PIE-owa

PIE-owa! 

We're home from RAGBRAI. The guys made it to the river early afternoon yesterday, I wrangled them a shower at the Davenport YMCA, then we pushed a single pedal down and hit highway I74, arriving home late. The sleeping bags are drying on the clothesline, and the gear is in various states of airing out or staged for storage. I'm taking a break from mowing the nine-day yard growth to write my pie reviews while the memories are still fresh and sweet.

I wish I could say that I was as disciplined in my quest for pie as the guys were in their quest to ride. They hit the road each day by 7am to beat the heat, and didn't cut any of the very square corners that made up their 482 mile route through the very square miles of the Iowa road system. I, however, did not eat pie every single day. I did eat a total of 6 pieces of pie, sampling 8 types, and also eating two pieces of the ice box cake I made for Ben's birthday. There was also that homemade ice cream root beer float in Sioux City,  and the maple bacon Scratch cupcake that Patty bought for me in Cedar Falls. On Friday I sampled 5 types of pie in one day.  My average was 1.4 dessert servings/day. Still respectable, although not consistent. 

My first two pieces of pie were cherry rhubarb and strawberry rhubarb. On Sunday, I went to Washta, the midpoint/lunch town for the riders. While trying to locate the 3 members of Team Grin and Sharritt in the crowd of 15,000 riders, I spied a"homemade pie" sign posted at the Washta Volunteer Fire Deptartment food booth. I asked about flavors and they showed me an impressive list, including rhubarb, and three different rhubarb combos. I made eye contact with the woman across the table,and asked, "all homemade, right?"

She did not maintain her gaze, and replied, "mostly." 

At this point, I should have asked to inspect the goods, as it is easy to tell if a crust has been machine or hand crimped. But it was a chaotic crowd, and there were people behind me who had just burned a couple thousand calories in the span of a morning. I chose cherry rhubarb thinking that would not be a type easily mass produced. I was disappointed, though when they brought it to me in a plastic wedge container, and saw obvious machined edge. The crust was thick and chewy, so I ate the fruit filling which didn't have the right balance of tart to sweet, and more goo than fruit. Sorry Washta, Iowa. You sound like a place with pie treasures, but you blew my first impression for the trip.

Monday night we arrived at Patty's for dinner. She served a gorgeous strawberry rhubarb pie, and had some crust left over, so why not make a couple of cute little derby pies too? This type of thrift mindset (along with a passion for making good pie) comes from our mom, Bonnie Hoover. She was a child in western Nebraska during the depression, and nothing was wasted, including spare pie dough. If there was enough dough left for a single crust, she would freeze this for a future custard pie. If less than that, she taught us to roll out the dough leftovers, spread on a little butter, and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Then roll it up, slice, and bake, into dense pie pinwheel cookies. 

Patty's derby pie is a pecan pie with chocolate chips. Rich gooey filling nestled in her crisp crust, like a toll house cookie invaded the world of pie. The smaller size pie meant we all got a "smidgen" as my dad was fond of saying. Without portion control while eating derby pie, the threat of diabetic biochemistry is real. 

Here is a photo of my sampler eaten on her porch after our fabulous dinner had settled a bit:


Patty's rhubarb combo pie restored my faith in Iowa pie after Washta's  rhubarb fail. Nice chunks of tangy rhubarb balanced with strawberry--the bright red filling that bubbles out at the edge and bakes into the crust is my favorite bite. Patty and John have an impressive rhubarb patch in their back yard as pictured below: this kind of eating is the literal fiber of the sturdy Midwesterner.  

Our midweek stay at my sisters meant a pie hiatus--just too many other good things to eat, and no time to drive a town away to seek pie, when there was necessary  sitting on the porch on Grand Avenue to be done, listening to the neighbors' parrot imitate their dog. If I could have stayed longer I would have worked on teaching it how to say, "be-bop-a-re-bop, rhubarb pie!"

On Thursday, we tipped from central to eastern Iowa, and I set up camp in Hiawatha, Iowa, just north of Cedar Rapids. Each host town has registered campgrounds, and I pulled into this one, implausibly located next to the interstate in a treeless, rutted, dry field,  started on the first tent, and then promptly threw it back in the car and headed down the road to find the promised land. 

I drove toward the RAGBRAI expo area, where the guys would be riding into town, and saw a couple of tents set up on the east side of a large building in a business park. I pulled into the parking lot, and read the sign on the door: 

Linn County Community College
Come in and use our bathrooms! 
Enjoy the air conditioning. 
Free Wifi

I inspected the grassy strip with space for our tents: evening shade, check; even surface, check; no sprinkler heads in the grass for an unplanned morning shower, check! I pulled over, unloaded, then headed into the air conditioning to fill my water jugs, and most importantly, Google "best pie in Iowa". I had found a sweet campsite and this SAG driver was going to celebrate with pie. 

