Riding the AlCan to Grow Up in Anchorage

GrowingUpAnchorage.com is not a blog, but a group venture dedicated to preserving authentic

stories of life in Anchorage during the 1940s through the 1980s.  These are not the narratives
of the luminous historical figures in Alaska’s history; rather they are the memories of everyday
people who lived under rather extraordinary conditions.

Growing Up Anchorage invited me to contribute stories to this fun blog, and I was honored and pleased to join in. The twenty-three contributing writers represent locations and states from Florida to Moose Pass, Alaska; several are descendants of Athabascan Native Americans in Alaska; their memories and experiences are as varied as your imagination can make up.

My first post tells the story of how I learned that my father, a career officer in the U.S. Air Force, got orders to take us to Alaska, a place I had never located on a map. Simply getting there was an adventure of a lifetime: driving for six weeks from Alabama across this country, upward to Anchorage on the 1,700-mile AlCan Highway as it was in 1958 – unpaved, pot-holed, fire-smoke infested, and gorgeous.

If you look really, really close, you can see the royal            
blue Packard camouflaged by AlCan dust (below).             
When we got here, we still had a long trip ahead                                                                 

Please join us at this magical location.

Technorati Tags: Anchorage,Alaska,AlCan Highway,Athabascan Native Americans,GrowinUpAnchorage

Flash Post

Right this minute I think I could KILL for some aspirin. That’s ASPIRIN. Generic. Bayer. Ralph Lauren. I don’t care whose name is on it. Don Corleone.

I’m having a pain block for my chronic back stuff Tuesday, so I can take Joanna Leigh to Germany, Austria, Italy in less than three weeks with some peace of mind. (To see a bit about that trip, go here; I hope to post more about the trip soon.) The instructions were, “Quit taking your anti-inflammatory meds, including aspirin, Celebrex, all the other NSAIDs, because they are blood thinners.”

So I quit taking the meds Friday. Yesterday was ok, but today is awful. The doctor’s going to ask me where it hurts, and I’m going to say, “How much time do you have?”

I want three aspirin right now more than I want the Peach Cobbler I made with Chilton Co., Alabama, peaches – the best in the world.

These   +                these   =          

                                            This Beauty

But I want three aspirin more than I want cobbler. In rattling off the instructions, the nurse also said, “Oh, but don’t worry. You can still take your hydrocodone.”

Oh, whoopee. I don’t’ want hydrocodone. I want anti-inflammatory medicine for the fourth item on the list of my back issues: arthritis in my spine. Not in my hands or feet or anywhere else; just in my spine. Is that a good or bad thing? I have no idea and I don’t care. I just want my aspirin. Wwwhhhhhaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

Thanks for listening.

Technorati Tags: aspirin,peach cobbler,peaches,Chilton Co. peaches

The Moral of the Story

I almost didn’t go. Here’s what would have happened had I not gone:
The situation that almost held me back from going would have unfolded anyway – it is still unfolding – and I would have missed two big events. I would have missed standing at the edge of the Pacific Ocean while reunioning with my AHS Class of ’61 pals in Lincoln City, Oregon, and coming home to a memorable Welcome Home party.
Standing at the edge of the Pacific

Welcome Home

Despite having grown up as an Air Force brat and lived a bunch of places, I’ve only stood at the edge of or seen the Pacific Ocean once before, in San Diego, where the Pacific’s sanguine nature lures even the most timid of temperaments. The Pacific of the Oregon coast can be phlegmatic, boisterous, hostile, even angry. Only the bold venture beyond the beauty of its shoreline.
First, what is unfolding: I mentioned in my last post that on September 1 last year a cold-contact e-mail popped into my in-box, from some stranger in Austria, which I almost deleted. Thank goodness I didn’t, as that one e-mail has led me, my sister, Susan, and my cousin Emory on a fantastic journey to discover the real story behind my father’s World War II bailout over the Alps, the plane’s crash, and dad’s eventual survival. There will be lots and lots more to come on that story.
Second, I would have missed our mini-reunion in Oregon. The year before, June 2011, the AHS Class of ’61 held its 50^th high school reunion in Anchorage, Alaska. A group of us from the lower 48, many from the West Coast, met in Vancouver, Canada, to begin a cruise to Anchorage via Alaska’s magnificent Inside Passage to Seward where we boarded a bus to the reunion. Last year I had a lot to say about that.
And third, Joanna Leigh had a wonderful surprise party waiting for me when I got home. I walked in the house at 8 p.m. from the Birmingham airport. She threw open the door from the kitchen to the dining room, and THERE IT ALL WAS, in all its splendor. My husband said she had gotten started on this surprise on Saturday after I left on Thursday. She had roamed around the dining room in the china cabinets, buffet, drawers, everywhere. And VOILA.



She had decorated with silver, china, crystal, the cake plate, these funky footed cupcake holders, a Happy Birthday Princess banner I had used at her birthday party, ribbons, her bandana, you name it. The whole scene was topped off with her Dora umbrella sticking out of my grandmother’s silver water pitcher. She embellished everything, like putting princess and fairy stickers on the crystal wine glasses. And a present from me that she had gotten on Monday at her ballet store: A DIAMOND bracelet in a gift sack.

