loved true things but
knew it could be a very
dangerous mistress
It took Doc longer to go places than other people.
He didn’t drive fast and he stopped and ate hamburgers very often.
Driving up to Lighthouse Avenue he waved at a dog that looked around and smiled at him.
In Monterey before he even started, he felt hungry and stopped at Herman’s for a hamburger and beer.
While he ate his sandwich and sipped his beer, a bit of conversation came back to him.
Blaisdell, the poet, had said to him, “You love beer so much. I’ll bet some day you’ll go in and order a beer milk shake.”
It was a simple piece of foolery but it had bothered Doc ever since.
He wondered what a beer milk shake would taste like. The idea gagged him but he couldn’t let it alone. It cropped up every time he had a glass of beer.
Would it curdle the milk? Would you add sugar?
It was like a shrimp ice cream.
Once the thing got into your head you couldn’t forget it.
He finished his sandwich and paid Herman.
He purposely didn’t look at the milk shake machines lined up so shiny against the back wall.
If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known.
But then, a man with a beard, ordering a beer milk shake in a town where he wasn’t known—they might call the police. A man with a beard was always a little suspect anyway.
You couldn’t say you wore a beard because you liked a beard.
People didn’t like you for telling the truth.
You had to say you had a scar so you couldn’t shave.
Once when Doc was at the University of Chicago he had love trouble and he had worked too hard. He thought it would be nice to take a very long walk.
He put on a little knapsack and he walked through Indiana and Kentucky and North Carolina and Georgia clear to Florida.
He walked among farmers and mountain people, among the swamp people and fishermen. And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country.
Because he loved true things he tried to explain.
He said he was nervous and besides he wanted to see the country, smell the ground and look at grass and birds and trees, to savor the country, and there was no other way to do it save on foot.
And people didn’t like him for telling the truth.
They scowled, or shook and tapped their heads, they laughed as though they knew it was a lie and they appreciated a liar.
And some, afraid for their daughters or their pigs, told him to move on, to get going, just not to stop near their place if he knew what was good for him.
And so he stopped trying to tell the truth.
He said he was doing it on a bet—that he stood to win a hundred dollars.
Everyone liked him then and believed him.
They asked him in to dinner and gave him a bed and they put lunches up for him and wished him good luck and thought he was a hell of a fine fellow.
Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.
From Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (Viking Press: New York, 1945 – There is a note in the frontpiece that states: THIS EDITION IS PRODUCED IN FULL COMPLIANCE WITH ALL WAR PRODUCTION BOARD CONSERVATION ORDERS).
People didn’t like him for telling the truth.
And so he stopped trying to tell the truth.
Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.
If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known.
Way back when I lived through the summer of Mark Fydrich.
IYKYK.
It was the summer of 1976.
Also known as the bicentennial.
A local guy from Grand Rapids who had graduated from my Mom’s old high school, was President of the United States.
And it was the summer of Mark Fydrich.
He was this kid who pitched for the Detroit Tigers who would have ordered a beer milkshake regardless of where he was if that was what he wanted.
He pitched and just acted like he would have if he had been playing catch on a beach or in Tiger Stadium and because he won, the crowd fell in love with him.
He ran to mound and got down on his hands and knees and smoothed out the dirt.
He ran around and thanked everyone for everything.
He talked to himself constantly on the mound and since no one else was around to be talked too, it was reported in the papers that he must be talking to the ball.
He would say things that he didn’t like using a ball that had been hit.
He wanted that ball to go back in the ball bag and goof around with the other balls and loose the desire to be hit.
Back then, growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my Dad subscribed to the Detroit Free Press.
Though the paper was written and printed in Detroit, 150 miles and 3 hours away by car, it was somehow written and printed and driven to Grand Rapids where our local paperboy had it on our front porch by 7 A.M.
I fail to see how the digital age has improved on this.
Dad’s routine was to get up, start the coffee then open the front door and take a deep breath of outside air, regardless of season.
He said it cleansed his lungs and got him ready for his day.
That was the extent of his exercise regime.
Then he would step out on the porch and pick up the paper.
He would get his coffee and go through the paper and who ever else was up would wait for him to finish and it wasn’t until he announced, “here you go”, did we have a shot at the sports section.
This one summer morning it was my brother Pete who got the paper first.
Most likely Dad had already announced that Fidrych won again last night but we needed details.
I was 16 and drinking coffee by that time so I would have poured a cup and maybe I grabbed the front section of the Free Press while I waited for the Sports Section.
I always suspected Pete of reading extra slow with me sitting there, including going over ever line of the box scores so I made a big deal of being interested in the front page and the editorials.
We were sitting next to each other on high stools along the kitchen counter.
Pete finally sat back and folder the sports section back together and slid it over to me.
“It say’s,” said Pete slowly, looking at me, “that after a game, Fidrych can’t wait for his favorite post game meal.”
I looked at him and waited, a little perturbed that he was telling me something I would soon read for myself, but still listening and looking at him.
Dad, looking over back sections of the paper with his coffee, paused and looked over from where he sat at the table.
“It say’s, said Pete slowly, looking at me, “that his favorite post game meal is a bottle of ice cold beer and a glass of ice cold milk.”
For some reason that statement hit me, Pete and Dad just the right way that morning and we all burst out laughing.
Milk and Beer!
Only that Fidrych.
It was one of those summer mornings where nothing was wrong and everything was funny both between ourselves and the whole world.
Miss mornings like that.
It was just normal, the way it was the day before and the next day.
They don’t seem to happen anymore.
Is it me?
Is it this crummy news cycle?
Maybe I need to order a beer and some ice cold milk.
If a man ordered a beer milk shake, I thought, he’d better do it in a town where he wasn’t known.
Doc still loved true things but he knew it was not a general love and it could be a very dangerous mistress.
And so he stopped trying to tell the truth.
People didn’t like him for telling the truth.
