Below ARE various stories I have penned:
draft # 5 tom darby June 2018
Chamberlain
Imagine a huge black bear, waist-high and just as wide running out of control towards you. Panic struck, what do you do? Run? Stand your ground? Try to get out of the way but no place to go? Such a decision faced me daily in the ancient halls of the old French hotel. Slop, slop, slurp, slurp, drool, drool, wet faced here it comes..., Chamberlain the huge Saint Bernard dog that ruled all that was unfortunate enough it be in his path.
Why did that dog, black as a mourner’s suit with hair as long as Godiva's, always treat everyone as though they were his long lost lover. It's huge body charging at full speed at you unexpectedly, always landed you on your backside with this affectionate monster giving you its sloppy wet muzzle kiss. Imagine getting your face washed with a dirty, wet, string-mop... That was Chamberlain's way of saying hello. If you were lucky, the owner / Chef de cuisine would be soon following to pull him off you... otherwise, nearby staff would glance and turn away feeling lucky it was you underneath him and not them.
In the mid-1970's I went to a small resort town on the French Normandy coast to learn to be a French Chef, at a hotel restaurant. I was in my 20's, never been away from home and didn't speak French. No one in the hotel spoke English. The hotel was a three-hundred-year-old structure facing the beach sands. In its basement was a full-service kitchen where I spent my days from 9:00 in the morning to well after 10:00 at night every day of the week. The owner of the hotel was also the Chef de Cuisine and he, his family and Chamberlain lived in an apartment adjacent to the kitchen.
On the surface, the Chef was a gruff old man with three-quarters of a century of culinary fatigue sweating from his wrinkled brow. He was prone to regular rage when things didn't go well. Stupid mistakes or backtalk often ended up in minor violence with a slap in the head or a kick in the butt of the young apprentices. You learned fast that mistakes were not tolerated and punishment was severe and assured.
There were few signs of kindness from the Chef. I was perhaps fortunate, not realizing it at the time, but he did allow my ignorance to interfere with his professional standards, as I think he realized my desire to come halfway around the world to learn from him. The one regular respite we got from his demanding presence was when his dog Chamberlain was with him. This military-like drill sergeant of a man would be reduced to childlike playfulness when his dog was by his side.... yes, often in the steaming intensity of the restaurant kitchen. Line cooks at the hot stove would have their backsides massaged as the dog would rub up against them while they flipped hot sauté pans. Waitresses would brace themselves from a sloppy nudge while trying to balance three trays above their head and get out of the way of the dog's extra personal investigative nose. At any given moment, the old Chef would, on his way through the crowded kitchen drop to one knee, wrap his huge arms around the dog's neck and give it a hug like only lovers would do.
Chamberlain, the dog, was named after Neville Chamberlain, a French political jab to the former Prime Minister of England who advocated appeasement to Hitler during World War Two. The dog was nearly full-grown yet young enough to still be rambunctious and full of enough affection and energy to cause a lot of trouble. His paws were the size of dinner plates. If you showed any affection for him he would stand up and plant both of his front feet squarely on your chest.... something you never wanted to happen twice. His slobbering muzzle was forever sweeping the sawdust-covered kitchen floor like a vacuum sucking up every fallen food scrap and scent of delicious morsels.
Early in World War Two, the "Canadiennes" launched an experimental and disastrous attack here on Fortress Europe, a precursor to the D-day invasion years later. Nine hundred were slaughtered and thousands wounded and taken prisoner. Thirty-five years later this hotel was full of returning Canadian veterans here for a celebration in gratitude for their heroic sacrifices. In this small town there was no restaurant big enough to hold the hundreds of guest expected at the celebration dinner. The plan was to hold it in a large gymnasium and have all the restaurants in town contribute portions of the meal. Our restaurant's task was to roast two whole racks of lamb. A rack of lamb is the torso of a lamb between the front and back legs, which included all the ribs and backbone. It is a large assemblage of meat, too large for most ovens. Our ancient kitchen still had a 19th century cast iron behemoth of a stove with ovens big enough for the whole affair.
We trimmed the racks by slicing off the meat at the upward-pointing tips of the rib bones. After cooking, these rib tips would be decorated, as the French would do with decorative paper caps placed on them. Each rack was placed in huge, heavy, solid copper roasting pans nearly three feet square. Once filled with meat, onions, carrots, potatoes, broth, and spices, it took four strong men to lift the pans safely. Into the cavernous, firing ovens they went.
