7.21.2023 – was a little world

was a little world
like any world, points of pride,
its stubborn habits

At the Popular in Dundee, Graham Forbes and his family cooked using beef dripping as well.

Sit-in diners at the Popular huddled into wooden booths, sometimes packing so close, Forbes told me, that if those at table #1 were talking politics, those at tables #2 and #3 were inevitably talking politics as well.

He tended not to think of the Popular as a business.

It was a little world.

And like any world, it had its points of pride, its stubborn habits.

As you have guessed, the article in reference is about fish and chips.

A funeral for fish and chips: why are Britain’s chippies disappearing? by Tom Lamont is listed as a ‘long read’ on the Guardian Website but its worth the 15 minutes and then the time to ponder, why are these old ways changing?

Horse and Buggy days are called horse and buggy days because people traveled in a horse and buggy.

Sounds romantic but spend some time next to the Charleston Buggy Tour stables on a 90 degree summer afternoon and you find some aspects of the romance with horses and buggy’s are best kept to memory.

But Fish and Chips?

What could be driving them out of the picture?

People for one.

Finding those people who want to work long hours over hot boiling vats of fat is not as easy as it used to be.

Thinking of fish and chips, my dad loved them.

I think he picked up a taste for them during WW2 when he was in England for a couple of months.

I am not sure how widely they were available in America but whenever a new fish and chips place opened up, he had try it.

When a place named, H Salt fish and chips, opened it, it quickly became his favorite.

I remember one time, on a trip back from Chicago, we drove through the freeway interchange near Benton Harbor, Michigan and he spotted an HSALT sign and decided we were hungry.

It was just me and my Dad and I said I didn’t like fish.

He pulled into an Arby’s and got me a sandwich and then drove over to HSALT.

This was when the owner was making a real effort to reproduce a British chip shop and there were no chairs in the place.

A counter ran along the window and there were a few stand up round tables but guests were expected to stand while they ate.

My Dad got an order of fish and chips and we moved over to the counter.

They wrapped the food in a waxy paper fake newsprint which my Dad said would have been newspaper if we were in England.

It was one of the many touches the company went to in recreating the British chip shop.

Sad to read Wikipedia about HSALT as it was successful to the point of being taken over by KFC.

The article Wikipedia states: Salt understood he was dealing with potential American customers who had little experience with fish and chips. He knew he had to offer the highest quality product and experience to convert the public. He said he “must be frank in stating that there might be a wait for an order simply because we fry on request to assure the product is piping hot which is the only way to enjoy fish and chips”. Customer service was important to Salt as well. “We impress upon our proprietors the importance of genuinely caring for the interests of our customers”

Mr. Salt, that really was his name, is quoted as saying, “I’ll do for English fish and chips what the colonel did for chicken.”

Instead, KFC did to fish what they did to chicken and americanized fast food production and marketing was able to remove HSalt fish & chips, except for a few still on the west coast, from the roadside map of America in 10 years.

As I remember, I was about 11 years old and my chin was at counter level which made it was to got my food into my mouth.

My Dad stood sideways to the counter with his left elbow on the counter top and ate with his right hand.

He sprinkle the fish and chips with the HSalt brand vinegar and enjoyed every bite.

He looked around the room.

The stand up counters.

The staff in red and white striped aprons.

The food.

“This” he said, “is just about right to what those chip shops looked like an England.”

“Ever want to go back?” I asked, hoping to turn this into a trip.

“Sure would,” he said, “If we can get the government to pay for it … like last time.“

The world of fish and chips.

A little world.

And like any world, it had its points of pride, its stubborn habits.

7.20.2023 – will we look back and

will we look back and
blame only ourselves – it’s not
hard to imagine

In an opinion piece in the New York Times (Hoping for a Miracle, Hurtling Toward Disaster, July 20, 2023), Pamela Paul looks at the possible candidacy’s of Donald Trump and Joe Biden and states:

A Biden-Trump rematch feels like a concession, as if we couldn’t do any better or have given up trying.

I think of the New Deal era and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

So many good and thoughtful people, people eager to take part and help, signed on to FDR’s administration that it was known as the ‘Brain Trust.’

I think of the post World War 2 era and John F. Kennedy.