Celebration came on Friday after loading the gear back into the Subaru for the FINAL time. There was a chance of storms for that night and the humidity was climbing so we decided to book a hotel for our final night. I ate a healthy breakfast burrito that I had served the riders, packed up, then drove to Oscar's Diner in Hiawatha where the internet told me they served Kathy's Pies--mentioned highly by several sites. I walked in through large tables of riders eating mountains of cheesy hash browns and steak and egg platters and sat at the counter.

I love sitting at the counter at small family run diners. Listening to the kitchen staff and waitress banter goes perfectly with savoring Kathy's coconut cream pie and sips of quality diner coffee. The pie's crust, despite being made for wholesale distribution was flaky and extra thin. The cream was smooth and full of dairy richness. Not real whipped cream on top, but a lovely toasted dusting of shredded coconut made up for that. 

The banter was high quality that morning as well. I watched Oscar shove plate after plate of cycling fuel into the window, and daughters Sarah and Christina hustle the plates to the tables. Mom worked between both areas as needed, and fielded many diner comments that started with, "I know you're really busy, but...." 
". .. the bathroom is out of soap."
". . . here's my money, I need to get going."
". . . The men's toilet is plugged up."
". . . What is the wifi password?"
Somewhere during my second cup of coffee the youngest sister, Cassandra showed up to help with the high volume of work in and out of the bathroom. She also had time to tell me about Serena, the fourth sister who wasn't in the restaurant that morning. She didn't need to tell me that Sarah was the eldest. I figured that pretty quickly as she was on the lookout for doing her work plus everyone else's if possible. Christina alternated between arguing with her and sighs of resignation. 

They all took time to chat with the regular crowd coming in on this day of RAGBRAI takeover.
"Where's your bike, Harold?"
"Jim, are you wearing spandex under those overalls today?"
And they were equally kind to the demanding visitors, including me, a middle sister who loves to watch and listen, and talk about sisters and birth order. They picked up my check as I was leaving, and when I asked them why, Christina  said, "because you only ordered pie." 

My next stop was Coralville, a suburb of Iowa City. We were headed to a hotel, so my only SAG job was to be on call to pick up the guys if it stormed and to keep the cargo bag on top of the Subaru dry if possible. I headed south just in front of the rain, then found a parking garage on the University of Iowa's campus. The guys texted that they were waiting out the storm under cover in Solon, so I headed to the Hamburg Inn for one of the top eight pies in Iowa based on popular vote. 

The list on the board was extensive. I knew I had to try chocolate bourbon pecan (from the award winners), but what about bumble berry? What about key lime? I opted to order a  four pie sampler (adding lemon meringue) in a to go box, a plate, and a knife to cut off a smidgen of each and take the rest to my team in the hotel.

The chocolate bourbon pecan was like Patty's derby recipe with the addition of the liquor. Instead of a regular crust, though, theirs had a toasted graham cracker crust with just enough sea salt mixed in to cut the richness of the filling. Amazing. The bumble berry is a combination of apple, rhubarb and red raspberry. I loved the subtle amount of spice they added--going to research this one to try at home! The others were good, but not special. The guys polished all of it off later after eating two large deep dish pizzas.

I thought about looking for more pie in the Quad Cities for our final day, but opted to indulge instead in HGTV in the hotel room after I sent the guys off on the final leg. 

Thanks, Iowans for a tasty week. I'm excited to visit again in April, 2016 for Jacob and Amber's wedding. I hear the couple is working on dessert choices for their party. Your Aunties will consult for a small sweet fee. 

Support report day 5

Hey all! It's the TLMB guest blogging again. I hope this post from Cedar something, Iowa finds you doing well. It's either Cedar Falls or Cedar Rapids. I can't seem to keep track on day 5. We started in either Sioux City or Sioux Falls. I forget. 

We have ended our stay in the  luxurious Grand Avenue hotel of Story City, Chez Pateè, but we were still treated to a roof curtesy of future niece,  Amber Renaud (engaged to nephew Jacob) who lives in Cedar something. Jacob hosted our delicious dinner at his place prepared by his mom, The Magical Miss Patty who hauled it all from Story City. Patty was dubbed magical by Chris after our second breakfast buffet at her house: sausage biscuits and gravy, fluffy pancakes, bacon, melon, blueberries, and leftover strawberry rhubarb pie from the night before. Our dinners made by TMMP included delicious kabobs, smoked beef, homemade macaroni and cheese, Iowa sweet corn, and amazing produce from my brother-in-law John's garden. Did I mention there was pie? And the Rathmachers do not skimp on the a la mode. 

Patty set the standard for my Pie-owa reviews in a future blog. It's going to be tough for anyone from Sioux something, Iowa to Cedar something, Iowa  to beat my sister. I'm still going to sample. Patty, who is 16 months younger than me, taught me how to make pie crust when we were in high school. I specifically remember her tip for smoothing the ball of dough completely  before beginning to roll to achieve a tidy circle when rolled thin. 