She is a Priss Pot, embellisher, accessorizer, decorator, none of which she gets from me. Honest.
Then came the scary part. Bright and early Thursday, 7:30 a.m., after finally getting home late Wednesday night from Portland, I had to go in for an appointment with my internist. Oh, shit, I thought. What is he going to find in my system?
I really didn’t want to have to get on blood pressure or cholesterol medicine, but I knew he’d put me on it if I really flunked bad. So, I had it all mapped out what I would say. “Look, about the blood alcohol level, the weight gain, the cholesterol, my blood pressure. . . .”
“Yes,” he said, “your numbers are great. You’ve dropped 50 points on your cholesterol, lost a few pounds. . . .” I sat there dumbfounded. “What do you attribute this to” he asked. I sat there.
Then I said, “Well, laughing my head off for five days in Oregon.” What else could I say? I am NOT making this up.
The moral of the story is: If you want to shine in your internist’s office, go somewhere fabulous to meet up with old friends; then eat, drink, and laugh. It works wonders.

Technorati Tags: Pacific Ocean,reunions,grandparents parenting,Oregon coast,Lincoln City

Cinderella’s Plastic Slippers

Broken Up, Cracking Up

Tiresome. Insufferable.

Parent’s and grandparents’ droning, droning, droning, on and on, about their children’s/grandchildren’s every habit, look, interest, action, word. . . . It’s right up there with the dreaded Christmas letter from “friends.”

December 25

Dearest One of my Piles and Piles of Friends:

Once again I'm happy to report that we are all blissful, nothing has gone or can go wrong, we're all extremely sane and rich, and all my children have been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

The merriest of Christmases, love to all, and so sad about your lives.

Your close friend (remember, we met in South Dakota).

So, indulge me.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself completely incapacitated from a serious flare-up from a chronic back condition, which includes bulging disks. At first I lay in the bed crying, not so much from pain as from fear.

Becoming incapacitated and unable to tend to our four-year-old granddaughter Joanna Leigh is plainly one of my worst nightmares.

I called Martha, boo-hoo-hoo-ing. “Martha,” I cried, “what am I going to do????” Sob. “I know you don’t want to do this, but I have to get some help. Will you please come over?” Sob.

Martha has been helping me keep house, paint cabinets, steam clean rugs, trim shrubs, you name it, for a decade. She has been in Joanna Leigh’s life since the beginning, and Joanna Leigh loves her second only to Teddy.

She came.

On one of the days as I lay hurting, Joanna Leigh got some money off the table next to my bed. She pointed her finger at me and said, “Mama Jo, you need to share your money.”

I said, “Honey, it’s really Martha’s money. You need to go tell Martha that SHE needs to share her money.”

She turned on her heels. “Harumph.”

Suddenly, from the other side of the house I heard Martha laughing so hard, she was hollering. It got louder.

I called to her; she came into my room to tell me what was so funny.

“You won’t believe what this child has told me now. She came to tell me that I needed to share my money. I told her I can’t share my money. I patted my pockets and told her, ‘I’m broke!’ She looked at me, pointed her finger, and said. . . .”

She burst out laughing again.

“She said, ‘You are NOT broke. You are stuck together and you need to share your money’.”

 

The Pink Car Driver Performance

Some readers may remember the Christmas Confessional post, confessing that my husband and I totally caved on the Pink Car for Christmas.

Getting this video last weekend made it all ok.

 

Joanna Leigh, Easter weekend 2011

 

Technorati Tags: Spittin Grits,Pink car,Cinderella's Plastic Slippers

A Christmas Confessional

Ok. We caved.

In June, Joanna Leigh found it in a flyer. I admit, I used her wish to get her to go to bed, to make potty training progress, to inspire good behavior. It was the Pink Car.

By October, I knew it was serious. Maybe I had overused it or maybe she’s just persistent. Whatever. She would not let go of or forget about the Pink Car, a Barbie Ford Mustang convertible, no less. I knew I had to act fast. I jumped in our car – the real one – and headed for Wal-Mart, where she had seen it in person.

Oh, ma Gawd, they didn’t have one. They told me it was last season’s thingy, and said if I could find it, it would be on sale. This year’s thingy was a off-road jeep-type thing, totally no good for a princess.

I got home and called every Wal-Mart in central Alabama. No deal. By now my pulse had quickened.

I went on-line. There it was. But full price. I whipped out my MasterCard and read off the number. It would be shipped to the local store for no additional cost but at full price. When it got here, I had until the end of October to pick it up; it has been in our unfinished basement covered by a tarp for two months.

My husband is putting it together as I type. Two hours ago he said, “It’s not going to take too much to get this together.”

He’s cursing. “There’s no battery indicator light like it shows in the book,” he screamed up the stairs.

We have three days to get it together. Now he can’t find all the stickers that go on it. Bah Humbug.

I don’t regret the excess. Joanna Leigh is so sweet and anxious to have gifts for everyone. The night I was cutting up fruit for her school party and putting it all in storage bags, she came in the kitchen when I wasn’t looking, got handfuls of plastic bags, put a bunch of her toys and trinkets in them, zipped them up, and said they were for her friends at school.

