty the house. It was often broadly hinted that my socks would qualify as an EPA Superfund site. I, on the other hand, didn’t think that my feet smelled all that bad. But then again, that’s also how I feel about lutefisk.

Once, when I was a teenager, I acquired a blazing case of athlete’s foot. Just taking off my boots and peeling away my socks was pure agony. A search of the medicine cabinet yielded a small bottle of a liquid athlete’s foot remedy. Ignorant regarding such things, I doused my toes with a generous squirt of the stuff. I was later told that my bellowing could be heard several miles away. My toes felt like they had been thrust into a vat of molten lava! It was as if a miniature Fukushima were taking place between each little piggy.

 I shared this tale of woe with an uncle who replied that he obtained a wicked form of athlete’s foot while serving in the Merchant Marines. Upon returning home to the farm, he was able to cure the malady only after he cut the toes off his boots, thus exposing his tootsies to fresh air and sunshine. He was a tough guy, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he did this even though it was the dead of winter.

Then there is the issue of B.O. This can be a tricky topic, as there is no objective standards regarding what passes for “a little funky” and what constitutes “a stink that would scour the rust off a plowshare.”

 For instance, I was recently yakking with an elderly bachelor dairy farmer when he asked if I could give him a lift to his pickup which sat on the headland of a nearby field. I said of course.

 He climbed into the car and the air instantly filled with the choking aromas of dried dairy cow manure, diesel fumes and old guy B.O. These odors intermingled with a level of bad breath that can only obtained by washing down a cud of smokeless tobacco with a quart of stale coffee. I rolled my window down as we slowly bumped our way to the field.

“Something wrong with your eyes?” asked the old guy.

 “Must have got some dust in them,” I replied as I frantically gulped fresh air.

“Well, they sure are watering a lot. You should probably get that checked out.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said between deep tokes of outside air, “What’s up with that car air freshener hanging from the back of your cap?”

 “That’s to keep the skeeters away. Might look silly, but it works pretty darn good!” “What about the smell?”

 “That there’s a bonus feature. Wearing a air freshener all the time cuts way down on body odors. I bet I take only half as many baths!”

 Wow! It was hard to imagine how he’s still single!