Patty also taught me how to ride a bike--and by teaching, I mean that she learned how to ride a bike before me, and the sibling pressure became high enough for me to get my butt out to the driveway to learn. It would be fun to do random interviews with riders along RAGBRAI asking the question, "when and how did you learn how to ride a bike?" I'm guessing the stories from Team Saving the World One Beer at a Time would be different from The Donner Party and The Psycho Cyclists. The guys have stories at the end of each day about the odd bikes on the road, including at least one unicyclist. I happened upon his SAG vehicle in the Hyvee parking lot. It had a unicycle painted on their SUV's window. His pregnant wife was loading supplies and a toddler into the car. I wonder what his story is, that would compel him to ride a single wheel such a distance?

Today after I finish writing this in Amber's air conditioning I am headed to Hiawatha, Iowa. Back to the wilderness, and tents.  Farewell civilization. Goodbye refrigeration. Ok, enough whining. I am regarding the beauty of the prairie view of US 20 along the way. The endless rolling ribbon of pollen-popping corn is edged with Queen Anne's lace, goldenrod and purple thistle. Bright orange and red crop duster planes connect the silver grain bin dots that anchor each small town. The folks are delightful and patient with the spectacle pedaling with blaring boom boxes into their quiet.

Team Sharritt members are doing well, pedaling strong despite unexpected bridge outages, and one mechanical pit stop for Chris. The signs around Cedar something all say "it's all downhill from here!". I did see one at the beginning of a rise, however....

The favorite part of the day for me has become when I send them off, making sure they have their supply of Chapstick, Kind Bars, and extra sunscreen. Hugs, admonitions to ride safely, and then a blessing over them which has become more specific each day. For day five of seven it was something like:

"May God cradle your sorest parts with His divine chamois care"

Talk to you all again when I'm ready to write Pie-owa! Time to set my navigation to local pie.

450 miles in 7 days

Hello! I hope this blog finds you well at the high water mark of summer. This is The Lovely Miss Beverly guest-posting as Roger's RAGBRAI 2015 support team from the Sharritt Subaru. Loaded down with bikes, camping gear, a generous supply of sunscreen, and high calorie snacks, we are experiencing the Registrars Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

We are making our way, with Ben and Chris joining in the insanity, from Sioux City and the Missouri River to Davenport and the Mississippi in 7 days. On route, we pass through 45 Iowa cities and towns including  Washta, Eldora, and Cedar Falls. The guys will cycle an average of 70 miles/day, and I'll be able to set up a tent in under 10 minutes before the week is done. 

I thought I might have time to post a daily travelogue, but between loading/unloading, supply shopping, and finding the best shower option along with 20,000 others, I've not had a lot of idle time. Last night and tonight we are sleeping in real beds at my sister, The Magical Miss Patty's house in central Iowa: your wait for a shower is now 0 minutes. Instead of rinsing out bike shorts in a park restroom, I'm leisurely sitting on her porch overlooking Grand Avenue while her Maytag hums quietly in the basement. 

Does an address get any better than Grand Avenue in Story City, Iowa? Spending the last 20 years on Reformatory Road, I don't think so. Patty has shaped a lovely existence in this idyllic small town with her husband and 5 kids. The town is known for its historic antique carousel in their town park. She can walk to her church, fitness center, and town pool for her daily summer lap swim. At this same pool, she and her kids serve the crucial small town role of running the pool's Snack Shack. They are basically royalty to the 10 and under set, in possession of ice cream novelties.  In a storage room next to that humming washing machine, are stacked boxes of Air Heads and yet-to-be frozen Flavor Ices. I opened her freezer to store some of our camping food, and it was full of Drumstick ice cream treats. If that doesn't scream, "civilization!" I don't know what does.

RAGBRAI hosts around 20,000 riders each year in this traveling beer garden/two-wheeled subculture. There are many facets we have yet to fathom, but after only two days, the guys seem to be sold on the shared difficult experience of the ride broken up by the hospitality offered up as they are funneled through Main Street after Main Street of the next small prairie town. 

I went to the lunch town on the first day, and first grasped the scale of the ride when traffic backed up a mile  out of Washta. I decided at this point, that the guys would do lunch on their own for the rest of the week, but I  parked to experience the parade of bikes and riders, sampling the local fire department fundraiser food, including pie. Look for a future guest blog: Pie-owa! where I review the pies sampled this week.

