Have Yourself a White Bread Little Holiday (and other Chris..err Holiday Stories)

Christmas is done for 2014.  Like a Dickensian Christmas ghost it snuck up on us, stayed for an instant and then dissolved into winter’s fog.  Every year around Halloween we bellyache that “those capitalist bastard retailers are foisting Christmas on us earlier and earlier every year.”  And then a couple days before Christmas we’re in a panic because we managed to procrastinate away the 2 months long shopping season that the capitalist bastards graced us with.   “What the hell do I get for the wife?  She already has everything.”  So we head for Ross and grab a sweater, any sweater.  On Christmas morning she opens the box, holds it up and asks, “Did you save the receipt?”

Independence Day Musings

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ The Declaration of Independence

“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

July 4^th, 2014.  After taking my usual sunrise run I was surprised, and disappointed, to see that my coffee house haunt was open at 6, the usual time for a weekday.  Not so disappointed that I boycotted coffee for the day but enough so that it gave pause to note that another holiday was passing with business as usual.  Workers were arriving at Home Depot to start the day and the Big Lots folks were putting out their Independence Day displays; sadly they aren't independent from work on what should be one of the most significant holidays in America’s calendar year.

It was 238 years ago that the Declaration of Independence from the British crown was adopted.  It was, for all intents and purposes already a done deal.  Two days prior the 2^nd Continental Congress had approved Richard Henry Lee’s resolution declaring independence.  And this certainly didn't mark the day that the colonists took up arms.  The revolution had been going on since April of the preceding year and the colonists had been raising bloody hell (As King George might have said) for some time before that.  The Declaration of Independence wouldn't even be signed until the following month.  But I’m splitting hairs, aren't I? 

Easter; Memories of Eggs, Dogs, Cold Cuts and Japanese Tourists

“New Rule: Someone must x-ray my stomach to see if the Peeps I ate on Easter are still in there, intact and completely undigested. And I'm not talking about this past Easter. I'm talking about the last time I celebrated Easter, in 1962.”  ~ Bill Maher

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” ~ Gospel according to Matthew 27:50-53.

It’s Easter; the time to celebrate eggs, chocolate, hard boiled and jelly bean; pastels; bunnies; baby chicks; horrid marshmallows called Peeps; bright flowers and spring.  Oh yeah, it also celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after he was crucified, which is celebrated as Good Friday.  That’s the Christian (read; original) version of the holiday and I’m not here to refute it or ratify it.  I’m not feeling a religious debate today. 

Christmas Potpourri 2013: Bikes and Turkey Soda and "Twains" (Err Trains)

"Christmas isn't a season.  It's a feeling."  ~Edna Ferber

Many of us in America start the countdown to Christmas as soon as the Thanksgiving leftovers have been stuffed into the fridge.  And so Christmas seemed to arrive early this year because just when we were waking up from the turkey and stuffing stupor and erupting cranberry flavored belches November was already rolling into December.

Tall Tales of Trimming Trees

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.”

~ Larry Wilde

“I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects.”   ~ Charles Dickens

“You know,” I said to Cora, “I've been thinking more and more about getting an artificial tree.” 

“Yeah, we aren't getting any younger and a real tree is a lot of work.”

“Wanna stop by Home Depot and just look?” 

This was our conversation as we pulled out of our street headed for the local Christmas tree lot. 

When I was a kid my parents held artificial trees in contempt.  Easy enough to do back then, when artificial trees were strange looking aluminum structures in ghastly, garish colors; pink, silver and blue.  Christmas tree shopping is one of the few things that's not seen much change since I was a kid.  We took the half hour or so drive to one of the lots on El Camino Real near downtown San Mateo.  A fellow with a 10 foot ruler followed a few steps behind us as we tiptoed through the mud created by the rain that we always got then and never seem to get now.  We followed the ritual that every family has followed since the 1840s when the tannebaum became a saleable commodity.  Dad would grab a likely candidate by the trunk and tilt it and turn it as we inspected it for any flaws that might disqualify it from adorning our living room.  The tree had to be full and without any conspicuous gaps in the branches and it had to stand straight.  Size didn't really matter.  Six foot was just fine because in the 60s cathedral ceilings were something that only the folks in nearby, ritzy Hillsborough had.  Our plebian ceiling topped out at 8 feet.  Once we found a likely candidate the fellow with the ruler stepped up and measured the tree, my mom watching carefully to make sure he didn't add phantom inches.  He wrote the tree's height and price on a slip of paper for my parents to take to the cashier.  Once the tree was ours dad stuffed it in the back of our big, clunky Mercury station wagon. 