There will be plenty of photos to come.

The Early Period: Photos by Joanna Leigh

No, the photos aren’t 3-1/2 years old, she is. Joanna Leigh got my point-and-shoot camera and took them herself. I can’t resist posting them. Catching me brushing my teeth made her howl with laughter.

I really can’t believe I’m putting all these on the Web. For posterior. Or is it posterity?

		Photos by Joanna Leigh VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Merry Christmas. I’ll be on holiday for a week or so. Please come back to Spittin’ Grits.

Technorati Tags: Pink Ford Mustang,Wal-Mart,Barbie Car,Merry Christmas,Spittin' Grits

Truly Amazing, Part 1

We grandparents know that everything our grandchildren do is amazing. We also know how tiresome it can be to listen to other grandparents’ stories of their amazing grandchildren. Forgive me just this once.

Joanna Leigh is 30 months old. I’ve been saying 24 months old so that this Amazing Act of Mental Acumen seems at least somewhat amazing to those listeners who will listen.

I saw her out of the corner of my eye at her play table in our den fiddling around with an old broken hand-held calculator in a leather case. It’s about 4x6 and opens like a notebook. I noticed her folding it shut and putting it in her elastic-waist pajama bottoms.

 

“What is she doing?” I thought.

She walked over to me and stood. I looked at her as she pulled the notebook calculator from her pajama bottoms and opened it.

“What you want, Mama Jo?” she asked.

I just stared.

“You want pizza?” She paused, since I didn’t respond immediately.

She pulled some paper from the left pocket of the folder. “You want money?”

Suddenly it dawned on me.

Yes, we go to Pizza Hut, Wings, the Olive Garden, and other restaurants. She was taking my order!

I burst out laughing. That was not the right reaction, and she just looked at me not understanding why I’d be laughing. She was serious.

Finally I guided her to my husband so she could take his order. “Papa, what you want?”

It also took him a moment to understand what she was doing. So, for a while we played restaurant orders.

I was amazed that she could mimic the waitresses who have waited on us: that they all seemed to get their notebooks out of their pockets or pants and then ask us what we want. I wonder if she understands that after they put the folder back in their pockets or pants that what we want shows up.

If you are thinking that this incident isn’t all that amazing, that it would be only if she showed up with the order, please don’t let me know.

 

Technorati Tags: Spittin' Grits,grandparenting,grandparents,grandchildren,taking orders

Appearance v. Reality

So, how’d you like it -- the first decade of the Y2K Millennium? Here it is at the beginning of February of the second decade, and there is no dearth of written pieces on this past decade. So, why not? I’ll give it a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above, Y2K Snowglobe

First, decades now mean a lot to me, since, having been born in 1943, I have a bunch of them behind me – some of the ‘40s, the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and this last one, whatever you call it -- and not so many in front.

I loved the 50s and 60s, when I was ages 12 to 26, because that’s when you learn all this cool stuff – cheerleading, making out, smoking, drinking, driving. Oh, and Rock ‘n Roll. What’s to hate? (For a short history of Rock ‘n Roll, see the Aug. 11 post classified under “Funny Bones” in the right-hand column.)

Second, when I was about 10, I was lying on the grass at Eglin AFB, Florida, staring at the night skies. Suddenly I wondered, “what would it would be like to be living when the new Millennium begins.”

I added it up. I’d be about 56. “Eeee gads,” I thought. “That’s just too old. I’ll never make it.”

To celebrate having made it to 2000, we went to the beach. We woke up on Jan. 1, 2000, with the world’s technology intact, but the decade didn’t start out great for us. While we were having fun at the beach, our house was being robbed. Not good.’

One For the Books

Let’s take a look back. First, a polling question:

What is your overall impression, positive or negative, of the –

1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s?

In fact, the PEW Research Center has already asked a bunch of Americans this question and got answers.  Assuming every decade has its own character and personality, let’s look back at a few events that shaped this past one.

2000: Y2K didn’t happen. AOL bought Time Warner. And Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open, becoming the youngest golfer to win all four major golf tournaments (yikes, the irony!).

2001: 9/11 happened, which may be the most defining moment in the decade. The U.S. begins a long economic downturn (yikes, more irony!), and Enron files for bankruptcy (even more irony!). Apple rolls out iTunes AND the iPod, probably changing a chunk of American life forever.

2002: Kmart and WorldCom file for bankruptcy. The first Blackberry goes on the market. American Idol airs on TV.

2003: The U.S. invades Iraq, having been convinced that the country held WMDs, a term that becomes a household word – unfortunately. Myspace.com airs on computers!

2004: The world spent a terrifying Dec. 26, watching the effects of an unimaginable Tsunami that hit most coastal regions in the Indian Ocean. Hundreds of millions of people died or disappeared forever. Facebook.com airs on computers.

 

2005: Hurricane Katrina. Enough said.

2006: The H5N “bird flu” strikes the world. Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion, that’s billion. By now, “billion” becomes a household word.

2007: The U.S. sees a record number of mortgage defaults – an omen of things to come. Apple rolls out the iPhone.