For now, I'll share some memorable details from the first 3 days:
Passing painted school buses on the trip west customized with rooftop bike racks, with colorful names like: Shagbrai, Wasted Potential, Fork More Pork, B Team, and Liver Strong
Lap swim with Patty, Queen of the Snack Shack before heading to Sioux City
Homemade ice cream root beer floats 
Talking ourselves out of the first-time rider and first -time support driver meetings in lieu of other more necessary first-time meetings like Dad's Butt Butter talk with the boys
Jumping in Storm Lake with the guys at the end of a sweaty day
Attempting to make Ben birthday pancakes in the rain at our Monday campsite
Ben liked the part where he was pedaling and there was corn next to him 
Chris saw a sign "Jesus Loves Pie" . . . Then further down the road. . ."probably". I'd venture definitely. 

Looking forward to sharing more moments from the ride as we head East! 

53 years and 2 weeks

Dear Blog reader.

I hope that this finds you doing well. Last week my weekend was blasting by like a firework with a frayed fuse at a smoker’s convention; some sleeping in. I took care of some miscellaneous work items. I worked on a couple of bicycle issues. I went to my favorite toy store; Bicycle Garage Indy. There was the ride to the fireworks party in Fishers on Friday evening. Actually, it was the almost bike ride that had to be aborted ½ way there. We lost a pedal; one of four on our bicycle built for two. The lovely Miss Beverly was quite the trouper. It was my right pedal that went A.W.O.L. So she had to provide 2/3 of the energy to get us home. I peddled with my left leg, my right held out away from the bike, useless.

Undaunted we put the bike up and got into the car and went to the party anyway. We were able to get the pedal reattached on Saturday and the lovely Miss Beverly and I rode to Pendleton on our tandem. We had a delightful time camping beside the inflatable jousting pit. It was so much fun watching the little gladiators climb shakily up on the padded three foot tall pedestal armed with the over padded jousting sticks. We quickly figured out that the victor was usually the heaviest, the stoutest. Nimble is good but gravity keeps your butt on the pedestal.

History will debate who challenged who. I remember the lovely Miss Beverly asking if I wanted to do it. She remembers me saying let’s go get in line. Thankfully, no fun Nazi’s had posted “you must be less than 50 years old to ride this ride.” The line was long. Cousins had to take on one another. Siblings had to establish their pecking order. Daughters had to take on dads. And there was one strange bout between adult sisters; one a fun loving bundle of joy, the other petrified on the three foot perch, too scared to enjoy the evening. Then it was the lovely Miss Beverly standing opposite me. We on our perches; getting our feet under us. This was no David and Goliath story. I could tell that the wonderfully fit Miss Beverly would toast me in a marathon. It was time to reach out, shove, and tumble the lovely Miss Beverly off her tuffet.

Sunday was reserved for Amish child garden pursuits, a bike ride and 45 minutes of my Elmer Fudd imitation trying to kill the ground hog. This ground hog had put a serious dent in our green bean crop. The final straw was biting off the hot pepper plant and finding it too hot he just left the decapitated piece of hot pepper lying on the ground by its headless self. Enough of that. Finally, I set the trap and came in to type this blog. The long weekend is nearly over. I have too many pursuits to get them all done.

That is why I will have to finish the rest of this blog later in the week. That weekend besides being filled with great joy and fun also showed the passing of a very important milestone for yours truly. My father was 53 year and 14 days old when he passed. I crossed that threshold last weekend. I must admit that I was a little wary as I pedaled a bicycle built for two with one foot. We made it home unscathed. But for a while I cursed myself for not taking the advice that my imagination had generated over the 26 years since my dad’s farm accident. I had imagined that I would stay inside of the house; never leaving as the day to the milestone approached. I was going to take no chances of getting into a car accident or a tree falling on my head accident. I had imagined that I would forego showers the week prior in order to make sure that I did not slip on some soap and break my head.

In the 26 years since his passing, I have often missed the advice that dad would have given me. Advice honed and perfected by more experience and the opportunity to listen to his parents for an extended period. Our relationship was just starting to move into a different phase when he died. I had ran from the farm upon graduation from high school. I had started to create a career. My marriage to the lovely Miss Beverly, while young, certainly appeared to be something that could be built into something that could last. Finally, for the prior 10 months the reality of starting a family was very real for Bev and I. It all coalesced around a visit home two weeks after Ben’s birth and 2 weeks before that fateful August afternoon. Ben had been very cranky. Bev and I were sleep deprived and had no idea of what we were doing. We were visiting the farm for dad’s birthday and quickly deciding to bail on the annual family pilgrimage to the Cincinnati Reds farmer’s night game. What were we thinking? How in the world could we even consider taking a 2 week old on a 2 hour trip, climb up 30 rows into the red seats and sit there in 80 degree temps only to haul our diaper bags, baby and exhausted selves 2 hours back home?

Saner heads prevailed. We removed our rose colored glasses, and I was explaining to dad that it wasn’t going to work. We would hang around until the family left. We would head back home to Lafayette. I remember saying that it was harder than we expected. We didn’t know why Ben was fussy and would do anything to get him to stop but Bev and I were at our wits end. Dad looked out the car windshield and said, “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. It is just hard at first. It won’t last forever. The ballgame wasn’t a good idea. Next year.”