Thanksgiving; A Breaking of Tradition

Ah! On Thanksgiving day....

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.

What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?

~John Greenleaf Whittier

With a few days to go until the big feast I stepped into the dining room and noticed that Cora had set the big table with the Thanksgiving tablecloth.  Pausing for a moment I realized sadly, that it wouldn’t be used this year.  This year the table would sit empty and idle on Thanksgiving. 

The American Adventure - The Open Road

It's July, 2013 and my wife Cora and I are taking a driving trip through Northern California and into Oregon. 

The wife and I have embarked on that great American summer adventure; that annual migration of the dog days; that paean to the interstate, the motorcar and fuel consumption; the modern day version of the pioneers’ tale – the road trip.  We've headed north from the San Francisco Bay to a distant, uncharted and exotic land – Oregon.  Okay, it’s not distant; it’s only 300 miles or so.  And it’s hardly uncharted.  After all I went out recently and bought a GPS so Oregon, the rest of this land and all of hell’s half acre are all pretty well charted.

Joining Mr. Lincoln's Army

What was it, the early 90’s when I saw my first Civil War reenactment?  Must have been the very early 90’s; maybe the late 80’s.  That's it; 1989.  When I heard that such things existed I thought, my God, where have they been all my life.  I’d gone through nearly 40 years and missed these things?

The National Civil War Association held the event on Memorial Day weekend near Felton in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Revisiting 1863 in the hills that look down on the Silicon Valley.  There was some irony.  As we approached the site we were met by a sentry in the woolen blue of a Union infantryman.  Oh my, I thought, what a wonderful place!  I'd found a history buff's nirvana.

A Day in Virginia; Circa 1863

The American Civil War is arguably the most important event in the nation's history.  It's been written that "everything in American history leading up to 1860 was a cause of the Civil War and everything that has happened since was caused by the Civil War."  An overstatement? Perhaps, but not by much.  And so on these days surrounding Memorial Day, which began in response to The Civil War and as the nation commemorates the sesquicentennial of that conflict I'm devoting a series of blogs to some observations of The American Civil War; then and now.  

There’s a chinkle of spurs and the crunch of boot heels on the dry, rocky sun bleached path.  The creaking of leather is slightly audible beneath the jangling of sabers that hang from their belts and the Sharps carbines slung over their backs.  Some stray civilians wander into the area and stop to point at the three as they stride with purpose along the uneven lane.  The trio is clad in blue wool jackets trimmed in yellow and fastened with a row of dull brass buttons.  Their trousers, also of wool are light blue, tucked into knee high black boots that wear a layer of gray dust.  Each man wears on his left hip a large .44 caliber revolver, the brown handle peeking out from a black flapped holster.  Two of the men have full beards, the third wears the rough stubble of a few days growth.  Their faces are splotched with dirt and their eyes, heavy and weary from lack of sleep are barely shaded from the morning sun by the leather brims of their caps. Woolen, worn, and grimy, each cap bears the crossed saber insignia that designate them as cavalrymen.  One of the three sips coffee from a beaten old tin cup while another takes an occasional pull from a blue, fabric covered canteen.  The three talk among themselves and occasionally one acknowledges a greeting from a curious onlooker. 

Discarding Christmas

Six A.M. of a rainy day after Christmas; dreary, dark and cold.  Driving to work with the relatively few others of the sleepy and depressed on the freeway; and wondering why.  I guess this is how it is on the day after Christmas.

Christmas Potpourri; 2012 Edition

Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.~ Washington Irving 

Its Christmas Eve morn and I’ve just braved the crowds at Andronico’s, one of the areas high end food stores.  Cora doesn’t see much use for such stores unless we need something that’s actually good to eat; fresh produce, quality meats, cuts that you don’t find at the local market and fish that wasn’t raised on a farm.  Today’s mission was to get some good bread, crusty pain au lavain from San Francisco’s Acme Bakery.  On my way to checkout I grabbed a boxed pandoro, a sweet Italian bread, dusted with powdered sugar to resemble the snow covered Alps. 