2008: The U.S. sees a record-breaking deficit of $454.8 billion, yes, billion. Oil sells for more than $100 a barrel in January and $140 in July, another omen. Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy. Beyond omen. Madonna turns 50, speaking of decades. Obama is elected to the Presidency.

2009, finally: We don’t have to rack our brains for this one. Bankruptcies, scams, cons, Ponzies, rouge banks, obscene executive bonuses, philandering leaders, depressing recession, and Tiger Woods. It all makes us look like silly suckers, doesn’t it?

It’s enough to make you meditate on the philosophical “appearance v. reality” theme. After all, there’s not much “real” to “reality shows.”

Phoooooey

Pew Research discovered that the most common word the respondents used to describe the “Aughts” or “Oh-Ohs” or “Zeroes” or “2Ks” –whatever you want to call the decade, is “downhill.”

And it also discovered that there is no generational divide in how the decade is described. Everybody hates it. And nearly 60 percent of those polled think the next decade will be better, but 32 percent think it will be worse.

Over half of the respondents name 9/11 as the defining event of the decade; Obama’s election is a distant, distant second. Well over half, 65 percent, see the Internet’s development as a change for the better, with e-mail a close, close second.

Only 29 percent see Blogs as a change for the better, with 21 percent seeing them as a change for the worse.

Come on, guys. This is a BLOG. Gimme a break.

Back to the original question. Looks like a no-brainer.

 

Technorati Tags: Spittin' Grits,Y2K,Millennium,PEW Research Center,Millennium decade

TwiKu: Follow-up Words on Tweets

A Haiku is to a poem as a tweet is to a newsy telephone call. (See the previous post.)

A Twitter’s tweet is about two Haiku long. That’s all. I’m suggesting – or challenging: Twitterers, speak in Haiku.

If you recall from your school days, a Haiku is a short, very short, stylized Japanese poem, but it is very pithy, descriptive, insightful. Or just fun. It is three lines consisting of, in English, a total of 17 syllables: five in line 1, seven in line two, and five in line 3. Depending on the length of your words and numbers of punctuation marks and spaces, two Haiku could be a Tweet.

A TwiKu. Or Haikeet. Or Tweetku. Or . . .

Two, Two, Two Haiku

A Twitter’s Tweet make on-line.

Syllables endure.

The Long and Short

For a short poem, Haiku writing has a long list of “rules,” but only a few, including the 3-line, 17-syllable rules, are widely suggested:

l Include some reference to the season or time of year.

l For immediacy, write in the present tense.

l Rely on images to create a moment of understanding, harmony, humor or irony.

l Have some fun.

Conversely, Tweets, long in meaning, impose a limit of 140 letters/characters/spaces. The longest English words with only one syllable, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are nine letters: screeched, scrounged, stretched, some plural nouns, and a few others: Long words, short sound, too many spaces.

 

The Japan Program at The University of Alabama (http://uanews.ua.edu/2009/02/ua-japan-program-presenting-23rd-sakura-festival/) has sponsored for 23 years The Sakura Festival, and part of the celebration is a Haiku contest. Here are several winners’ Haikus:

Through the winter mists

Steel beams of the crane appear

As lace, fragile, still

Amelia Heath - Northport, Alabama [92 characters/spaces]

 

Poems are my home;

Haikus those rare visitors

That quicken the heart.

Christa Pandey - Tuscaloosa, Alabama [67 characters, spaces]

Here is the 23^rd annual 2009 Sakura Haiku winner:

Swelling clouds, the curves

of your body in darkness,

your whispers, the rain.

Sam Martone – Tuscaloosa, Alabama [78 characters, spaces]

Ok, here are a couple of my own:

Cows on interstates,

Tuscaloosa News got it.

Bizarre modern life.

63 characters/spaces

Hummingbirds act out

Too early: Winter Comes soon.

Sun leaves: Eat. Fight. Fly.

68 characters/spaces

Memory is Autumn’s

Gardenia. Once new, once sweet,

Now overripe husks.

69 characters/spaces

That’s all. Sometime in a future post, I’ll tell you about the cows on the interstate.

 

Technorati Tags: Spittin' Grits,Haiku,Twitter,Sakura Festival,University of Alabama,Oxford English Dictionary,Twiku,Tweet

Tweet-Brained: Who's Your Grandma? Part III

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Hello.”

“Hi. It’s me. Are you busy? Got a minute?”

“No. I’m reading the paper. Did you see the piece on the cows on the interstate? Doesn’t that beat all?”

The answer to the caller’s question, “Got a minute?” is 102 characters and spaces, without the quote marks. This is the stuff of which Twitter is made.

Who cares? The grandmothers and grandfathers out there who haven’t signed on ARE interested; they just may not know it yet. The Spittin’ Grits posts “Who’s Your Grandma, Parts I and II” made the case for getting interested. While there’s also Facebook, MySpace, and many other social sites, Twitter has features of interest to Seniors -- mainly, your grandkids are likely Twitterers. If your grandkids are not yet Twitterers, your kids are, and they Twit about their kids constantly. You can “follow” them, a Twitter word for “be in contact with.” And I could have alerted my contacts, called “Followers,” about the cows on the interstate, which I am not making up.