Thankfully, the same advice works in several situations. So I have held onto it and replayed it over and over through the years.

In the years, that we were working out the path back to closeness from striking out on my own. I remember that I would look for any sign that dad had lost a step. Had he reached his apogee? Had his start stopped its rise? Lloyd Sharritt was a bear of a man. He had spent 30 years since the army fighting the weather, cows, and government programs to create a pretty good dairy farm. He could stand at the end of an elevator in a hayloft in 100 degree heat and unload 1200 bales of hay a day and be up at 5:00 a.m. the following day to do it over again. He was stronger than I was when I left for college. I wasn’t doing anything to get stronger behind a desk. In my mind, the only way to surpass my father would be through his fall during the course of life.

So I watched and I watched. After 26 years, I imagine that saw it in his eyes on that August day. He looked tired. Maybe he couldn’t be a bear forever.

So now at 53 years and 14 plus days, it is his eyes that I think about. Was he tired? Did he know that he had lost a step? Was he past the top of the hill? I had thought that for a lot of years leading up to the mile marker. Shoot, it could have been the lost step, the tiredness that prompted him to take the shortcut that cascaded out of control. I used to think that.

Not so any more. As I have been warily watching the milestone approach, I have caught myself looking out of windows with the same eyes.

There are a few things that I am good at. I can be a good husband when I am not in a selfish mood. I can ride a bicycle a long way day after day. I can give my children room to launch and blossom into great adulthood with some effort. I can write a pretty good blog on a regular basis. I am no slouch at work and can grow a good garden once all of the groundhogs have been thinned out. And in spite of some issues with organized church, I have a relationship with God and Christ that takes a bit of time to maintain.

It is a list that brings me fulfillment and joy. There are things on that list that are easier than others to do and tend to. For me, the look of tiredness comes from the knowledge that the list makes my life full and there is no empty space to fit something else in. After 53 years and 2 weeks, my life is a delicate balance. After 53 years and two weeks, I have practiced and honed the list; dropping things that I really didn’t care about (learning Spanish) and adding those things that I do care about. In order to do anything else will require letting go of one of these things. Doing one of them a little better will require letting go of one the other things that I care about very much. There is no room in the inn.

So I hope that the look in my father’s eyes was one of the knowledge of a full life. A life so full that nothing can be added without some subtraction. I don’t know because there was not time that day to ask. But thankfully, by teaching me to take one day at a time, he knew the answer would be revealed.

Take care.

Roger

Explaining the Unexplainable.

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. The lovely Miss Beverly and I are newly returned from a wonderful vacation in the Seattle area. We took the occasion of our Nephew’s graduation to spend a few days looking at Seattle and its environs. It is a beautiful place. It appears that they sent all of their rain to the Midwest so things were quite dry during our visit. One thing that weighed heavily on my mind was all of those mountains. We went east on I90 into some mountains. I just kept thinking that these mountains want to crush me. My people held deep foreboding that nature was out to kill us. We were thankful to get out of the Smokey Mountains and just decided that the flat side of Indiana would suit us just fine. It appears that those irrational fears still brood in the ancient part of my brain.

 One of the side trips took us to the island of San Juan. While there, I got a powerful sunburn after I fell asleep on the beach while watching for Orca’s to appear before my camera. Note to reader: watching for Orcas can be powerfully boring but the resulting nap can be quite blissful. Just remember the sun screen.

While visiting the San Juan Island, we found that it was the site of the Pig War. It wasn’t actually a war so much as a kerfuffle. It stemmed mostly from a bunch of diplomats saying close enough during the negotiations over lines drawn in the waters between a bunch of arid islands and British Columbia. They left the details to the devils on the ground. It appears that one of the British Governments lackeys did not believe in the old adage about fences and neighbors. So he let his pigs roam around San Juan Island and said pig was turned into bacon when he dug up one too many of an American farmer’s potatoes. One thing led to another and we sent 66 solders under the command of General Picket to tell the British to stay off our island.

This happened in 1857. San Juan Island is a dry piece of dirt on the backside of nowhere. It is dry because of atmospheric affects caused by mountains and ocean storms interacting to cause a rain shadow. They receive approximately 19 inches of rain a year. For comparison, we have received 19 inches the past 19 days. Anyway; it was decided that these potatoes and that potato scarfing pig were something to fight over.

Almost: the powers that be decided to send George Picket from Virginia to San Juan Island to protect our potato growing honor. No shots were fired. Cooler head prevailed and we got to keep the island. It struck me as surreal though. George Picket went from Virginia to Oregon. He did not fly. I cannot imagine. I suppose that he was the closest general stationed in the Oregon territory so he didn’t have to make the trip all at once. Still can you imagine being that far away from home to fight over a pig? I cannot.