The hotel floor plan was shaped in a "U" with a gravel alley in the middle, between the two wings. This alley was used for pick up and deliveries. In preparation for the celebration, we had two Citroen "deux chevaux" (two horses) pickups ready to carry the food to the dinner. You might recall these cute little cars made internationally famous in the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies.
Four of the larger cooks, including myself all grabbed our ever-present towels tucked at our waist, to protect our hands from the heat of the hot pan's handles. Out of the flaming oven came the first roasted rack. Gloriously drizzled with steaming gravy, giving aromas I can still remember fifty years later. We twisted through the crowded kitchen, out onto the loading dock, down the stairs, sliding the heavy pans into the pickup bed. Back to the kitchen for the second roast. Same thing again... out of the oven, through the kitchen and onto the loading dock.
As we viewed the truck, horror upon horror as our jaws dropped and hearts stopped. The second pan of roasted lamb in our hands was getting heavier by the second. Our hands were beginning to burn through the towels as we stood stunned, holding the hot handles of the pan. Looking down off the loading dock, was Chamberlain.... He was laying in the alley behind the pickup we had just previously put the first roast in. He had pulled the hot lamb roast out of the pan, onto the gravel alley and was feasting with heaven's delight on the end lamb chop. Now, one would think that our first thought would be to kill the dog.... but given the Chef's temper, our first concern was our own safety. We grabbed one of the waitresses who was standing aside out of the way and told her to go find the Chef, as we all backed away, waiting for the tempest to follow.
Like a locomotive steaming and fuming the Chef came roaring through the kitchen. The waitress was afraid to tell him what had happened, only that there had been an "accident". His red face glared at our white faces as our hearts stopped. We all stood on the loading dock, looking down at the dog. Chef's eyes raging, raising his arms over his head in disbelief he shouted the explicative: "Mon Dieu!" (my god). We all cleared a path like the parting of the biblical sea, as the Chef dived off the dock shouting furious orders to us all. Three of us grabbed the hot roast lamb carcass. The overweight Chef, sat flat on his butt in the gravel with his legs spread around Chamberlain and his arms wrapped around its neck. We were all pulling in opposite directions like a sea-saw, back and forth. Chamberlain had hit the jackpot and was not going to give up this prize.
Having no idea how this was all going to turn out, we all suspected that either the dog or all of us would be dead soon. When we finally parted Chamberlain form his lunch, now minus one lamb chop, the exhausted Chef was laying on the ground with his arms hugging Chamberlain. Tears of laughter ran down the old man's cheeks.
Now what? With the agility of a fireman carrying a victim out of a burning house, the Chef whipped his towel up to protect his shoulder from the hot meat, picked up the lamb and carried it back into the kitchen to the meat block.
This kitchen cooked everything from scratch, there on the spot. Live, fresh fish were brought in every day and placed in a water tank on the dock to be gutted and fried just minutes before serving. Chickens, lamb and beef carcasses were delivered whole and butchered on a gigantic butcher block big enough to hold a whole beef.
The Chef laid the hot rack of lamb on the block, and grabbed a huge cleaver which had a three-foot handle and a sharp blade reminiscent of a guillotine, capable of removing the head any cow. Over his head and down came the knife, severing deftly the last two chops on the rack. He tossed them to the ever-present and delighted Chamberlain. A quick rollover of the lamb to inspect and remove any unwanted flavorings from the alley, then back into the pan and into the truck. Then he shouted to us "depart! Aller!"
Chamberlain was eating better than I was. First choice of the best meat, and I, as staff, was lucky to get leftover vegetables. He was acquiring a very sophisticated palate for fine French cuisine.
t.d. 2018
draft 3.9 May 2018
Ants in France
I was about as useful as a frying pan without a stove. First time overseas. First time on an airplane. First time away from home. I was five thousand miles from the secure nest I was raised in. Now in a rural French kitchen, I didn't know anyone and didn't speak French and no one I knew there spoke English. If you've ever heard the expression: "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen".... it was coined in this 300-year-old French restaurant. It didn't take me long to realized that the confidence and arrogance of my youth had put me in way over my head.
I was in my early 20's when a neighbor lady invited me to a dinner party where she served a French soufflé. This was the most intriguing kitchen chemistry marvel that had ever caressed my taste buds. Lighter than air, whiffs of cheese and melt-in-your-mouth savories. Fifty years later I still feel my tongue salivate at the thought of that delightful life-changing moment.