I could have tweeted as it happened, like this: Truth: Cows are on 1-59/20, Tuscaloosa, at mile marker 81. Traffic backed up for miles while the round-up goes on. See T-News online.

This tweet is 134 characters and spaces. The max is 140, established when text-messaging was new.

That was Then. . .

Twitter began finding its real power during the U.S. presidential campaign and election; the political events in Iran and then China pretty much sealed this site as relevant, some say amazing. Then multitudes of users got into it and re-invented it.

So, what is Twitter? Well, it’s this cyber-place with a powder blue-turquoise background and a funny looking Bluebird of Happiness as part of the logo. Here’s how it describes itself:

Twitter has grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices.

In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens—from breaking world news to updates from friends. See what people are doing right now.

This is NOW. . .

 

Twitter made the cover of Time magazine June 15. Writer Steven B. Johnson went so far as to say “Twitter is changing the way we live” and it is “a powerful form of communication.” His view is that the power of Twitter is not what it may have started out as or what it appears to be now, but “the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it’s doing to us. It’s what we’re doing to it.”

Remember: It hasn’t been that long since we grandparents wondered why there would ever be any need for going to the trouble to learn E-MAIL. E-mail, of all things. Then the newfangled abilities of CELL PHONES.

Remember: The real motivation for the grands to learn e-mail was to stay in touch with your children, to get pictures, to stay connected.

Now: E-mail is essential in our lives. Blackberries and iPhones are essentials. And think of the wide uses for both: It’s not just “Hi, how are you?” anymore.

Now is the time. The Bluebird of Twitterness is waiting.

First, just go there. Then in the search box, type either “crimson tide” or “#crimsontide” (without the quote marks). See where it takes you. Then try “joannagrits” (no quote marks). Now you choose.

O.K. You’re ready to Sign Up Now. Think about a user name, password, and wording for a profile. Don’t be put off by creating a profile. Here’s mine:

· Name: Joanna Cravey Hutt

 · Location: Tuscaloosa, Alabama

 · Web: http://spittingri...

 · Bio: Spittin' Grits blog, senior citizen, Southerner, writer, grandmother parenting grandchild

How hard is that? Not.

Now you’ve really come of age.

Technorati Tags: Spittin' Grits,Tweet-Brained,grandparents,Twitter,Time Magazine

Who’s Your Grandma? Part I

W

hen I was a little girl, I thought my grandmothers looked like real grandmothers. My maternal grandmother, Lillie Belle Smith Coine, wore these black leather shoes that looked like high-button shoes with the high part cut off, leaving the laces/buttons part on the top of your feet. She wore these kinds of shoes until the marketplace just threw them all in garbage cans all over the U.S.

My paternal grandmother, Mary Aileen Davis Cravey, wore these house dresses that were belted at the waist with thin belts covered in the same material as the dress. She had fine blonde/gray hair that she twisted, wound around some kind of way, and pinned on her head with bobby pins and hair combs. She powdered her face with ghost-colored loose powder.

When I grew up, I still thought they looked like grandmothers ought to look.

Today’s grandmothers, of which I am one, just don’t seem to look like grandmothers. Admittedly, my perception comes from being on the inside looking out.

It can’t just be life expectancy. My grandmothers lived to be 87 and 94, way more than today’s life expectancy for an American Caucasian woman. No way can I beat that: I wore spiked heels as a young adult, I smoked, I’ve been putting stuff on my hair, probably toxic stuff, for about 50 years. Further, I don’t make homemade biscuits, and I suffer from Road Rage and cussing.

We look different, I think, from traditional grandmothers. Botox, cosmetic surgeries, and Photoshop come to mind here.

But a little girl at my granddaughter Joanna Leigh’s school wanted me to pick her up the other day. She ran up to me with her hands up and said, “Mama!” Then she corrected herself and said, “Grandmama?” She was confused.

Maybe we do look like grandmothers. Suddenly I’m just not sure.

The Aging Czar

Those of us born in 1943 are likely grandmothers, and we’ve been riding point for the Baby Boomers all our lives. The birth rate spiked in ‘43, dropped just a bit in ‘44, and began the unrelenting upward rise that went from ‘46 to ‘64.

Next year, the moment of truth begins: True Boomers start turning 65, so they’re hot on our heels, aiming to devour our Social Security, Medicare, and whatever else they can gobble up. We’ll be looking over our shoulders at them for years. In front of us stand Sarah Palin’s Death Panels.

My grandmothers were born in the 1890s and lived into the 1980s; they saw an awful lot in their lives.

But, you know, we’ve seen a lot too. We began with staring at upright boxes that held tiny black and white television sets with rabbit ears, through birth control pills, to microchips; now we’re staring at our Blackberries and iPhones, trying to text with arthritic thumbs.

The Gray Spotlight

The new hot topic is the elderly. Everyone is studying us. There must be an Aging Czar who oversees those Death Panels.

Recently the U.S. Census Bureau came out with a study.

