Category: Stories

Dinner in stove to warm, killer good clam linguine. Dog sitting and have some time to write.

And I left the kitchen with a beer in a glass that my Mom showed me how to pour: “down the side, halfway up, in the middle”. She learned as a teenager, waiting tables in her Hungarian stepfather’s bar & restaurant, “Charlie’s Cafe”, an immigrant and workman’s saloon on Woodhill & Buckeye in east Cleveland , Ohio.

Charlie was a widower with a son, my Uncle Chuck. Married my Grandmother, Mary, a Hungarian immigrant divorcee.

Mom was 17 and waiting tables, when my 26 year old father walked in. Two weeks later, he drove her to Covington, Kentucky to get married. He swore, he was “shot down by a pair of 38’s”.

Later, with kids in a post WWII bedroom suburb, Mom worked weekend nights in a saloon near the factories, foundries and machine shops on Brookpark Road. To meet the bills. The old man hated it! She’d get $5 tips, multiple hours of current wages! Guys drinking on Fridays, after getting paid were generous with good looking waitresses!

I remember being half asleep in the backseat of a Hudson Wasp, in PJ’s, with a younger brother, to bring her home after her shift.

The minute they could get by without her tips, he forbade it. And for 54 years of marriage, till his last breath, he was wildly, completely, in love with her.

Dogwoods & Azaleas. Window ajar. Spirit renewing fresh air. Late afternoon sun and breeze – rhythmic shadows on spring growth of Holly and Viburnum.

Literally up the street from my widowers apartment, is the hardware store I was parking at, on a Saturday in 2000, when I heard “Red Dirt Girl” on the radio. The program was “Prairie Home Companion”.

I’d gone to get something needed for a long sold house, filled with children and dogs and my sweetheart. Before the scars of the inevitable.

Music, like all Art, can be intensely resonant. So 25 years later, an old man, waking from an after dinner nap, in the quiet midnight, finds solace in memory. And ice cream.

Except for it atop my HoA directed six inch thick, leaf free, pine straw a la golf course sterile landscaping in front of my town home, this one looked just like the one that greeted me upon arrival home from Saturday shopping chores.

And it held the same pose during four trips past it with groceries. Okay, there was a stop at Total Wine and that trip wasn’t groceries.

Having stowed all away, I peeked later and saw it gone. So with some outdoor leisure time before evening meal prep, I have a story.

Somewhere in the very early 1960’s, there were some large open fields in easy walking distance of home. Before the developers scraped them clean for sub-divisions. In an after school afternoon, I found and picked up by hand, a beautiful Blue Racer Snake, probably 3+ ft long. I draped it around my neck and handled it gently as it explored it’s new and temporary environment.

My guess is, it was about 4:30 in the afternoon, before Dad got home from work. Mom had dinner simmering on the stove as I came through the kitchen. I walked through that now impossibly small bungalow to where she was trying to nap. Her days were long, something I only realized much later.

In the dim light of the bedroom, sunlight diffused and reduced by a window shade, I proudly and brightly said “Hey Mom, look what I’ve got!” and I lifted the snake for her to marvel at.

She opened one eye and I swear “Levitated”. My reptilian conquest was immediately returned to its site of capture.

71 degrees and forecast of 80’s this weekend! Too soon for mosquitoes, so good afternoon on the deck. And I finally figured out all the” rat-a-tat- tatting” I’ve been hearing.

Near the top of an immature White Oak are four, clean holes from Woodpeckers feeding. The tree is in trouble and will be deadfall, condemned I think, from an overzealous HoA Contractor, limbing to prevent roof hazards.

This is the instrumental “Sunny Day” theme from Sesame Street. Killer good harmonica! All that’s missing is the Barred Owl I heard today, looking for love.

Wake County, North Carolina Nov 2017

The forest and ravine I wrote about yesterday are, literally, my window. Today and tomorrow’s presentation are illuminated by the the cool, diffuse light of overcast and rain.

The copper colored leaves of this mature American Beech are like gems, set against a field of rich, new, green, immature versions. And provide a proscenium for a pair of Grey Squirrels, in a frantic arboreal chase.

This is a photograph made long ago. I made it, thinking of dancers.

Trust me on the green.

Wake County, North Carolina 6 April 2015

Our Realtor described it as a “Tree House”. Built into a hill, two sides are forest and ravine. Out front, a large Holly I’ve shielded from the HoA landscape crew and an undefended, smaller one, sculpted to suit a Golf Course Community. Sort of a Mockingbird Motel.

I made this photograph long ago, with a long, fast lens I bought for rear of theater use. The Mockingbird, in song and flight, demanded my attention.

Today, nine years later, I was greeted with their song and “Intra-Holly flights”, arriving home from an attorney appointment. The purpose of which will pave my exit to a practical, old widower habitat. Later, savoring my afternoon Bourbon and watching Beech branches sway, one flashed by a window.

I believe Atticus was right, it is a sin to kill a Mockingbird. I will miss them.

My head cold is about done and the lack of discomfort allowed some restorative sleep. There is however, a different view of life after 3 days of misery. Which brings me back to a You Tube video I stumbled upon in the web-o-sphere, made by some fellow Wake County, NC residents: Summer In The South. It was the tomato sandwich that got me.

The only way to make a tomato sandwich, besides some big ripe slices of tomato, is with Duke’s Mayonnaise. Just accept that. I do use Arnold’s Whole Grain Bread but that’s optional. I don’t do White Bread – too White.

So feeling better and post ‘mater sandwich, I read all of the news of the day, accompanied by some room temperature Bourbon and beer. Amused by Wash., D.C and dismayed by pretty much everywhere else, I realized that my intended evening menu was not desirable. And then – aha!. 

So when you don’t feel like cooking but need to eat something good and good for you, Duke’s to the rescue! An ample tablespoon or two, doused in fresh squeezed lemon juice (use you hands, they’ll smell good) and a good dose of Old Bay (Disclaimer – I use Old Bay a lot)! Stir that up and break out the celery stalks. Dried ends go into the freezer scrap bag for stock, the rest you dip and eat. A workingman’s Bordeaux and some chocolate after and you’re good!