Why I Write

When I was in high school they tried to teach me how to write. They failed. 

My 9th grade began in September 1970. Americans had just experienced a decade of change, radical change. Teachers were facing demands that the content in classes be current, relevant, and less rigid. So, while they still taught Silas Mariner they also taught Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac. Run on sentences abounded. Cartoon blobs served as punctuation marks. Contemporary literature in the 1970s was a very confusing genre.

I remember a few lessons about writing a paragraph. You know it should coalesce around one idea, have and opening sentence that gave the focus of what would follow and a summation sentence. Vague memories persist of a day of one teacher drawing lines on the chalkboard trying to show us how to diagram a sentence. For me it didn’t sink in. Comparedto reading Cat’s Cradle or On the Road learning grammar was dull. And also, I was stoned. One's ability to comprehend structured intellectual concepts when stoned is compromised. But now and then some content seeps in.

But I come from a family with a long history of oral story telling. You know, maybe the better term is confabulating. If you have seen Tim Burton's Big Fish you have seen the kind of narrative I heard growing up. There were stories about bears peering into cabin windows and people taking lightning hits and living. I was always afraid of lightning. When I gotnervous my grandmother would show me a scar on her arm from surviving a lightning strike and tell me not to be afraid.

As I grew up I gathered my own tales of drunken canoe rides, of luging in Norway, and of having the most wonderful time driving through the Rockies. There are stories of sitting on stage for a Muddy Waters show and in front of the stage at an early Bruce Springsteen show. How did that happen? Well it was just because of the shirt I was wearing. I mean how great is it that I can honestly tell you of my personally insulting Tim Burton?

When I began to work for the state of Michigan in 2000 I took my breaks at a coffee shop. As one does over coffee I would talk to the baristas and the other patrons and we would swap stories. One of my friends repeatedly told me to write these tales down. Finally, I listened to her.

With poor spelling, atrocious grammar and words too big for my own good I started a blog. Over the years I have kept writing. Sometimes I step back and edit older stuff because with the new AI powered grammar checking I can make some tales more readable. But I am still creating new stuff because I am constantly having adventures and fun. Once I started down the storytelling path I couldn’t stop.

Oh yeah and my writing hero is, drum roll please, Jean Shepherd. I think the tale about his old man riding the salt and pepper shaker at the county fair is one of the classics of American short story literature. You can have little Ralphie from A Christmas Story. Tell me the story of drunken guys trying (and failing miserably) to assemble a Sear’s house any day.

As long as my brain works, I will keep typing stories about my recent and past experiences. We humans have a traditionof sitting around campfires and telling long tales intended to entertain and impart wisdom. So my plan is to throw another log on the fire as I sit by Gitchegumme and wave my arms about in the firelight talking of life's hilarious and heartfelt moments.

A note about the following video.  As I was working up this post I decided I needed a song that involved writing.  First thing that came to my mind was Richard Thompson's Tear Stained Letter. I simply typed in the title and came up with all sorts of folks singing songs called Tear Stained Letter. As one might guess there are several distinct and different songs by that title.  When I came upon this one I never knew Jo El Sonnier had ever covered Richard Thompson's song let alone made a music video for it.  The video is so weird it is hilarious. It has been a minute since I watched anything with Judge Reinhold in it. 

July 1975 Night Ride Home *

There is a smell to the ocean that is unique. There isn't just one smell that you sense. Each bay, cove, and bit of openshoreline has its own scent. The sea grasses that hold the dunes in place in North Carolina smell different than the various reeds and runners that serve the same function in New Jersey. Every beach after a storm smells different than during a hot dry 10 day stretch. Still the smell is very visceral, very primal. When I travel I can tell when I am about 10 miles from the beach because the air changes palpably. I don’t know if everyone senses this but I can feel the shore approaching.

One of the strongest memories I have of the years on the beach was of the smell and feel of the sea air at midnight. After I closed down the store, Kurly Kustard to be precise, I would get on a 10 speed bike and wheel down the wet boardwalk. It was about a twenty minute ride home. 

Shutting down the store wasn’t instant. It took a while to break down the store. You had to disassemble the custard machines and drop the blades and gaskets and knobs into the sanitizer. You blended the sanitizer earlier in the evening if you were smart. All remaining dairy products had been drained and put away for the night in the walk-in cooler. The fountain heads had been removed from the soda fountain and the store's awning rolled up. The windows had been slid across the service counter's boardwalk opening and locked into place.