In a nutshell, here’s what it reported: “The average age of the world’s population is increasing at an unprecedented rate. The number of people worldwide 65 and older is estimated at 506 million as of midyear 2008; by 2040, that number will hit 1.3 billion. Thus, in just over 30 years, the proportion of older people will double from 7 percent to 14 percent of the total world population, according to a new report, An Aging World: 2008 [PDF].”

In just over 30 years? Hell, I’ll be 95+. Or not.

The Expectation and Reality Gap

The Pew Research Center has done studies. In one, they polled young and old Americans to find out what Growing Old in America is all about. Guess what: They found out it’s both not bad AND it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. Guess what else: There’s a generation gap – not a GAP store -- in the beliefs of the younger respondents versus the older respondents. Duuuuhhh.

Pollers looked at negative aging benchmarks like illness, memory loss, having your car keys taken away, sex drying up, being lonely and depressed, and poverty. The young respondents said, “yeh, it’s got to be that bad.” The elderly said, “nah, it’s just not as bad as all that.”

Then who are the Viagra ads aimed at? Just who is falling and can’t get up? Whose Medicare is paying for the “scooter” to be used around the house?

Then pollers looked at positive aging benefits like spending more time with family, traveling more for pleasure, having more time for hobbies, doing volunteer work or starting a second career.

Last I heard, families cause stress, no one I know goes anywhere, you can’t bend over in the garden anymore, and babysitting is not a career.

Respondents 18 to 24 years of age thought old age begins at 60; middle aged people thought more like 70; and old people thought 74 and beyond. Most people I hang out with think it begins at 85 or so. Maybe 90.

Sixty percent of those 65 and older think that they feel younger than their age. Mostly, they are living in the past.

Right now 13 percent of Americans are 65 and older, says Pew. That number will become one in five by 2050. I’ll be about 114. Or not.

One major thing is missing from the lives of those 65 and older, but even that is changing: Twitter, Facebook, eBay, and Amazon! Only four in ten are into newfangled technology. I guess that means that HD television isn’t newfangled anymore, because I see a lot of old geezers watching golf and football, reality shows and soap operas.

I’ve decided to do a poll. Here are the questions:

1. Have your rotten kids taken your keys away yet?

2. Have you been dumped into a 1950s-like nursing home or Cuckoo’s nest mental institution?

3. Can your kids tell the difference between you drunk and you on your prescription medicines?

4. Do you remember what sex is?

5. Is babysitting your second career?

6. Have you fallen and couldn’t get up yet?

7. When does old age begin?

8. Have you laughed so hard you wet your pants?

9. Have you been to your 50th elementary school reunion?

10. What the hell does and 18- to 24-year-old know?????

And finally. . .

11. Do you REALLY think you can dance? If so WHAT are you thinking???

Technorati Tags: Grandparents,grandmothers,U.S. Census Bureau,aging,PEW Research Center

Techs, Computers, and Rock ‘n Roll

This moment may be my last chance to tell you about my call to Apple. It turned into great fun, despite the oxymoronic nature of “talking tech” and “great fun.”

Knocking on wood as I type and thinking this round of computer headaches is nearing its end, I know fortune can change in a mouse click. Now I have to get familiar with, ugh, Vista and where all my files are located on the hard drive. This process will take a bit of time. But I had to call Apple.

Above: The Cleveland, OH, Rock and Roll HofF – one of America’ great places!

Oh, I dreaded it. I’m always afraid someone will say, “Look, lady, we have a FAQ on our Web site. Why can’t you manage just to go there and figure it out!? I cower.

I had some time to compound the dread while I was on hold, waiting for this mean human to answer.

“Hi, my name is Desmond. How can I help you?”

“Whaaaat? This is some kind of trick,” I thought.

I said, “Well, you see, I’ve got this new computer, and some of the stuff on the old one not even the magic Easy Transfer Cable can migrate to the new one, which includes some of the Apple iPhone stuff like MobileMe, Safari, and some programs. My iTunes stuff doesn’t seem to be doing right, and. . . .” The whaaa whaaa trailed off. “Oh, gawd, here it comes,” I thought.

“No problem, Mrs. Hutt,” Desmond, the faceless Apple techie agent said. “We’ll have that fixed soon. Here’s what I need you to do now, and we’ll stay on the phone for as long as it takes.”

The steps continued. There were lapses in the action while files were converted, realigned, chose sides, stepped up to the plate, got base hits, etc., etc., etc. During one of those times, he asked if I had yet put music on the iPhone. I said, “Not really. Except for one – my ringtone; it’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” by Aretha.”

I just knew he would think that was cool. He said, “Who?” I was flabbergasted.

This man, this Rock ‘n Roll infant, needed instruction. As Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” was converting, I asked him if he knew that one. “No,” he said. “I’m kind of young.”

For the next 30 or 45 minutes, in between the files doing their thang, I gave him the short version of the History of Rock and Roll. It went something like this:

The Real New Music

Well, at first there was this really silly black and white television show, Your Hit Parade. Maybe Snooky Lanson and Giselle McKenzie had decent voices, but if so, they were lost in the social mores of the mid-1950s that made this show utterly silly. For sure, Rosemary Clooney could sing, but even her songs sounded stupid on that show. “Did you know she’s George Clooney’s aunt?” I asked.