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Sitting amongst the wreckage of Thanksgiving at the kitchen table – some dinner rolls in a zip lock, a cranberry cake (deliciously baked by my daughter I might add), some cornbread and God knows what’s in the fridge.  I’m almost afraid to open the door for fear of being buried by an avalanche of leftover feast.

Black Thanksgiving: A Real Turkey - 2012 Edition

“CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” ~ Ambrose Bierce.

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.” ~ Confucius

“There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.”  ~ O Henry

Inching through Berkeley in rush hour traffic (Why in the hell do they call it rush hour when it takes that hour to go 5 miles? Where exactly is the rush part?) NPR brought the impending holiday season into stark blinding reality.  It reported that this year Wal-Mart will be kicking off the holiday shopping season by opening its doors at 8 PM on Thanksgiving night. 

Last year, in this very space I published a post titled Black Thanksgiving: A Real Turkey in which I criticized the marginalizing of our great American holiday, Thanksgiving, in favor of a new ritual; that of bundling up and leaving the holiday festivities for a round of bargain hunting hysteria.  I protested, vehemently I might add, the decision by Wal-Mart to open at 10 PM on Thanksgiving night.  In its audacity, Wal-Mart not only didn’t take my beef with them seriously, it upped the ante and decided to open its doors two hours earlier than last year.  The very effrontery of it all.  Obviously Walmart doesn’t know who it’s dealing with.  No, really, they don’t.  They don’t have the foggiest idea who I am and even if they did they wouldn’t care.  I’m that gnat on the ass of an elephant (or more properly the ass of an ass). Nonetheless I feel compelled to play David to Sam’s Goliath. 

Working For a Living II: Labor's Day

The story's always the same

Seven hundred tons of metal a day

Now sir you tell me the world's changed

Once I made you rich enough

Rich enough to forget my name

From “Youngstown”  Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
From “Solidarity Forever”  Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin

Maybe this year we should call it Labor's Day; own it.  Maybe those of us who are the worker bees should claim it back.  Look to the roots of what the holiday should be about. At one time it celebrated the worker; the worker who fought hard for fair treatment and a fair wage in exchange for the sweat on his brow.  We’ve regressed.  Now it’s just another day off.  How poetic it would be if only the workers got the day off and the CEOs and their high level brethren had to do, just for one day, what the minions do every day and do it thanklessly.  I dare say the first thing that would happen is that they would fuck it up horribly ( Because, "Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel would turn.").

Memorial Monday Musings

 

It's Memorial Day Weekend.  Today is the day that we celebrate the time honored tradition of  barbecuing pork flesh.  Or is it the day that we honor basketball by watching an NBA playoff game?  It could be Fireworks at the Ball Park Day.  In honor of filling corporate retail coffers it might be the day you get to take twenty five percent off anything in the store and take an extra 15 percent if you use your store credit card (exclusions apply; does not include Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Nautica or Izod).  Maybe it's the day we revel in the great American motor car by getting 0.9% financing on any new car in the lot (FICO score of 720 or better).  Actually those are some of the things that we DO on Memorial Day.  They are certainly not the spirit and meaning of Memorial Day; regardless of the fact that many of our fellow Americans believe so.  

My dad always called it by its original name, Decoration Day.  In 1868, Union veterans of the Civil War set aside May 5th to decorate the graves of Civil War dead with flowers.  Major General John Logan later established May 30th as the day to honor America's war dead; a date chosen because flowers would be in plentiful bloom nationwide. 

President's Day

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom — and of whom only — it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Its President’s Day Weekend and once this holiday is over the next one is over the hills and far away; Memorial Day.  President’s Day has lost some of its stature; not everyone gets this one off.  I hear that on the East Coast they get Columbus Day instead of President’s Day.  Here in the Bay Area, especially Berkeley, Columbus Day is also known as bash European explorer day.  That's with the exception of San Francisco itself which because of it's large Italian community still holds a celebration.  Is it just me or is there something a little wrong with half the country celebrating a wayward Genovese explorer while snubbing the presidents?