This meal made me know I wanted to be a Chef, not just a cook, but a "French Chef de Cuisine". In the seventies, nobody knew how to cook. I was always hungry, and all my girlfriends had trouble opening a tuna can. My salvation was in my hands alone. I immediately bought Julia Child's book Mastering the Art of French Cooking and made every recipe in it that I could find the ingredients for. There was a daily cooking show on the local TV station. I skipped out of work at 10:00 AM every morning to watch it and made every dish that night. The Joy of Cooking became my bible for food and cooking theory. Sadly, most of my efforts didn't look like the illustrations in the books, but failure is a more memorable teacher than success. I was on my way!
A year later I found myself in a hotel kitchen in rural France. I had always thought the French were refined and elegant folks who loved food, art, and dogs. And indeed they do. But the first Frenchman I met had an iron fist and a temperament as fragile as the eggshells he broke daily. This man.... no excuse me, "Chef", ruled the kitchen like a tyrant. He was huge, had a wine barrel chest, and wore a blood-splattered butcher's apron tied around a belly that reflected every sauce voloute', crepe suzette and Bordeaux wine that had traversed his lips. His aging, cabbage shaped head, bald on top, had shaggy wisps of white hair surrounding it like the friars in a monastery. His nose was cherry red, from a half-century of French wine and his lips were covered with a woolly white mustache. The stress of creating ten thousand meals left furrowed wrinkles across his age-spotted, sweating brow.
The summer heat outside was unbearable but nothing compared to standing sweat-soaked for hours in front of the huge, flaming, belching, iron, 20-foot long monster that passed for a cookstove. This was the cooking heart of the kitchen where all was consecrated before being consumed by the masses. At any given moment a terrifying bellow from the Chef would roll like a tsunami through the kitchen. Words in furious French that I did not know, words not taught in any French class and not in any dictionary, were hurled by his thunderous voice. Line cooks parted like the biblical sea, waitresses disappeared into the woodwork, and I froze, dumbfounded, never knowing if I should run, if I only had someplace to go. Something was amiss. In the fury of angry merdes( a French scatological term), one of the ninth grade dropouts (young boys who left school to become apprentices and were responsible for scullery pot scrubbing and returning all cooking utensils to their proper place) came running to the Chef's command. Growling at the top of his lungs at the young boy, it appeared that a paring knife was missing... the boy's responsibility. From what I could grasp it appeared the Chef was accusing the boy of stealing the knife. Knives are not just any utensil in a real French kitchen. They are finely crafted instruments, and one is worth more than a long day's wages. They are the scalpel to the surgeon, the pen to the author and as valuable as his taste buds to a dedicated chef.
The terrified boy mumbled something, then started to backtalk to the Chef. Then clearly I heard the boy shout: "The American took it!" Like a blow to my stilled heart, I froze knowing that I could not defend myself from this charge. The chef turned to me, with fuming red face, stepped back and with the fury of a raging elephant grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and lifted him two feet off the floor and slammed his back into the wall, and with spit flying from his raging lips, said: "No young chef would come halfway around the world to learn in my kitchen and then steal my knives!!!
He called me a "chef"! He acknowledged the desire I had to emulate his skills and more importantly, I saw for the first time he had a fair and honest heart. A boisterous man, but an honest man, willing to give an earnest stranger the benefit of the doubt. Now with a little more confidence and the hope that if I would never cross him, I realized that I could learn a lot from this man.
In time, I was taught to make the classic Genoise gateau. Three plain vanilla cakes, 18 inches in diameter, made every day. These were delicate, finicky cakes to make with only egg whites as a leaven. Light golden brown, good just plain. However, they could easily be enhanced with a fresh fruit glazing or nuts on top, or rich butter frosting, or soaked with honey and rum. On this day the Chef ordered a rich lemon butter frosting top, bare cake sides, and shaved almond slices as garnish.
The sliced almonds were kept outside in a shed on the receiving dock at the back of the restaurant. I went out with a liter measure to scoop the almonds out of the large cloth bag. This was a huge bag, resting on the floor rising as high as my belt and twice the size of my waist around. I unrolled the top of the previously opened bag to scoop out my measure. To my horror, as I raised the measure I could see a zillion tiny ants crawling all over the almonds and now up my arm. Retching, I dropped the measure and froze trying to think how I was going to interrupt the always frantic Chef and explain this in my broken Fran-glish. I raced to the chef.... you never walked in his presence. I leaned over his shoulder as he toiled over the flaming stove. I didn’t know the word for ants. I could come up with probleme avec almande, and I ran my finger up and down my arm like ants. With a nasty scowl on his red, sweating face standing before the fire, I immediately stepped back to get out of his way. He hollered to the next line cook to take over his sauté and grabbed my arm as we scurried towards the back shed.
