Biscuits and Gravy

When you’re on the road on a motorcycle, there’s something about biscuits and gravy in the morning.  You may not normally spend much time in roadside cafes and restaurants when you’re at home, going about your normal existence, but when you’re on the road, it’s every morning, at a different place.  And while you might not normally order biscuits and gravy at the fern bar where you normally stop for a local breakfast, when you’re on the road on a motorcycle it’s important to eat plenty of carbs to stave off the effects of the wind and supply the increased physical demands of the act of riding.  That’s why biscuits and gravy may become your choice, even if you’re not in a truck.

My preference has always been the local joint, not part of any chain, filled with the local folks, whom it must keep happy to stay in business, and so the food they offer becomes a reflection of what the local folks decide is reasonable and good.  Biscuits and gravy is like a bellwether for small towns.
Somewhere near the Mason-Dixon line you start seeing grits on your plate every time, no matter what you order.  In California it’s an avocado.  Anywhere within 3,000 nautical miles of Boise, Idaho it’s hash browns, lots of ‘em.  But they all have biscuits and gravy on the menu.

So a memorable road trip includes not only the memories of the places you went, the people who rode with you and the ones you saw along the way, and of course the weather, but also the food you ate at the various road side joints along the way.  Not to mention the beer you drank at the end of the day when the riding was over.

And it is natural that in the course of many an idle conversation after a nice dinner and over a beer and a campfire surrounded by tents that the topics would flow to those of most critical importance, such as where to find the best biscuits and gravy in the country.

My riding buddy, Marty, says that the source of the best biscuits and gravy in the country is the Two Mile Café in Albany, Oregon, while I contend that the actual source is none other than the Tastee-Freeze in Laurel, Montana.  Allow me to state my case, if you will.

The best way to sharpen your appetite for breakfast is to roll out of your fart sack as the sun breaks the horizon over the KOA where you slept and spend the next interval breaking down your camp and getting coffeed and cleaned up, then hit the road in the early chill of an August morning in western Montana, or any one of dozens of similar places in any other state.  Ride at least 30 miles or so up the canyon, where the sunny spots almost get you warm enough to be ready for the next shady spot where the temperature drops so fast you start to shake in anticipation.

In our case it was that stretch of I-90 west from Rapid City on the way home from Sturgis on a Sunday morning, and the spot on the map was Wolf Creek, Montana.  But when we pulled off the highway and down the single main street of the town, it quickly became obvious that there was nothing open, no choice but to get back on the road and head West and see what turned up.

By the time we rolled off the freeway in Laurel, the next town down the line, we were hungry enough to look hard at the next sheep that crossed the road in front of us, and the only choice appeared to be the Tastee-Freeze.  I was consoled by the number of rigs with Montana plates on them in the parking lot, which surrounded a building that was longer than it looked from the front, so in we went, five hungry bikers who had been camped in the dirt for the last ten days, and sat down with the town for their after-church Sunday morning breakfast.

I ordered the biscuits and gravy, of course.  Nothing else was going to stand a chance against the hollow ache in my midsection, that and lots of coffee.

As we warmed up over the hot coffee, conversation in the restaurant, which was mostly full, slowly built back up from the shocked hush that had greeted our arrival.  Then the food came, and I ascended into a state of nirvana, or culinary bliss, or some equivalent spasm of delight.  The biscuits were huge, and fresh out of the oven, split and covered with gravy, oh, such gravy!  It was the gravy of kings, the gravy of huntsmen on a cold morning before a fox hunt in Staffordshire, full of big chunks of the local sausage, served at the perfect temperature and accompanied by an impressive wad of hash browns to share in the wealth.  Even the toast was home made.

As I basked in that warm feeling of perfect satiety after a feast, secure in the knowledge that I was set for the day’s hard ride to come, something came over me, and I got up and walked to the front of the restaurant.  I said to the man at the register, perhaps a bit louder than I might have intended, “Let me speak to the chef.”  He hesitated, and I repeated, “I want to talk to the cook.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and a woman came out wiping her hands on her apron and said, “I’m the cook.  Is there anything wrong?”  In the back of my mind, I noticed that the restaurant was dead quiet behind me.  I asked her, “Did you make that biscuits and gravy?”  “Yes, I did,” she said, “Is anything wrong?”  I said, with a smile, “Ma’am, that was the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had in the entire state of Montana, thank you very much!”  Her face lit up and she smiled and thanked me, as the assembled customers all laughed at their tables and my wife made faces at me from our booth.  I went and hid in the bathroom.