Watch the silly version below!

 

Meanwhile, there was an underground music movement afoot in Chicago. The really great blues singers and guitarists were black; they left the South for opportunity, and many got hooked up with an outfit called Chess Records.

Now, compare this Etta James version of "Roll With Me Henry" to Your Hit Parade's version:

“Hey,” Desmond said, “I saw Cadillac Records.”

“Yes, that movie documented the time and place and people of the Chess label singers. Remember Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry in the movie?”

“Yeh, I remember. Their music was great, but I didn’t really know anything about them,” said Desmond.

“Hear what I’m telling you. They were the pioneers. Here’s what you can do. Go to on-line music sellers, for example Amazon, and search for the 50^th anniversary CDs of those Chess label singers. At some of the sites you can listen to a song.” The “new music” was coming off the gold and black Chess label, the red and black Atlantic Records label, the black and yellow Sun label out of Memphis, and a little bit on RCA (Elvis) and Decca (Bill Haley and the Comets).

I could almost hear Desmond thinking, “Yes, m’am, whatever you say lady.” But he kept asking questions. “Did it really happen kind of like Cadillac Records laid it out?”

The Blues Baby

During 1955-59, my friends and I huddled together around an AM transistor radio, often under a blanket, sneaking to listen to this “new music,” which couldn’t even be listed on mainstream Billboard. We heard it late at night on WLS out of Chicago.

Parents , preachers, do-gooders, the media were all horrified. This stuff was subversive and threatened the Fifties values and way of life.

Here’s what happened: All those different strains of music – blues, country, pop, even jazz and gospel – all entwined and metamorphized into Rock ‘n Roll. Here’s how Muddy Waters put it: “The blues had a baby and named it Rock ‘n Roll.”

Disc Jockey Alan Freed was the first to put it all together in a 1952 Rock ‘n Roll show, The Moondog Coronation Ball, in the Cleveland Arena; the teenagers went nuts – dancing, screaming, grabbing, crying. There were more such events to come. The rest is Rock ‘n Roll History.

Wanna hear some good stuff? Go here for a year-by-year juke box.

http://upchucky.com/music-jukes/1955/player.html

 

“Desmond, it’s working. You did it! And it was fun,” I said.

“It looks like it. Is there anything else? If you need us, just call. And thanks for the history lesson. I’m checking out Chess right now.”

“Bye, Desmond. Thanks again.”

Technorati Tags: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,Apple Inc.,iPhone,Aretha Franklin,Your Hit Parade,Giselle McKenzie,Chess label,Atlantic label,Sun label,Muddy Waters,Cadillac Records,Etta James

Godzilla Raccoon and the Stolen Food

 

Special Note: Since my last post moaning about my computer problems, my new computer system has arrived. While this seems like a PRESTO solution, things are always more complicated under the surface. I’m still limping and asking for your patience. Slowly, very slowly, I’m getting files and settings on the new computer. Gazing still at my Y2K snowglobe, I see a trip to the computer tech guys in my near future.

Meanwhile here’s a true story about Godzilla Raccoon.

Raccoons love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I found this out years ago, when we first moved into this house. The raccoons in our woods were cute and friendly, so I fed them. Through the years, raccoon generations have come and gone. The last group somehow disconnected the wires to the fans on top of the roof and got into the attic to live. You could hear them roaming around, scratching, waking up for their nightly foray around the back yard looking for food, especially the dog food.

The dead give-away was the rising temperature in our upstairs – in lock-sync with the rising temperature in the attic where the hot air built up every day; how the raccoons lived in that heat is a mystery.

We managed to trap that group in our Have-a-Heart cage by luring them in with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They now live down in the country in those woods.

So, who is this NEW masked stranger, able to screw off the lids to the plastic garbage cans in our garage that hold the dog food and the birdseed, who’s roamings caused our Lab, Maggie, to wake at all hours of the night, run down the stairs, barking until we wake to let her bound out into the dark? It must be Godzilla Raccoon. He must have filled the void in the territory of our back yard.

All these goings on went on for several months. Night after night. Grrrrr.

Now, our white cat, Patty Cake, is a fat cat. She lies around a lot in a most undignified position -- on her back, feet spread, tail flat on the floor. I figured that is why she seemed to always be whining for more food every morning. Or was Maggie sneaking downstairs to eat her cat food and lick the bowl every night? In any case, I filled it up a lot.

Recently I woke up in the middle of the night. I was on my way downstairs for a glass of milk. Just as I got to the bottom and rounded the corner to the kitchen, Maggie came out of nowhere, bounding down the stairs, barking at the top of her lungs. Then I saw it:

A very bushy tail was diving out the cat door. Godzilla Raccoon.

The next morning I spotted the evidence and got a picture of it. Everything I know about forensics I got from CSI. HA! The culprit’s footprints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My turn to set a trap. I don’t know what I thought I would do if it worked, but I sneaked out in the middle of the night when Maggie was deep in sleep, camera in hand. Then it happened!

Here Godzilla comes. 

Closer.

 

 

Very close!