So many good and thoughtful people, people eager to take part and help, signed on to JFK’s administration that it was known as the ‘New Frontier.’

An ‘undergraduate-must-read-book’ about the JFK administration is titled, “The Best and the Brightest.“

Today, who gets involved in Government?

Today, who would WANT to get involved with Government?

Today, who would volunteer for that kind of abuse?

Instead of a Brain Trust or the Best and the Brightest we have a paraphrase of Groucho Marx saying ‘I wouldn’t join any club that would let people like me be a member‘ sand end up with the idea that I wouldn’t vote for any person who want’s the job.

Ms. Paul writes, “One clear sign of America’s deepening hopelessness is the weird welcoming of loony-tune candidates …”

” … it’s as if we’re collectively paralyzed, less complacent than utterly bewildered, waiting for “something” to happen — say, a health crisis or an arrest or a supernatural event — before 2024. While we wait, we lurch ever closer to something of a historical re-enactment, our actual history hanging perilously in the balance.“

It isn’t the last line of the Opinion piece, but the last line of the next to last paragraph that stands out.

Will we look back and have only ourselves to blame?

I am reminded of something someone wrote about JFK.

I can’t recall the book or article and I am too pressed for time at the moment to get into the google but the gist of it was that President Kennedy stood up and took the blame for the botched Bay of Pigs operation.

After all, wrote the author, there was no other President at the time.

It isn’t a question of being a question.

It is safe to say that we look back and have only ourselves to blame.

After all, there is nobody here but us at this time.

7.19.2023 – must choose, choose wisely

must choose, choose wisely
truth will bring you life, the lie …
will take it from you

The reoccurring theme of late in my haiku are thoughts from the book Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella.

I am reconnecting with the book this summer as I am listening to it during my commute to and from work.

Years and years ago I found myself in Toronto at what was billed as the World’s Biggest Bookstore and there was nothing about the bookstore that gave you any reason to dispute the claim.

As I remember it, it filled an entire block of downtown Toronto and was 4 stories high and filled with books.

Overwhelmed as I am whenever I get in a bookstore like that as I want them all, I selected one of those Penguin volumes of the BEST CANADIAN SHORT STORIES for whatever year it was, as an appropriate souvenir and that was when I first read the short story, Shoeless Joe Comes to Iowa.

This was before Mr. Kinsella developed the theme into a book and the story ends with Shoeless Joe asking Ray if he can comeback and bring his friends.

Ray says yes and mentions a catcher he was familiar with he asks Joe if he can come back too.

Joe promises that if he and friends can back, they will look at the catcher.

And that’s where it ends.

You cannot read Shoeless Joe and not think of the movie Field of Dreams.

Most of the time, I think of parts in the book (the twin brother, the James Earl Jones character is JD Salinger, The oldest living Chicago Cub) that don’t make it into the movie.

But today I was thinking of a part of the movie that isn’t in the book.

The scene where Ray and Annie go to school meeting about banning a book.

Had the movie kept JD Salinger, the meeting would have been about a school board banning The Catcher in the Rye.

But JD Salinger isn’t in the movie.

And the scene, as marvelous as it is, is not in the book.

I was thinking about that scene in the movie though.

I was thinking about people watching that scene back when the movie was released in 1989.

I was thinking, were there people in the audience who sided with the lady who called for the book to be banned?

Was there anyone in the audience who, back in those innocent days before 9/11, twitter, cell phones, covid and Fox News who felt anything but that ‘could this ever happen in America again?’

TODAY, I still feel can there be people who watch this scene and not get excited and not say about Annie, that’s who I want to be?

But there are.

I have some of the same feelings about the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird.

How can people watch this movie and not get excited and say about Atticus Finch, that is who I want to be?

But there are.

I hope, if you asked them, do you want to be the nazi book banner or do you want to be Bob E. Lee Ewell, they would say, of course not.

But that’s who they line up with.

There is a choice to be made.

I am reminded of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I enjoyed the movie.

There was so much promise that fell oh so short, but not the worst movie in the world.

I am reminded of the movie and scene where they get to the room with the holy grail.

Filled with holy grails.

And the old Knight says, ‘You must choose. But choose wisely, as the true grail will bring you life, and the false grail will take it from you.‘

Of course the bad man gets the wrong grail and turns to dust before your eyes.