Has the holiday lost some of its worth because some recent officeholders have lacked in quality?  I’m speaking specifically of a certain dumbass from Texas.  Meh, mediocrity in the White House is nothing particularly new.

We didn’t always have President’s Day.  In the good old days we celebrated Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12^th and Washington’s Birthday on February 22^nd; sweet.  In 1968 the two were consolidated into President’s Day and I’m sure businessmen nationwide rejoiced; one less day that, to paraphrase Scrooge, they wouldn’t feel “ill-used” to “pay a day’s wages for no work.”

There are other holidays that carry that quasi status, one of them being Veteran’s Day.  I remember when I was a child I got the day off while my father, a veteran of World War Two, dutifully went to work.  Some years back I shared an office with a fellow who spent a year of his young life in the bush in Vietnam.  Every Veteran’s Day he expressed some bitterness over the fact that everybody except veterans gets the day off.  Something is really out of kilter when vets have to work on the day set aside in their honor.  I’ve got a great idea.  Why don’t we get to the point to where we stop creating war vets?  For instance, we shouldn’t be creating one more single, solitary veteran of the war in Afghanistan.  Bin Laden is dead, mission accomplished and there is no nation to be built in Afghanistan; essentially a loose collection of tribes that seem content with the status quo. 

We’ll be selecting a president once again this year and the battle has shaped up to be the dirtiest and most un-American in recent or distant memory.  Let’s take Rick Santorum’s statement last Saturday in Ohio, chiding the current president for his theology; “It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology," Why un-American?  I’ll answer your question with the question; what in the hell is the Bible doing in American political discourse?  A candidate’s personal theology should have no bearing on his electability and subsequent performance.  I don’t give a damn about a president’s theology as long as it stays within his domestic circle.  It’s when that theology becomes a matter of policy that I get more than a little squeamish.  In fact I don’t care if someone runs for president because God told him to.  Just keep that little secret between you, God and any other voices you hear.  This is personal stuff along the lines of what the president and first lady do in bed.  I suppose if Santorum gets elected we’ll know exactly what he and the missus do in the sack.  NOTHING.  It seems Mr. Santorum, a hidebound Roman Catholic, doesn’t believe in contraception so unless he wants more little Santorum’s running around (there’s a sobering thought) he’s going to have to keep that gun holstered.  One doesn’t know whether to feel sorry for Mrs. Santorum or rejoice in her good luck.   

And since we’re on the subject of things un-American on President’s Day, we started this holiday weekend with a letter from the local homeowner’s association.  It was a letter to the entire association chiding the lot of us for keeping what they consider to be squalid lots.  At the top of the list was the dreaded basketball hoop in the driveway.  For the life of me I can’t understand what in the hell is wrong with a basketball hoop.  To me it’s a symbol of that suburban American home where the neighborhood kids and a dad or two gather to shoot hoops on a summer evening.  This is just the kind of thing that would attract me to a neighborhood.  In the twisted minds of the HOA busybodies it’s a symbol of declining property values.  And I don’t really care if the house across the street still has Christmas lights up and I don’t care if the guy next door didn’t put his trash bin inside the fence and I don’t care if he parks his cars in his own driveway instead of the garage.  If there is any purpose to be served by an HOA it’s to keep that over exuberant Giants fan from painting his house bright orange with black trim (although it might serve a dual purpose come Halloween).  And yes it will keep the would be mechanic from storing a half built '53 Chevy on the front lawn.  But beyond that, leave us the fuck alone.  When I was growing up our HOA was a neighborhood busybody who circulated petitions against his neighbors.  Hell I’ll bet those stodgy HOA snoopers don’t do anything in bed either.

Grace Cathedral's stained glass

This President’s Day Sunday we ventured to San Francisco to attend church service at Grace Cathedral.  It’s the one time every month when we go to church together.  My wife, bless her soul, accompanies me to the Episcopal Cathedral instead of going to her usual Roman Catholic service.  Her mind and soul are much more open than mine because I refuse to go into a Roman Catholic Church.  The service at Grace is always stirring and impressive.  It is, to me anyway, a deeply spiritual experience; the lofty nave, the stained glass filtered light, the harmonious voices of the choirs, the dramatic timber of that grand pipe organ and on this Sunday the homily by Reverend, Doctor Jane Shaw delivered in her stately British accent (can it get more Anglican than that?).  On this day we didn’t walk and meditate in one of the two labyrinths as have in the past. 