After stashing the cash I would go out the back door. At the base of the back steps I would pick up my bike. If I was lucky and had a roach, I would burn it up, crushing it at the very end and swallowing the remaining small bit of cigarette paper. I was a weird fucker that way. It just seemed better to get all the THC in me and not leave any evidence on the ground. I mean just in case the gendarmes were in the vicinity. I would throw my chain and lock into my backpack and off I would fly.

The boardwalk rules prohibited me from riding my bike on it at that hour. A few blocks down south of the store the cops stopped enforcing the rules. Reaching there I was free to leave the surface streets and tool down the damp and sometimes quite wet boards at whatever speed I deemed safe. On the right night I was free and I was flying.

On a late summer night under the influence of cheap assed Mexican reefer if the moon was up the ride became a religious service with its own sacraments. My muscles flowed smoothly and the bike was just an extension of my desire to be moving. Riding wouldn’t require thinking it would just require being. On those nights as I swooshed down those blocks elevated over the ghostly illuminated white sands of the beach I would glance out at the reflection of the sun’s little brother over the water. The air was cool but comfortable as I split its molecules on my ride.

Thursday Afternoon Train Ride

I've been feeling stir crazy lately. Decided to take a short run out of Lisboa. Flipped a coin to decide north or south and chose south. Took the Fertagus train to Palmela. Got to say, not much is observable from the station. Plus, the station while relatively new is in disrepair. All three WCs were out of action due to vandalism. Thought about taking a bus into town and then decided to say the hell with it and took the next train into Setúbal. Had to wait ten minutes. 

Sometimes you just got to get out because you have been puttering around for too long. Even a small change of scenery can refresh mind and spirit. Using a metro pass to ride urban and suburban rails is not the freedom and adventure of driving a $50 car from Michigan to the Oregon coast. But that was a half century ago and predated a host of maladies. But waving the yellow and black Navigante pass over the sensor that opens the turnstiles allows us to break free from our daily routines and explore unfamiliar surroundings.

Setúbal is an enjoyable beach town and I always delight in spending time there. This time our timing was off.  We got there after lunch and walked along the shoreline. After walking a couple of miles, we got hungry. However, our hunger arrived nowhere near dinner time. When we looked for food and nothing was open. Well, the kiosks were there, but I wasn't really looking for a glass of wine and three oysters for 9 euros. Also, we didn’t want to stay until everything opened at 7 pm. Thank goodness for Pingo Doce and its Menu 4. A ham and cheese croissant, a nata, a juice and a coffee for less than three bucks. Not the seafood feast I wanted but it hit the spot. 

Instead of the Fertagus train back we took the CP (Comboios de Portugal) local up to the ferry. At six pm more people are heading back from Lisbon than are traveling to Lisbon so there weren’t many passengers. The seats were more spaciousthan those on the Fertagus train. It seems to me that the cars of the very modern rolling stock of Fertagus are structured so you don’t fall asleep and never feel comfortable. Little things like the placement of the window bays of the Fertagus trains make it impossible to lean against the outside wall of the car and get relaxed. Hey, I am probably just being a cranky old man but the ride back was just way more relaxing.  Also, the ferry was comfortable and fast.

Tomorrow is our 39th anniversary. It's time to head north and find a great dinner and a comfortable overnight stay. Some may say reaching a 39th anniversary is a testament to a relationship's strength and commitment. Others may say that inertia ruled. Maybe it is a bit of both. Whatever, it's an opportunity to celebrate and laugh at the madness of more than four decades on this particular caminho da loucura.

On the Joy of Owning Freedom

Yesterday Portugal celebrated the revolution that freed its people from authoritarian rule 50 years ago. In the morning I headed down at about 10:00 to Praça do Comércio. The pomp and pageantry of formal military services had ended. The parade of 50-year-old armored vehicles was just then setting off. 

The armored vehicles and troop transports carried some of the soldiers who 50 years ago originally made the same now historic journey. The army green hardware headed up through the city to what in 1974 was the main headquarters of the Lisbon military police, the National Republican Guard, at Largo do Carmo. This is where the authoritarian government’s rule started to crumble that day.