Of course, I realize the fatal flaw with the idea that you could decide once and for all just who makes the best biscuits and gravy in the country, which is that you can’t rightly say until you’ve tried them all, right?

So the search will go on, even if the goal remains as elusive as the rewards of the search are rich.  Any tips that could lead to a contender for the crown are welcome.  :-{)}

It's Time

It’s Time

While March is doing its lion thing

And we await what the changes bring

Our souls long for the coming Spring.

It’s time to Rock and Roll.

We’re gonna take everything we get

And on the table we’ll place our bet

You can’t go swimming and not get wet

It’s time to Rock and Roll.

We go out when it’s warm at night

To join a crowd without a fight

And raise our hands to show a light

It’s time to Rock and Roll

It’s time to Rock and Roll, my friends

Time to get up off our hands

Roll the wheels and start the band

It’s time to Rock and Roll.

Best Wheelie

For some unknown reason, I was on the back of my future brother-in-law’s 1968 Triumph Daytona, a 500cc twin-carb version of the original Speed Twin, with extended forks attached to an un-raked frame.  It was sometime in the early ‘70s, and we were headed northbound on old Military Road, poking along behind some old lady in a Rambler who apparently thought the speed limit was for radicals.  Chuck was even then known as having a short fuse for incompetence, especially that which impeded his forward progress, but traffic was heavy that afternoon and opportunities to get around the old biddy were few, so I could tell he was starting to fume as we approached the five-way intersection that marked the turnoff to Boulevard Park.

When it became obvious that the golden girl was intending to go the same way we had to go, he lost it, and made his move, just as she carefully pulled into the intersection and blocked three cars waiting for their turn.  Chuck dialed up the throttle and jumped around her left side, clearing the corner of her front bumper by a couple of feet.  I was hanging on to his jacket for dear life.

Unfortunately, the various delineators of where the lanes were supposed to go were all those plastic bumps, like upside down thick Frisbees glued in patterns to the asphalt, and we hit the first of them just as he grabbed second and gave it full throttle.  You wouldn’t think a 500cc motorcycle with two big guys aboard would be capable of such a move, but this one was a bit of a hot rod and reached for the sky.  I remember feeling the seat move out from under me, and, for a moment, my feet left the passenger pegs and I was flying, only my death grip on two handfuls of leather and my own inertia keeping me attached.  The back tire hit the same Frisbee and brought the seat back into contact with my butt, unaccompanied by the foot pegs, so my legs were waving in the air as Chuck somehow brought us back to earth in time to swerve back on line and escape the cluster of vehicles, all stopped, with uniformly open jaws on their drivers’ faces.  He never did get off that throttle till we blew through the light at Des Moines Way.  I remember roaring with laughter when the adrenaline rush hit, but I seem to recall I had to change clothes after we got home.  Ah, yes.  Young and Dumb, Young and Dumb… :-{)}

Six-Pack

Six-Pack

The church was jammed, on a Saturday afternoon, the day we laid Six-Pack to rest in the military cemetery south of Tacoma, and an overflow crowd milled about outside the chapel, drinking beer and smoking while they bullshat and waited for the ceremony to conclude.

Inside, we heard all the stories about a hard-living, hard-fisted, hard-drinking man, heard his wife allow as how he was a good father, fair husband, and all-around nice guy.  Nobody told the story about how he died, how he was at the tavern with his wife, who had shown up after work in her truck, until closing time, then decided he was going to race her home, but he was a little fucked up and high-sided into a curb just rightly to crack his skull open and put him down for good.  We all knew that, but weren’t in a hurry to think about it much.