Can you imagine that six years later he was being tasked to have his troops march across Pennsylvania pasture land to certain slaughter at Gettysburg? It is good that we are not omnipresent or omniscient. It would be too much some days.

While I was out in the great Northwest contemplating these great existential thoughts, the world was going crazy. I thought that the editors at the Onion had hi-jacked my mainstream news feed. By the end of the week, I was sure that the world had gone crazy.

Here is a rundown of the news highlights. The white woman who identified as black until her parents outed as being white. An elephant escaped from a circus in Germany and attacked and killed an elderly man who was out for an early morning walk in the pre-dawn hours. The nudist hikers in Malaysia who caused an earthquake because they exposed themselves on a holy mountain.

And finally, the Russian man who expects to have his head transplanted on a “donor body” within the next two years. Come on now. You have to be pulling my leg. Actually, the lovely Miss Beverly has assured me that the head transplant has been proven to be a hoax.  That sure is a buzz kill. I was kind of hoping that it was possible. Just put my noggin on top of a 7 footer’s body and viola I have my NBA contract. Talk about your identity issues. Bruce could have become Caitlyn without all of the muss and fuss of hormone treatment. In fact, if you were to find the right person you could have a two for one swap. Just like a Mr./Mrs. Potato head.

Such a breakthrough would answer so many questions. Where does the soul reside? Nature or Nurture. I learned it. I was born that way. You go Mr. Russian Dr. Frankenstein.

Speaking on answering the great spiritual questions of our time. What were you naked people thinking taking your clothes off in front of the Great Spirit Mountain? I know you weren’t thinking. You had walked a good long distance with people of the opposite sex in a foreign land. The opposites were reasonable attractive and being millennials, used to starring at your own belly buttons considering said bellybutton’s proximity to the center of the universe, you figured what the heck. I don’t want to be all repressed. What can getting naked hurt right?

I get it. While in Seattle, the lovely Miss Beverly and I hiked up a really big hill to see a beautiful Alpine lake. The setting was beautiful. I do not believe that I have ever seen water as crystal clear.

The sun was shining. The day was calm. We were sitting there communing with nature and several millennial coeds come traipsing down the trail. Confronted with such beauty one blurted out “which one of us are going skinny dipping first?” Luckily, there was a reasonably attractive young man nearby to assure said coed that he could happily provide moral support. Unfortunately, creepy 52 year old man was standing at the shore. I suppose that is the best reason for we middle aged people to stay active. Getting up off the couch maybe the only thing standing between us and violent mountain spirit cataclysms.

I do have a bone to pick with the great mountain spirit. Why don’t you get all exercised when hundreds of thousands of people come to your shores to participate in the sex trade? There are thousands of trafficking victims who could use some righteous indignation that registered on a Richter scale.

Speaking of the earth shaking, how would you like to be the 70 year old guy out for a pre-dawn morning constitutional? Suddenly, you feel the earth start to shake as a full grown fugitive elephant comes around the corner and takes “aggressive action against” you. That is what the authorities were trying to figure out. Why did the elephant take “aggressive action against the man?” That and how did it escape?

Aren’t the two intertwined? Obviously, the man had been a lover of circuses when a young child, but he was a mean and nasty little child. He had heard that elephants were deathly afraid of mice. So he went to the circus with a mouse in his pocket. When his parents and the elephant trainers weren’t watching, he would take the mouse out of his pocket and taunt Babar mercilessly. The elephant was a young elephant at the time and could not escape his bonds at the time.

However, elephants have tremendous memories and the ability to gauge the changes in human voices and appearance that attend the aging process. Now 60 years later, he is big and strong and  he sees Fritz. Sees the sneer on Fritz’s face as he recalls the diabolical fun that he had tormenting Babar in his youth. Babar remembers. Overhears, Fritz say to his grandson, “Let’s go home. It’s late. I need to get up early for my neighborhood watch shift over on Maple Street.” When his grandson throws a fit, Fritz promises that they will bring a mouse tomorrow night and they can have fun “teasing that big brute.”

Babar calmed down and made his plans. I think that you can fill in the rest of the story from there.

That is why I am here: to help make sense of a weird and whacky world. I hope that I have simplified the complex.

“But wait Roger. You haven’t explained the white woman who thought she was black until her white parents outed her.”

I am sorry. You can’t explain crazy.

Take care.

Roger

30 years ago?

Dear Blog Reader.

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am doing fine, thank you very much. The lovely Miss Beverly

and I are on the cusp of our 30^th wedding anniversary. Very cool. Yes, 30 years ago tonight we were in the basement of the 1^st Brethren Church of North Manchester looking at coveted slides of younger versions of Roger and the lovely Miss Beverly; eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. At the time I was wondering, why my mom was making such a big deal over eating Original Recipe in the basement. I was wondering, why the red checked table cloths, the candles, the family photos on the tables. My mom was a pioneer in wedding décor overkill—she really would have loved Pinterest. This was all just too much hassle. I thought, “Just get me through the next 20 hours or so.”  