As the vehicles wound their way up through the city streets thousands of people followed behind them. Heroes of the revolution sat atop these old vehicles, people my age and older, and received repeated rousing cheers. Carnations were everywhere. Many people held just one carnation but others held bouquets of the red flowers and raised them as the tank and troop trucks rolled by. The aging men in the old military vehicles broke down in tears at times from the loving reception they received from the crowds.

 In 1974 the people and the military of Portugal had suffered enough at the hands of the PIDE (Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado). Disappearances, prison sentences that were death sentences, exile, neighbors spying on neighbors and censorship were part of day-to-day life. Hunger and other deprivations were part of many people’s existence. Then on April 25th even the military could no longer tolerate it. They took action.

Despite pleas for people to stay home the streets were flooded with people as the coup hour went on. Carnations were in ample supply at the city’s flower market in 1974. They quickly were handed out and were everywhere including in the barrels of soldiers' guns as the day wore on. Red carnations became the symbol of change, of freedom. The events of that day became known as the Carnation Revolution.

Later in the day yesterday I headed down to the parade on Avenida da Liberdade. Reuters says it was tens of thousands of people cramming the streets. However, I have been to large concerts like Live Aid and I would suggest the crowd all told was well over 100,000 celebrating this 50 anos since the Carnation Revolution.  

As I stood there watching the joy and celebration I wondered when did America lose its focus on celebrating the 4th of July? When did it move from celebrating the concepts embodied in the Declaration of Independence to simply grabbing a day off with beers, boats and burgers?

There is still a generation here that has lived through torture and the disappearance of loved ones. Freedom is not accepted as a given. They know it can be taken away. People here know what happens when one person decides who lives and who dies, who prospers and who suffers. It was awe-inspiring to see the celebration's joy. 

On the same day the Portuguese celebrated their freedom from fascism, the following exchange took place in an American court room.

 SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “If the president ... orders someone to assassinate [a rival], is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?”

 Trump attorney D. John Sauer: “It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act.”

 Maybe things like this are why the American 4th of July celebration is more about bread and circuses and less about freedom.

68 Hoping for 69

On Saturday, as this is posted, I will turn 68. Honestly I am nervous. To some extent I am frightened. My middle brother died two weeks after his 69th birthday. My father died at 72, two months before his 73 birthday. My oldest brother passed away 6 months after his 72nd birthday. 68 to 72 is not very long. On the other hand, my sister has survived much longer than my family's men. And my grandmothers and my mother lived into their eighties and nineties. So, who knows what my potential shelf life is? Do I feel nervous about my birthday? Heck yes. But who knows how long our shelf lives will last?

 

Lying in bed, I often wonder, what have I done with the precious life I've been given? Have I lived the right life? Have I lived the best life? The most helpful idea I can come up with is that I have had a life better than some and a poorer life than others. Doing the jobs I have done, jobs that have mostly involved people in trouble, maybe through my actions I have created a positive ripple in some person’s life. Maybe by creating that ripple I have improved the lives of others they were involved with.

 

Truth be told, I am not entirely at peace. Someone suggested to me that I am living my bliss here in Portugal. There is no bliss for me in Portugal or anywhere else. Instead, there is this. I am here in the moment and experience my now with equanimity, non-judgement and acceptance. 

 

For all my plans, desires and hopes I have ended up so far away from the place I thought I would be at this stage of life. Truly the path my existence has taken surprises me. And that is not bad. To be sure I think the route I have walked has surprised quite a number of others too. 

 

 If you view me as an old car the following are true. The tires are leaking air, the body is rusty, the engine has a timing problem and the radiator is running hot. Nonetheless I am still on the road. The scenery I pass (and have passed) is pretty and the stops along the way are mostly pleasant. Even if they weren’t I must accept that this route is what it has always been meant to be. I am here and I am now and this is what has been given to me. I try to find contentment in the journey itself.

 

Though I have regrets, I push them aside to focus on the here and now. If I didn’t I would not sleep at night. As for those few major regrets I have, there is nothing I can do about them. You can't change the past. You can only live with it. Any amends should have been made long ago. Many can no longer be made because the people involved are dying off or are so far away I cannot reasonably reach out to them. For some people, hearing from me would cause pain and that would serve no purpose for either of us. Acceptance. I have lived what I have lived and done what I have done. Hopefully, my behaviors have improved over the years.