The view from Pier 39 can be stunning

No, on this day we decided to walk a different labyrinth after church; Pier 39.  Cora suggested that we go to one of the hotels for brunch but I came up with the ridiculous idea of going to Pier 39.  Ridiculous because Pier 39 is a tourist attraction/shopping mall located on the bay front.  Going to Pier 39 isn’t like visiting that other attraction, the Golden Gate Bridge and taking a refreshing, breathtaking walk across the span.  While there are some nice bay views from Pier 39 it is still just a collection of shops hawking touristy junk, video game arcades, street performers and restaurants gouging tourists for bad food.  Case in point is a place called Hook and Cook which sits under a large figure of Captain Hook (how long before Disney sues over that sign) holding a pan with a pissed off looking fish.  The sign just screams, “Do not eat here.”  The fish is probably pissed off over being badly cooked. There are only three reasons why locals go to Pier 39:

                To take out of town visitors who insist on going because a mis-guided, guide book said it is a must see.

                They have children still in their teens or younger.

                They are themselves still in their teens or younger.

The schlocky glory of Pier 39

Okay so now there are four reasons; the last being an adult who should know better gets a wild hair and says, “Hey instead of walking across the street from church for brunch at the Fairmont lets go to Pier 39.”  There really isn’t any charm, culture or history to Pier 39.  Approaching it from the pedestrian bridge over Beach Street you’re assaulted by an overpowering sickeningly sweet smell that must be a mixture of chocolate, waffle cones, cotton candy and churros.  The sounds are mostly those of tourist families enjoying their time in The City; “Leave your sister alone!”  “Dammit, stop climbing that railing!”  “Finish your food!” “Stop teasing the sea lions and get over here.”  And then there’s my favorite, “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you a real reason to cry!”  Ah the joys of family vacations.  The other sound is the one that is now ubiquitous in every tourist attraction; the Bolivian/Peruvian/Chilean/Columbian or whateverotherSouthAmerican, pan flute street musician.  It isn’t bad music and is in fact often quite good.  I’m just wondering how they came to be so common at tourist sites.  They seem to be as necessary as t-shirt shops.  But let’s face it they are still much more talented than the young men who spray paint themselves and strike a pose.  I guess after having seen Michelangelo’s Pieta in St. Peter’s I’m indifferent to a kid who’s spray painted himself gold.  Okay, so I’m a statue snob. 

We took a brief walk in a biting bay wind.  I stepped into the candy store and was sorely tempted by the tubs of salt water taffy but, at five bucks a pound, resisted.  We came very close to going into one of the sit down restaurants but decided that we would be paying top dollar for mediocre seafood.  I opted for a hot dog and Cora for the ever popular chowder in a bread bowl from a street vendor.  It wasn’t a miserable time.  It was something of a remembrance, maybe bittersweet, of times past when we brought our children and watched them ride the carousel or waited for what seemed hours as they played in the video game arcade and yet it was a reminder that we really aren’t in the market for an “I escaped from Alcatraz” t-shirt and don't need to visit again.  Maybe next time we’ll have brunch at one of the hotels or get some Korean food over on Clement Street. 

And finally on this President’s Day I’m reminded of the President of Taiwan; not so much the fellow himself but his recent election to office.  In my work, I deal on almost a daily basis with a young woman who is from Taiwan but works in Qingdao on the mainland.  Last month she missed a regular conference call because she chose to fly from Qingdao to Taiwan for the sole purpose of casting her vote in the election.  She holds that right of suffrage so dear that she is willing to take the two hour flight and pay the over 500 dollar air fare to exercise it. Meanwhile here in the so called cradle of democracy we are looking at low voter turnouts in the presidential primaries.  The more that we take our suffrage for granted the more we put it at risk.  Have a happy President’s Day and celebrate the fact that whatever you think of the man who holds the office (at any given time), he was, after all, freely elected.  

Comments are greatly appreciated and encouraged and may be left in the comments section below.  Unrepentant spam will be deleted and sent to spam hell.