30 years ago we were stopping by the farm where my soon to be brother in law, Mike was volunteering his sleep time to stay up with the roasting pig to marinate and turn it until it was done.

Maybe when you read this; 30 years ago Bev and I would have been stopping by the park amazed at all of the work that the friends were going through for this hog roast/square dance/reception in the park. The McDonald’s orange drink machine was set up. The roast pig was coming through the door; the outside crisp and juices oozing through the cracks, the smell heavenly. Or maybe the cake was being delivered, anticipation growing over whether there would be cake smashing or kindness at the cutting time. Over there, under a tree, you may have seen a freshly cleaned horse tank half full of ice water and 100 watermelons because that is what $100 would buy you when your dad gave you a $100 bill and told you to go to the wholesale vegetable depot and buy some watermelons in 1985.

Maybe at the time you read this, 30 years ago, I would have been sitting on the church steps waiting to get changed into the tux, talking to my Uncle Stanley on said church steps, or listening through an open window to the bridesmaids laughing while getting dressed in the side room to the sanctuary. The day would have been warming up, getting hot for an early June wedding, decisions being made way above my pay grade to keep the sanctuary closed up tight until just before the ceremony to “keep the morning cool in and then open the windows right before the ceremony to let the little breeze there was in to keep us as cool as possible.”

Thirty years before your reading of these words, my best man, Craig Huss (Hip-pie) and I would have found the masking tape to spell out HE  LP on my left and right shoe soles to be revealed when I knelt down to wash the lovely Miss Beverly’s feet during the foot washing ceremony; a ceremony that was scandalous for my side, (Grandma Nannie was rumored to have whispered, “didn’t she wash her feet before the wedding?”) and perfectly normal for the 1^st Brethren cultists, who practice foot washing at holy communion.

In other breaks of tradition, I would have been getting my first sight of the Lovely Miss Beverly carrying a bouquet with daisies, and more daisies in her hair for pictures before the ceremony. And her seeing me in my tux with yellow tie and yellow cummerbund; ridiculous in hindsight, but hey, we looked smoking back then. We were bound and determined to get the pictures out of the way before the wedding because there was pig and watermelon to eat in the park and squares to dance in the shelter.

At the time of your reading, thirty years earlier, the lovely Miss Beverly would have been walking down the aisle. Roger Callahan, our campus minister, would have already taken the handkerchief out of his breast pocket to dab at his brow. Jim Miller, the lovely Miss Beverly’s youth camp minister would have been cool at the side.

Maybe your 30 year flashback would have been Roger saying that he paused when he heard that we wanted our wedding scripture to come from a lamenting prophet; Jeremiah; all doom and gloom Jeremiah. How do you craft a wedding message from a lamenting prophet? But He had a plan for us, a plan to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. And after describing a lot of bad stuff, “therefore build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” Then Roger read to us a small excerpt describing marriage as a lifelong conversation, knowing the other person is there even in the silence; until one day, the silence signals an end. There were the vows about purified gold through fire. There was the small town noon fire siren going off during the lovely Miss Beverly’s memorized vows that she never remembers hearing. There was the kneeling for foot washing, the small titters for those who could see my shoes, and suddenly we were husband and wife.

If you read this around 2:00, we would have been standing on a side walk under a big shade tree receiving hugs, well wishes and firm handshakes from loved one from near and far. There we are in the back of Hip-pie’s convertible Chrysler Lebaron, top down, and riding on the backseat back rest to the park like it was the 500 parade.

How could 300 people eat that big of a pig that fast? There was the uncomfortable explanation to my Grandmother and Great Aunts that we would not be opening the presents at the reception. There was too much eating and celebrating to do. Plus we had to square dance. I can still see three very sour expressions in a row right in front of the gift table. Bev and I still chuckle when we use the phrase “the judge’s stand”. Maybe you remember seeing them smile at the dancers.

By now 30 years ago, the rest of the afternoon was a blur. There is dancing, refilling friend’s glasses with beverage, more pictures, a little angst between my dad and cousin about who was going to drive 2 hours home for the evening milking and how late that milking was going to get done (dairy farmers). Three hundred people can eat an entire pig in about 30 minutes flat. Its remains looked like a skeleton pulled from the Amazon during piranha season. However, they can’t eat one third of a watermelon apiece. What was I thinking? But they can take them home with them so maybe you remember one rolling around in your back seat on the way home.

The shadow’s getting longer, changing out of wedding clothes, walking over to the green Camaro, finding the “honeymoon night survival package” from the Faulkners, and driving off to a small apartment in West Lafayette, suddenly married.

All of that 30 years ago. Or was it yesterday.

Take care.

Roger.