 

Right now, my life needs to be both expansive and intimate at the same time. For me, material possessions are losing importance and meaning. Many memories also have little or no resonance. On the other hand, I find joy and wonder when I ride down to the River Tejo on a sunny day. My smile widens when I hear a dog barking in rhythm with the percussive sounds of a drum circle by the river. As I enter this moment, I am given the opportunity to live, but I am not blissful. Instead, I accept life in all its glory and failures.

 

For those of you significantly younger than me I say this. And I say it although I know you won't believe me. God knows I didn't believe my father and a hundred other people who told me the same thing when I was young. Take some time friends, and think about what to do next. Try to make wise and reasoned choices, and choices that are beneficial and not cruel to yourself or anyone else. You will be where I am sooner than you might expect.

The Search for Sanding Sugar *

 

Sometimes you chase down a rabbit hole. Sometimes the rabbit hole finds you. Occasionally, you just tag along down the last part of the path to the rabbit hole. And in some cases, the rabbit hole comes from sugar's sweetness. The moment you start down a rabbit hole time disappears and the search becomes the thing. 

Living here in Portugal there are things common in the US that cannot be found, period. One example is Crisco. So, it was a surprise to me today when in a specialty store I actually found a can of Crisco. It was small and expensive. The reason I was in the specialty store was the rabbit hole of my morning. 

Francie is an excellent cook. I eat well most of the time. Today at lunch for example we had a salad of greens. It was topped with poached and shredded chicken breasts, savory peanuts and a Thai style dressing. Yeah, like I said she makes wonderful food and I recognize that fact. 

When special occasions arise, she throws her inner chef into gear and cooks all out. Today is Maundy Thursday, tomorrow is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter. In this 95% Catholic country, and in many countries around the world, Sunday is a feast day. Lenten deprivations will end with sweets, alcohol and other sworn off items. As a result, Easter requires something special, something with panache.

Last year we had a full Easter meal here. This year we are attending a nibbles and drinks mid-afternoon Easter gathering. Obviously we will take libations and food treats. Francie has decided to make her famous lemon rosemary cookies. 

I don’t know all of the cookies' ingredients but I can tell by the number of lemons present in our home, and the swatches of rosemary on the kitchen counter that real lemon and real rosemary are a major part of the confection. I don’t think Crisco is required (but if that were the case you could use lard which is readily available here). My guess is that lots of butter will come into play.

The problem manifests itself in the cookies' finishing touches. As you can see from this photo of someone else’s lemon rosemary cookies there is a coating of chunks of clear sugar. In the US this is called sanding sugar. It is not confectioner’s sugar, granulated sugar, or brown sugar. Instead, this is a unique beast called sanding sugar. 

Sanding sugar is not a “thing” in Portugal. It is similar to “vanilla extract” not being a thing in Portugal. We smuggle Kirkland vanilla extract back each time we come. Next time we return from the US there will be a big can of Crisco in our checked bag. Customs folks may think we are swingers. Maybe the sanding sugar also crammed into the suitcase will also throw them off. Yeah I can see them testing the sugar to see if it is a drug. I digress.

Francie entered the rabbit hole first searching all the stores around for sanding sugar. We have been to the small stores, Coninente and Pingo Doce We have visited the big stores like El Cortes Ingles. Nope, nada, not to be found. Next she tried Amazon.de and Amazon.es, but to no avail. Nothing even vaguely resembling sanding sugar was listed on either site.

In the hope of finding sanding sugar, she joined an online English language cooking group for Portugal residents. Most people made suggestions that were a bit off the mark, suggesting using things that really were not comparable. One person however indicated there was a baking supply store near where he lived that might, just might, have sanding sugar.

Party & Bite was the name given to the store and it was said to be in Alvalade. For us to get to Alvalade required a walk to one subway line, a short ride on that line, a transfer to another subway line and the ever optimistic and euphemistic Google Maps estimated walk of 9 minutes at the tail end of the journey. Google maps does not consider the condition of the sidewalk, the topography of the area, the incline of the street, whether it has rained or the decrepit and aged person making the jaunt. 

Did I mention rain and wind came today? Oh yeah, the forecast indicated heavy rain all afternoon and high winds. Lisbon is the city of dead cheap umbrellas. Two of the three weather services said the rain would hold off until noon. We were starting out on this wild goose chase a little after 10. To me that implied we would get wet if we ventured out to Alvalade.