The old Knight watches and then says, slowly, He chose poorly.

Here is the scene from the Field of Dreams.

7.18.2023 – but he disappeared

but he disappeared
absorbed, one of multitude
who were not chosen

Re-reading Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, I came across this bit where Mr. Kinsella writes:

“Pour it on ’em, Tony,” we roared, and he tipped his cap to us as he walked off the field after pitching out of a jam. He won the game, and for years I looked for his name on some big-league roster, but he disappeared, absorbed into the heart of America. One of the multitude who was not chosen.

And it put me in mind of a ball player I saw pitch.

Growing up in the State of Michigan, my buddies and me had a tradition of going to the 2nd game of the season to see the Detroit Tigers.

Opening day in Detroit was like any opening day for any performance medium and tickets were hard to get.

But the 2nd day was sparsely attended and tickets easy to get.

In 1987, the Tigers played the New York Yankees.

For myself, this game stands out as we would get seats in the front row of the famous short porch right field upper deck of Tiger Stadium where we were right over the head of the right fielder.

Dave Winfield was playing right for the Yankees and he knelt down to tie his shoes.

I looked down and yelled, ‘Dave, they’re PITCHING.’

Winfield jumps up and looks and realizes he’d been played and he swiveled his head to look up at me, glare, and shake his head.

The Tigers took 5 runs off of Tommy John and a pitcher named Charles Hudson came in as a reliver for the Yankee’s.

I had never heard of Charles Hudson before.

But I was struck by the fact that he LOOKED LIKE A BALL PLAYER.

He pitched a nice game and the Yankees came back and won the game 6-5.

Hudson would go on to appear in 35 games that year with Yankees with an 11-7 record.

And I never heard about him again.

For me, when I heard the lines, One of the multitude who was not chosen, I thought of Charles Hudson.

Which led to the google and thebaseballcube.com where every moment of every game and career is recorded.

Hudson had a 12 year career with 5 years in the minors and 7 in the majors including appearances in a league championship series and a World Series with the 1983 Phillies.

Hudson would win 50 games in the majors.

His last year, 1989, was with the Tigers.

Sad to report that according to wikipedia: In August 1989, Hudson, while driving drunk, crashed his Mercury Cougar into a telephone pole in a Detroit suburb. Hudson broke his left leg and his right knee needed reconstructive surgery. Hudson would later discuss how he began to drink as he struggled in his baseball career.

In the book Shoeless Joe as in the movie, Field of Dreams, the career of one Archibald Wright ‘Moonlight’ Graham is part of the plot.

Graham was truly one of the multitude who was not chosen.

In 1905, at age 28, he played in one inning of one game for the New York Giants.

Never got to bat.

So close.

One of the multitude who was not chosen.

Hudson played for 7 years in the majors.

Still, One of the multitude who was not chosen.

I walk through bookstores and think of the libraries filled with books by authors unremembered and unread.

Other members of the multitude who was not chosen.

Still …

As Frank Lloyd Wright might say, “There you are.”

7.17.2023 – quo vadis? must be

quo vadis? must be
going the right way if you
end up in right place

Quo vadis?

So might I have been asked 63 years ago today, July 17, 1960, the day I was born.

Quo vadis or ‘where are you going?’

63 years is 22995 days to make decisions every day about where I was going.

Each day filled with crossroads and door ways to paths not taken.

Which way to turn?

Which path to take?

Which path to not take?

Quo vadis INDEED.

In the essay Quo vadimus? by E. B. White published in the May 16, 1930 of the New Yorker Magazine where Mr. White writes about a man who stops people and asks, ‘“Where the hell are you going?”

And one man answers, “And all you want is a decent meal when it comes mealtime, isn’t it?’ asked my friend. “And a warm place to sleep when it comes night,”’ he added quickly, almost eagerly.”

Mr. White ends with this line, And we continued on our lonely and imponderable ways.

For the past 63 years I have blundered and mis-stepped as I continued on my lonely and imponderable way.

Last 4th of July, I got to spend the day with my wife and my kids and my grandchildren.

(Have I told you about my Grandchildren lately?)

I guess that on my lonely and imponderable way through these last 63 years, I must have made a lot of the right choices at my crossroads and doors to the paths not taken as I sure seem to have ended up in the right place.