He grabbed a two by three-foot metal cookie sheet, picked up my measure and scooped up an overflowing amount of almonds. Ants exploded everywhere. To my amazement he spread the almonds and scurrying ants out on the cookie sheet and raced back to the heart of the kitchen. Ants were crawling up his arm and falling to the ancient dirt floor, while I did the polka trying to kill those now spreading underfoot.
Home ovens often have broilers for browning food. But this restaurant had a large separate unit called a Salamander. It was huge with a gas-fired flame from above, and could produce the most artistic, uniform brown tips to the top of a hand made lemon meringue pie, sear stakes or put the perfect crust on a cream and scalloped potato au gratin. With the flames roaring on high, the Chef thrust the metal tray into the salamander. Within an instant, ants sizzled, popped, and vaporized. He summoned me to fetch a large pastry screen ( a large wooden ring with a fine metal screen for sifting within the ring ). With his ever-present towel tucked at his waist, he grabbed the hot tray and dumped the contents, almonds, crispy ants and all into the screen. Shake, shake, the singed ant bodies fell through the sieve to the floor. Shining seared almond slices remained. Without emotion, he shoved the almonds at me and returned to the hot stove. Like a well trained, military grunt, I didn't dare think for myself nor question. I rushed the almonds to the pastry station.
In commercial service the profits can easily go into the garbage, so nothing usable is thrown away. Chicken heads and duck feet become sauce, and carrot tops and onion skins make up the soup stock. You never want to see what goes into sausage. Julia is a great inspiration and the Joy of Cooking a valuable resource, but nothing teaches better than actually being in the heat of the kitchen.
The wait staff served the beautiful Almonde Genoise that evening without incident. The kitchen staff got to eat the un-served portions after closing. I couldn't help but smile at every bite.
Radio memories
I was reminded of many years ago when I was just a boy, of the dark of
mornings. My parents had been up long before me and I could smell from my
bedroom the fragrance of fresh coffee brewing and bacon frying on the electric
stove. In the distant background, distracted by the clanking of breakfast
preparation, was the sound of the morning news on the radio. The radio back
then was a shiny wooden box about the size of two shoe boxes. On the front it had a circular
hole on one side for the speaker covered with cloth and the other side had a
glass dial with a pointer controlled by a knob made of bakelite, an early form of
plastic. When the volume would grow dim or get scratchy, my dad would
delicately adjust the dial back and forth until the signal was clearer. The morning
news wasn’t much different than it is today. The local winter flooding in the
lowland river valleys, the famines in China and the fear I had of the news from
the war in Korea. The voice on the radio, it was always a man’s, to my young
ears seemed far away and came across as authoritative and a bit staccato. By
the time we had finished our oatmeal or fried eggs and bacon the news was over
and the newsman always ended the broadcast in the same way with something
like: “And That Is The News of Today. Tune In Tomorrow, Same Time Same
Station. And Now This:”
Then, every morning at this same time, another man’s voice came on. He
spoke with a soft, calming, whispery voice. Almost poetic, and with a slight
accent….perhaps from some far off distant middle eastern place.
And he said: “This is from the Sanskrit by Kalidasa:
Listen to the exhortation of the dawn
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth;
The glory of action;
The splendor of achievement;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And Tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn. “
For this young boy, these words were intriguing for their accented
voice coming through the wooden box seemingly from some time and place far
away. Like a voice from the ancient past telling me the secrets of life and how to
behave. I seemed to enjoy what I thought were archaic phrasings and the way
the words wove between yesterdays, todays and tomorrows. Years later,
perhaps when I was in junior high school, I ran across these words again in a
book. Still impressed by those earlier daily repetitions, I put these words to paper
and framed them on my bedroom wall. That frame, now perhaps 50 years later,
still remains on our bedroom wall. Unfortunately, it is mostly forgotten or at best
distracted by current thoughts and worries. But every now and then, while
fumbling for a pair of matching socks, or smelling fresh coffee brewing in the
distant kitchen, I stop to re-read those words: Look well, therefore, to this day!