Nope, I did not want to get wet. Thus, the wizard inside Google Maps was consulted again. We found a second location for Party & Bite, a mere nine minutes’ walk from our apartment. We both looked at the suggested route, and nodded "yes" to trying this location first. Primarily we agreed to this because of the bothersome time factor to get to Alvalade and because the walk to the Picoas location being entirely and totally downhill.

Down, down, down we passed even walking under the yellow line of the subway. We traversed a fairly narrow street with coffee shops, clothing stores and a beautiful stand-alone balcony covered in flowers, see above. Things like that balcony just covered with plants and flowers in bloom are what make Lisbon just a great place to explore. Eventually, we got to Party & Bite. 

Party & Bite is a big store. I mean it has aisles with all kinds of baking pans, walls of tools to use in frosting and otherwise decorating pastries. It also has a large selection of jimmies, sugar confetti and the like for decorating. Off to the left I saw it. There was a jar of white sugar that was exactly what we wanted. It had very large square crystals of sugar. Sanding sugar yeah. 

Well, no. After we picked it up and marched around the store we looked at the jar again before heading to the cashier. The label stated this sanding sugar was marshmallow flavored. Yuck. There were other colors too and all were flavored. Red was raspberry. Yellow was bananas. I believe the green was asparagus or avocado. Back the jar went on the shelf.

Being the half of our dyad that will seek out clerks to avoid a half hour of unnecessary searching I approached the cashier. She took us to a the clear plastic door of a locked cabinet. When she opened the case the cashier reached very high and pulled down two McCormick spice sized jars of what for all the world appears to be slightly murky looking sanding sugar. Bought it without a second's hesitation. We haven’t tasted the sugar yet to see if it has any flavor other than sweet. God I hope it is not flavored because what non-obscene thing could slightly brownish sanding sugar taste like?

Finding ingredients like Crisco and sanding sugar in Portugal was a significant discovery. With these some beloved recipes from the US that rely on such specific ingredient can be made. Every once in a very long while one needs a sense of intimate familiarity with food, a childhood taste memory.  To occasionally have a throwback food creates a bridging as it were of the gap between the two very discrete living experiences of the EU and the US.  

Today’s rabbit hole was the search for the ever-elusive sanding sugar. Monday’s rabbit hole will be replacing a lost government ID. One way or another the rabbits of our lives beckon us deep down into their lair. Computers may have made the journeys a little quicker but they have not made them disappear by any means. 

Happy Easter.  Ah, it would be a great time to be in the low country eating hush puppies and oysters.

Sand in the Air

My grill after a weekend of Saharan sand.

The streak of dark black is where I ran my 

finer down the grill late Sunday to show 

how much grit had accumulated.

25 March 2024

 

As we move between the forceps and the stone we are always subject to new experiences. Over a couple of days this past weekend I experienced what happens when Saharan sand blows west over the Iberian Peninsula. This experience reminded me that even in familiar surroundings unexpected events and external forces (like Saharan sand) can disrupt our lives. This cloud-borne sand highlighted life's unpredictable nature. This weather also reminded me of the need to quickly adapt to life’s surprises. The joys of adaptation aside, in my humble opinion a sand-filled weekend is a less than optimal experience all around. 

 

We had been warned for several days that the sand was coming. From late Friday through Sunday night’s sunset the sky took on a yellow and grey tint. Over that period all the cars on the street amassed about 1/32 of an inch of grit on their roofs and hoods. The baseboards in my house, even though we kept the windows mostly closed, need cleaning now. Clearly, it was not just the bare surfaces of this city of stone and iron that were impacted. My lungs took a beating. 

 

Went out for a fancy breakfast on Saturday. On my way to the delight that was a plate of lemon pancakes at the Quase Café I had to take a breather sitting on a stone bench to catch my breath. Yes, it was an uphill walk to the newly built funicular, and yes I had not slept well the night before. However, the lolling of my tongue out of my mouth like some over-exerted Bassett hound was tied solely to the difficulty caused by breathing sand air. On Sunday the air was terrible, more so than on Saturday, and I didn’t even venture outside save for a quick trip to the small grocery store a mere seven doors away. 

 

But time passes and today is Tuesday. Overnight on Sunday the wind’s direction shifted. Now also a decent rain has moved in and the air smells clean. When the clouds part here, as they frequently do because spring rains are not steady rains, the sky is bright and clear blue. This shift in the weather is a welcome change, and the blue skies accompanying it are refreshing.