After the preaching was done we all gathered around the gravesite for what was to come.  There was a backhoe parked at one end of what had to be a ten or twelve-foot-deep trench in the ground, easily twice as deep as you’d think they’d need, but it all made sense as it happened.  First, the preacher splashed the holy water and said all the right and usual things over the casket while it sat on the straps between the winches on both sides of the pit.  Then he gave the word, and they lowered him down into the ground.   After the straps were pulled back out, the backhoe fired up, and carefully scooped up some dirt from the side and laid an even coat of soil over the casket.

Then they unfolded a big old tarp and carefully lowered it into the hole.  Then they put a lifting strap on the backhoe bucket and proceeded to pick up his Old Lady 80, a perfectly restored in original condition 1937 Harley Davidson ULH flathead motorcycle, and lowered her gently into the hole on top of the man who built her back up, and who she was going to join up with in the hereafter.  Then they unfolded another big old tarp and carefully dropped it down on top of her, after which the backhoe casually filled the hole to the top with all the leftover dirt.  And that was his last will and testament.

Those of us who were there went away with a sense of wonder, and a feeling of some loss.  There’s only so many old motorcycles left on this planet, so it’s a shame when one more disappears.  I’ve heard idle speculation, months later, that the whole thing was a show, and that the family went back the next day and dug the Old Lady back up, but to my knowledge nobody ever went back to try and find out.  She’s probably still down there, hoping against hope that someday, somehow, she will ride free again in the wind.  :-{)}

Excuse me, Mr. Trump?

Um, excuse me, Mr. Trump?  You got a minute?

The thing is, I got another email from you today, about the immigration thing, and I’m puzzled.  I think we got our signals crossed, somehow.

The big message today was that you wanted to share the current results of your big survey you commissioned to help us tell the Senate how we felt about all the immigration hoo-rah that’s going on right now, and how you were still waiting to hear from me, and would I be sure and respond by midnight tonight (same thing you said last week, by the way).

The thing is, I already responded to that survey, a few days ago.

You said that 85% of the respondents, so far, think the Wall is important.  That wasn’t me, I think it’s a stupid idea.

You said that 91% of the respondents to that survey think it is important that we eliminate tax credits for illegal immigrants.  I guess I’m in the minority again on that one, but I did take a few seconds to look that up, and everybody says there is no such thing as tax credits for illegal immigrants, which makes me wonder if those 91% of respondents are dumb as a box of rocks, or do they even exist?  Was that, like, a trick question or something?

Then you said that 87% of those same respondents think it’s important that we end chain migration, and I’m, like, wait a minute!  Isn’t chain migration another way to say someone moves here, decides it’s a pretty cool place, then they tell their families to come on over?  Isn’t that the way your grandmother got here?  Mine was already here then, by the way, but that’s ok with me.  I wouldn’t want to lord it over you just because we were here first, just like I think anyone from anywhere who wants to become an American ought to be as welcome as your family was at the time.

But the real question is why are you sending me this latest email, where you say you still need to hear from me, when I already took it?

I must admit, though, that at the end of the survey last time, when I clicked the “submit” button, and it sent me to a donation page that asked me for at least $35, up to $2700 or more, and I clicked on the little x up in the corner instead because I wasn’t giving you one red cent nohow, I kinda had the feeling that my survey results were not going to be received without the donation.

That makes me suspect that your survey is fake, that it’s really all about those donations.  I suspect you want me to pay you money to listen to my opinions, and you’re not going to bother if I don’t.

You said at the end of your email: And I want to be able to give an exact number of how many people back each proposal. This is the Art of the Deal!

So please, take my Responsible Immigration Survey by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

I’ll make you a deal, ok?  I’m not gonna give you a nickel, but I will wait to hear from you just exactly how many of us responded to this survey of yours, and where you got your numbers.  I’m beginning to suspect you’re gonna pull them out of your ass, just like you did your immigration policies and the rest of your stupid, racist, misogynist ideas.  Worst.  President.  Ever.  Sad!  :-{)}

Childhood memories

Every now and then, as we get older, something triggers a childhood memory and brings back all the joy and pleasure we had attached to that memory all those years ago, which makes us wonder if those joys and pleasures can be found again if we only had one of those things just like back in the good old days.  These thoughts are dangerous, and should be resisted at all costs, lest we be reminded once again that time waits for no one.