T. D. Oct 2017
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A starlit stone-age night.
Jan. 2018 T. Darby Draft 6
A Stranger Abroad
I don't know how long I lay unconscious by the curbside of that ancient cobbled African street. As my head cleared, I became aware of footsteps walking around me. I began to think that those nearby were just waiting for me to die so they could steal my shoes.
It was 1972 and I was in my early twenties, and I had spent a year hitchhiking around Europe. About a month of that time was in Morocco where this part of my yarn begins.
What an adventure: Casablanca, the Marrakesh express, the Kasbah, the blue men of Morocco, snake charmers, stories of the Crusades, and rumors of the white slave trade. My days there were filled with a vision of the world I had never seen and could hardly imagine - the beauty, the history, the intrigue, the poverty and the filth.
Traveling on the cheap as I had for many months, I ate out of small back street cafes and fresh food vendors in the market squares. I soon picked up some sort of intestinal bug. I remember the fever and chills, pain in my gut, weak muscles, thirst, and diarrhea that resembled the biblical flood.
After several days of being tied to the nearest toilet, I realized I needed medical attention, and asked the local pharmacy where I could find a doctor. I was directed to a back street where there was a small free-standing adobe building. At the doorstep was a line of perhaps twelve or fifteen people, all waiting for what seemed a hopeless dream. An old woman with a sunburnt face, wrinkled like polished brown shoe leather, had an Azul fabric draped around her, and covered her head. Behind her stood a young woman with straggly black hair and vacant eyes, staring as if blind into the distance. Next, the teen boy with baggy, out of style pants probably handed down from an older sibling or bought from the rag market of "dead white people's donations"; the mother with a bright-colored headscarf, trying to soothe her crying baby in one arm and clinging to a toddler at her foot. And me, in travel dirty blue jeans, shoulder-length curly hair and a backpack too heavy for me to shoulder.
I spoke no Arabic, but tried to inquire with my small collection of French and Spanish verbs or nouns, if this was the doctor's office. It was. As the morning sun began to rise and the wait was testing my weakened condition, I realized that I had to exit the line and find a toilet again. When I returned the line was double in length. When nature's call came again, I realized I might never get to the front of the line, and I needed an alternative solution.
It was later that day that I found myself lying beside that intersection on the ground, unconscious. I don't recollect fainting, but I did realize that I was in serious trouble. No one seemed to care, and I became very frightened. My first thought was of being so far from home. These were the hippie days of long hair, ragged jeans, and backpacks. I was no exception. I had wandered over Europe for nearly a year and experienced a lot, but never in my life had I felt so alone.
When I left home, a wise older friend of mine wished me well, and asked if I was all set. We both knew I had never been away from home, never been on an airplane, and I was going alone, halfway around the world. I had said that I was worried about what I would do, being alone, if something bad happened. He reassured me by saying: "Hey, you always have yourself and that is enough."
As I lie there on the street, biting my trembling lip, realizing that no one was going to help me, I recalled my friend's reassuring words. It was up to me to help myself. From that moment on I knew that I needed to leave Morocco and return to the less exotic civilization of Spain and get medical help.
I crossed the Straights of Gibraltar at dusk and booked a cheap room in Algeciras for a sleepless night. At daybreak, the first thing I needed was to exchange money to use in Spain. Banks in Spain, like many official buildings, are grand and elaborate edifices: tall columns, marble, and lots of shiny glass and polished brass, the home of wealth and privilege. It was a striking contrast to me, this long wandering soul, weakened with illness and disheveled with unshaven beard and clothes not laundered since the last unremembered washbasin.
I waited far too long in the ever-present lines characteristic of Spanish culture, to get to the cashier's counter. I remember filling out the transaction slip requesting an exchange from dollars to pesetas. The cashier slipped my pesetas through the small opening in the counter's glass window. As I picked up the paper currency and a handful of coins, I sensed the floor rushing toward my head. The last thing I remember was the sound of the coins hitting the hard marble floor and rolling away from me, as I lay on the cold stone slab.