Oh, my gawd, it’s Rocky Raccoon’s little brother! A baby. I’m not thinking of trapping him/her. At least not for now.

But we did have to board up the cat door.

 

Technorati Tags: Y2K,Godzilla raccoon,Spittin' Grits

The Grits Grammar War in Three Parts Hominy – Part I

Technorati Tags: grits recipe,grits,cheese grits,grammar,Southern,Craig Claiborne,Rush Limbaugh,James Carville,FLOTUS,Spittin' Grits,Red Devil Lye,hominy,Piggly Wiggly,New York Times

Is they or are they? Grits, I mean.

The Grits Grammar War (see the May 4 post “First Food for First Family”) can polarize language pundits and mavens into two extreme camps with no grey area in between: Grits is a singular noun, like news, which is a something made up of a bunch of pieces, ends in s, but acts as one something. So, “News is a staple of the American information junkie.”

And, “Grits is a breakfast staple in the South.” Grits just looks plural. That’s merely perception.

“Hell no,” says the other extreme. We’re dealing with reality, not perception. The word grits is a plural noun. You can plainly see that: it ends in s because grits are made up of lots of pieces. It’s like measles and scissors, one thing ending in s that is composed of more than one. You cain’t have just one – a grit, a measle, or a scissor. Plural, plain and simple.

By the way, “cain’t” is a very Southern way of saying “can’t.” Northerners will probably get used to that about the time they get used to grits.

This Grammar War was likely ignited unknowingly when FLOTUS Michelle Obama let the cornmeal out of the bag during a kitchen tour before a state dinner the same night as the 2009 Oscars. She told one of the culinary students that the White House chef cooked up some “mean waffles and grits.” Show time for grits.

Pre-emptive Poles

Those grits mavens at the is pole and at the are pole say, “You’re either with us or against us.” That attitude is what issue-polarizing is made of. So, maybe Rush Limbaugh is behind revitalizing the Grits Grammar War. By the looks of him, he’s also trying to corner the grits market. Truth outs.

Creating polarity on the grits issue could be an attempt to discredit and dishonor the Obama’s good name; it is not just a little more subtle that saying, “I hope he fails!”  Limbaugh could also be getting revenge for the Dems calling him the de facto head of the GOP, probably an attempt to make an end-run around any credible leader.

The irony, of course, is that this Grits Grammar War raged for a while in The New York Times, with food guru Craig Claiborne at the center. I suppose this fact could indicate a left-wing conspiracy.

So maybe James Carville is stirring things up, suggesting that laughing at GRITS is tantamount to assaulting the Southern Way of Life. This way, Southerners by the droves would run to the Democratic Party.

More on this conflict in the next Grits Grammar War post.

Meanwhile, what the heck is/are grits?

Lye Grits

Cornmeal is ground corn; hominy is/are dried, hulled corn kernels; grits is/are finely ground hominy. You have to boil grits in water to make a kind of porridge; you used to be able to buy #2 cans of hominy, but I don’t know if you still can. I will find out my next trip to Piggly Wiggly.

“Hulled” is the key word in how to deal with hominy. Southerners of a certain age are aware of what might be considered a disgusting method for hulling hominy – with Red Devil lye. (Ooops, bad news, lyers

  

Craig Claiborne, originally from Mississippi, knew about whole hominy kernels long before he became one of the Kings of Culinary America and food editor for The New York Times, as detailed in a June 23, 1982 New York Times piece.

I have an old-fashioned recipe for the preparation of whole hominy, sometimes referred to as lye hominy. It is attributed to the cookbook of Mrs. J.W.T. Faulkner, grandmother of William Faulkner. It begins, “Take 2 or 3 quarts of large (kernel) dried corn and put it in a large iron pot with a pint of strong lye.” You boil it “all day” until the “eye” comes off. That is a perfectly valid recipe; many others call for soaking the dried corn in a liquid containing wood ash; in “The Joy of Cooking” Irma Rombauer explains the wood ash as an attempt to give hominy calcium value.

Gross.

Claiborne wanted to convince Northerners that whole hominy and grits are delectable and worth looking into. “In that they all derive from the same base - dried kernels of corn, whole or ground - it is scarcely surprising that they team notably well with grated cheese and chilies,” he wrote.

Here’s Claiborne’s cheese and chilies recipe, which he suggests pairs with his grillades very well.

Craig Claiborne’s Cheese Grits Casserole

2-½ cups water

½ cup grits, preferably stone-ground.

Salt to taste

2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

½ teaspoon garlic, minced fine

3 tablespoons (more or less to taste) jalapeno pepper, chopped fine

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce.

1. Bring water to boil in saucepan and gradually add grits, stirring. Add salt to taste. Cover and cook about 25 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

3. 3. Add 1-3/4 cups of cheese to the grits and stir. Add garlic, pepper, eggs and Worcestershire. Blend well.

4. Pour mixture into a two-quart casserole and sprinkle top with remaining one-quarter cup of cheese. Place in oven and bake 25 minutes.

In addition to his great grits recipes, he took a firm stand on the grits grammatical correctness issue. We will dissect this correctness in posts to come.