Great Grief

Dear Blog Reader

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. The lovely Miss Beverly and I have traveled to the great state of Texas to witness the wedding of our niece to a fine young man. Fine enough that there was no sharp intake of breath when asked if there was any reason, no beat of silence while deciding to hold our forever silence.

I know that writing about taking vacation in a cavalier manner violates all internet blogging protocol. The more literate bad guys might read that last paragraph and covet things that are not theirs; items of great worth, vast treasures. The lovely Miss Beverly’s pie plates, or the electric heater that I warm myself with on cold winter mornings are two items that would be irreplaceable. By the time the bad guy’s lips stop moving reading the first paragraph, I will have gotten home and have quite the surprise waiting for them having had my four day Texas indoctrination. Shoot them all and let God decide is the state motto.

The title of this blog will seem strange given that I have spent a lovely celebratory weekend at a niece’s wedding. No it is not a cynical look at the institution of marriage. Marriage when practiced is fine and glorious institution. It is not an interminable sentence of drudgery and boredom. Marriage when practiced will take care of itself.  No, the grief that I write of has nothing to do with the temporary living of my life for the weekend. It just happens to be the topic that has made it to the top of the list of things that I have to write about.

It is one of the blessings of writing a blog on a regular basis over a period of 4 years. There were times early on when writing was a chore. There were times when I would have to sit down and start typing words and hopefully like throwing so much spaghetti against my mind wall, something would stick and 1000 words of semi-cogent ideas would be stitched together into a blog.

These days there is a list of five to ten ideas kept on my phone’s action memos. Each one marinating there fighting for their moment in the sun. Some are there for a week before they write themselves. Some are never born; worthy only of a paragraph inside of a bigger blog. Others sit there for months, slowly gathering ideas, wanting to be expressed but the ideas are so hard or so personal that they resist being formed.

Writing about grief has been a slow grower and this is its week.

The spring while long and cold was also full of grief. Friends and family lost jobs, lost  loved ones, lost their health or their family’s health. They have stories of great grief, of huge sadness. I am not here to write about the specifics of their grief, the cause or the resolution of that grief. It is not my place. I do not have permission. It would serve no purpose.

Great grief is a horrible name for this blog. It brings to mind a Charlie Brown cartoon with Lucy screaming “Good Grief Charlie Brown.” That may be why she only received five cents for her psychiatry sessions. There is nothing good about grief. It hurts. It scars. Once visited upon you, you will never be the same. You will get better but never the same.

Walking with these friends and acquaintances through their grief has awakened memories of great grief in my own story, a story that I can tell because I have passed through the grief. I am okay, forever changed but okay.

Mrs. Gray, my high school English teacher, taught a class called death and dying. Why is was permitted or needed in high school in the late 70’s is certainly debatable. While everyone will die, I doubt that it would be considered core curriculum. But there you have it. Mrs. Gray offered it and a lot of people took it. The curriculum included reading through Dr. Kubler-Ross’s book “On Death and Dying.” In it she says that there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Thankfully, Mrs. Gray drilled it into our heads that there was no order, stages could be addressed in any order or could be skipped altogether.

It was good that she emphasized that the stages were more of a suggestion than a rule. If not, I would have been certified as crazy. It appears that for Sharritts the stages of grief are anger, anger, angression, depranger, and acceptance.

Twenty-five years ago, in August, the new school year was just starting at Purdue. It was move in weekend at the residence hall. Excitement was high with the anticipation of new beginnings. I received a phone call at 4:00 p.m. “Go to your sister’s apartment, get her, and come to Methodist hospital’s emergency room. Your dad was in a farm accident and he is very hurt. Hurry.”

It is bad when you get to the emergency room and when you walk in there are more preachers surrounding your family than there are family members. The news was bad. Terminal. We spent the rest of the weekend unplugging the machinery of extension.

During that time, the curtain of grief and its anger was being drawn. There is a memory of making arrangements, the funeral, 3 days of rain and a solo walk through every field of the farm slogging in ankle deep mud on a hot, muggy, August day.

After that, I remember feeling normal but having the lovely Miss Beverly being concerned about how angry I was. And then I remember nothing until the one year anniversary of dad’s death when I remembered wondering how in the world am I going to survive the next two weeks. Argh!!!!

There were dreams for the next five years where dad would return to the farm after a “walk about” asking why I had not kept milking cows because it was a dairy farm. Finally, the F___ you. You don’t get to leave and then make demands on what happens to the farm.

Those have passed. Passed successfully largely through the practice of marriage for which I am thankful to the lovely Miss Beverly.

He is still missed. There are times when I see his contemporaries and wonder what wisdom I missed with his loss.

To my suffering friends, I am sorry. It is hard. I cannot make it better. I can only listen, note your denial, anger, bargaining, depression or acceptance in whatever, depth or order for whatever duration.

Hang in there.

Roger.