And this is not to bring back other childhood memories, such as the time I found myself staring at an electrical outlet with a hairpin in my hand, wondering what that little slot in the plug did, and how deep it was.  Such memories can be shocking and are best left undisturbed.

So it was that I found myself perusing the latest edition of the Duluth Trading Company catalog that arrives all too frequently in our mailbox since they got their hooks into us, and found, deep in the back pages, that they had revived one of my childhood favorites, Roc’Em Soc’Em Robots.  These are two plastic robots about six inches tall that stand forever nose to nose in a plastic ring with their dukes up and a permanent sneer on their spring-loaded ratcheting faces, controlled by two hands on the plungers that slide out from under the ring and work the hands and fists of the belligerent bots.  A direct hit with an uppercut, the only punches these pugilistic paragons can deliver, to the chin of the opposing puncher will pop the head up on its extended neck and signal a victory of some sort, though often the enemy will land the same punch at the same time, leading to a vociferous argument about who struck first, especially if your opponent is your 11-year-old granddaughter who has just beat you for the eighth straight time.

The Duluth Trading Company, for those of you fortunate enough to have avoided their grasping clutch, is a small company in Minnesota who put out a catalog that shows how they are all just a bunch of good ol’ boys and girls from the Country, and all their foreign-made clothing and related stuff is very high quality (and price), just the solution for a problem you didn’t know you had, like Plumber’s pencil holder, or pants like a cheap hotel, with no ballroom.  I will grudgingly admit that I have a drawer or two full of their stuff, which really is pretty good, as does my wife.

In the back of that catalog is always a few pages of interesting tools and handy gadgets, and that’s where I found the robots.  It’s interesting that, in this Amazonian day and age, the robots are one of the few products that Amazon does not carry, probably for the same reason I discovered after I had paid thirty bucks for mine.

Because that is the dirty little secret of many of our childhood memories:  We have the attention span, in cultural terms, of a gnat, and an idea that sounded fabulous when it was first derived quickly loses its flame when exposed to the cold wind of the actual experience.  Roc’Em Soc’Em robots, like Slinkys and Hula Hoops and so many other fads, get boring real fast.  Once you have assembled the kit, which is easy, and admired the simple mechanical mechanism that takes no batteries, needs no oil, but does need an opponent to become something other than an exercise in self-flagellation, you are left waiting for the kid to come home from school, so you can demonstrate the superiority of the good old days once and for all.

Your enthusiasm is almost guaranteed to take a dive after she comes in and sees the new toy, says, “Cool!”, and then proceeds to beat the plastic pants off you with ease.  I should have known.  Today’s children are the second or third generation that has been raised from infancy surrounded by electronic devices, and quickly demonstrate a practiced efficiency with them and an innate understanding of how to make them work that is difficult to grasp for someone who remembers dial telephones with numbers that start with a word.  An eleven-year-old kid already has five or six years of joystick experience, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

As for the robots, they are already gathering dust on a shelf while waiting for White Elephant status next Christmas.  Our families started this tradition years ago, where you search around your house for some useless item like a Singing Bass plaque, or the Norwegian Briefcase (a pair of tightey-whiteys with a handle sewn into the waistband), wrap it up in tissue paper (newsprint works), and put it under the tree with the rest of them.  The wrinkle is that, as each “gift” is unwrapped and displayed to much groaning and laughter, the next person in line (you draw numbers) has a choice between one of the still wrapped packages or any of the already revealed items.  The best stuff changes hand several times during the course of the evening, and the loser of the chosen piece gets to pick again, with often hilarious results and comments.  It beats the heck out of Christmas shopping, not to mention the chance to return an idea to the dustbin of memory where it belongs.

So the next time you stumble across a blast from the past, and are handed an opportunity to go there and maybe do that again, think twice, then a third time.  Sometimes those things belong right where you left them, in the past.  :-{)}

Madison Avenue

As I coated my armpits with scented wax this morning, in preparation for a day to be spent mostly puttering about the house, with maybe some interaction with a store clerk later, I found myself thinking about advertising.  Specifically, about the unfortunate side effects of a successful advertising campaign.

Think about it.  What caused many us to do the same thing every morning right after stepping out of a nice cleansing shower (I suppose I must accept the idea that maybe everyone else in the world has caught on by now, and I am the last one, but the size and variety of the deodorant section in any grocery or drug store points out the impetuosity of that logic)?

Has it been thundered down upon us from pulpits across the land:  People, you stink! God wants you to do something about it!?  No. I think not.  Those kingdoms are not of this world, which sorta implies that there are no deodorant counters in the aisles of Heaven, and in Hell, the lack of same could conceivably be part of the punishment.

Has this practice been the result of a long, ordered public process, with committees and hearings and participation, all the things that have in the past resulted in the observation that getting something done in the City is like mating elephants:  It is accomplished at a high level, accompanied by much trumpeting and screaming, and it takes 3 years to see any results (the process is the same at the federal level, but the timelines are extended)?  I don’t think so.  My many years as a bureaucrat and functionary within the belly of that particular beast helped me find my true value to the City, that of making any meeting last 20 minutes longer, and I am sure I would have been notified at some point in that process.  I would have probably written the spec. for the Stink Vote, if not campaigned for its defeat.

I understand the Spanish Conquistadores never bathed, ever, and covered their funk with ever more lavish splashes of scented water or cologne, so maybe there is something to that, some idea that a clever Madison Ave grad seized upon and ran with and brought us to the way things are today.

Probably the issue came to light as more and more people were crowded together in stuffy little offices full of cubicles, with closet sized lunch rooms like on the 52^nd floor of SMT, or gathered in bunches at the local school gymnasium to protest the latest outrage.

But I think the die was cast in the ‘30s by folks like Fred Astaire, who could dance incredibly for 15 minutes at a time, yet not break a sweat in the process.  Ginger Rogers, another one, who did everything Fred did, but did it backwards in high heels, also without breaking a sweat.

But there is a danger in following this line of thought to its presumably logical conclusion.  The question becomes, “If they have convinced the vast majority of us that we smell bad, and that politeness demands that we hide our natural odor to avoid giving offense to our co-workers, thus spawning a multi-billion dollar industry ($18 Billion last year, says the all-knowing Google), what else have they talked us into?

How about mirrors?  Why do we really care about how we look at a given time?  If we’re really ugly that morning, won’t someone tell us?  And we don’t have to look at us, we’re inside these eyes, so isn’t it more important how we feel?  How often to you ask someone, “How do you feel?”, and have them reply, “I feel good, but I look bad.”  So now everyone has mirrors in their houses, with the possible exception of those few who recognize them as the leaks into alternate universes that they really are and keep theirs taped up.  We all know you can’t break ‘em.  And we all spend money on mirrors, and hair brushes, and spray, and coloring, and makeup, and foundation, and skin cream, and facial exercises, and why?  We have to look in the mirror to see if it worked, don’t we?  So if we got rid of the mirrors, wouldn’t that allow us to dump all that other stuff, too?

So what else?  How about clothes in the summertime?  You know there is only so many times you can wear that favorite t-shirt until it begins to sag and stain, especially in the armpits with the wax and all, then it gets all holey and you toss it.  So ask yourself, “Did Adam and Eve wear clothes? No, not at all, at least at first, and then only a fig leaf or three, if you believe the pictures.  And all the history books show that clothing, especially in warm climates, has always been optional, so it follows that Madison Avenue, paid by the companies that make and sell that clothing, has mounted a campaign over the years to make it logical and desireable that we wear clothes all the time, at least out in public.  When we don’t, they take pictures and spread them all over the internet without sharing the royalties with us, even.  I bet they all lost money in the ‘60s…

Any way, I’m climbing back down off this tree stump for now.  My work here is done.  I’ve planted the seed and will sit back and watch it grow and flower into a vast network of right thinking people who reject Madison Avenue and all it stands for, just like kudzu or, with apologies to Frank Herbert, sentient kelp. Just remember, next time you step out of the shower, to ask yourself, “Do I really need this?”   :-{)}