Someone was patting my cheek, shaking my shoulder, and mumbling in excited Spanish. Four strong arms were embracing me and dragging me to the door of the bank. Given my disheveled condition, I thought they were throwing me out on the street. With sweat rolling down my forehead, they leaned me against a shiny, expensive Mercedes Benz, opened the door and pushed me in. My head was still spinning as my body rolled with the sharp turns as the car sped through the winding narrow streets. The well- dressed, determined driver helped me out of the car and into a small but well equipped medical office. I told him that I didn't have a lot of money and didn't know how I was going to pay for this. In whispered Spanish, the driver registered me at the clinic's counter and we sat silently in the waiting room. The grey-haired doctor in a pressed white lab coat was talking in Spanish, which seemed to me to be mostly to himself. He handed me an envelope of large chalky pills and said there wasn't much else he could do for me here. He suspected I had food poisoning or dysentery, and hearing I had come from Africa, suggested I go to the tropical disease hospital in London.
Back in the car, the gentleman driver turned out to be the bank manager. His thin trimmed mustache and hair had touches of grey. He was smartly dressed in an expensive silk suit. He said he would take me to my cheap hotel so I could rest. Before he let me out, he handed me an envelope full of money... presumably the money I had dropped on the floor of the bank, but I wasn't sure.
I asked this kind gentleman: "Porque ayudar?" Why was he so nice to me? He had known me for only a moment, and yet he had gone so far out of his way to help me. Perhaps I saw a tear well into his eyes as he looked at me silently for a long moment, searching for the words in English. Then he spoke softly with a little break in his voice: "I am a parent. You are somebody's son. My son is traveling alone this summer too, and I have not heard from him. I hope to God that wherever he is, people will be kind to him too." I was tired and weak, still very shaky, but I remember looking into this man's eyes and seeing the resemblance of my own father's eyes, and my lips began to tremble.
Now, nearly half a century later, one of the lingering regrets I have of this grand adventure is that I didn't have the foresight to get this man's name or address. I have always wished that I could contact him and tell him thanks for that wonderful act of kindness he shared. This was one of those life-changing moments for me. From his example, I realized that we are all pretty much the same. We all have families that need looking after. We all have struggles and adventures and we need to share a little kindness along the way. t.d.
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Dad
I’ll probably never get to heaven but I know what it is like. Whether god exists or not, I have felt such a gentle hand.
Well worn khaki tan pants, the kind soldiers wore during the second great war, with the cuffs rolled up maybe one or two turns, exposing his ankle-high leather work boots. He often wore a faded white tee shirt, tattered around the collar, with dots of oil or paint here and there. This is the image I remember of my father. Of course, he had nicer clothes that he wore to work, but that was another life for him that I, as a young boy, rarely knew. He was almost always on the move, doing something- painting the house, mowing the lawn, or peeling potatoes beside my mom in the steamy kitchen. Dad was a large man, but then as a young boy of three or five, I guess everyone was large to me.
Perhaps there is some DNA imprinted in the nature of young boys because for me, I seemed destined to be my father’s shadow, barely one small step behind or beside him in all of my waking hours. Yes, there were those long hours of the day when I was left standing at the front door, looking through the window, as my father went off to work, but I remember anticipating his return, like clockwork every evening. Sometimes, if I had finished fighting off all the cowboys and Indians in time, I would rush to the front yard and wait on the steps to see him coming down the street. At that time, we had a 20-year-old 1933 Dodge. It got us from point A to B okay, except when my dad had to tear it apart at the curb over the weekend, so he could drive it to work on Monday.
“What’s this dad?”
“That’s a valve”.
“What's a valve dad?”
“It's like the faucet on the hose, it opens and closes things”, he said.
I looked at the round mushroom-shaped metal piece from the car engine his gentle hand, covered in grease, handed me. Then I looked at the hose faucet on the house. “They don’t look at all alike”, I said. It wasn’t until some 15 years or more later, when I repaired my own car engine that the memory of my dad's voice once again showed the valve’s similar function.
Our Dodge looked very different than the modern shiny Chevy Impala that our neighbor drove, but to our young family, our car worked just fine. Besides, our Dodge had something they called running boards, that no Impala ever had. This was a long narrow “board” or step that ran along the side of the car from the front wheel to back. One day when my dad was pulling up to our house, he stopped before the final approach and honked the horn…. “beep beep” and waved for me to come over. I leaped off the porch steps and ran to the curb. He rolled down the window and said: “Hey Mister, you want a ride?” I jumped onto the running board and hung on for dear life. He grabbed the gear shift lever mounted on the floor at the center edge of the front seat and clunked the transmission into a low gear and we coasted to the front door of the house, perhaps only 15 feet away. Wow, that was the ride of my then short life. Life with dad was always full of such escapades.
I’d often meet my dad at the curb, since I was usually in the front yard, turning summer-salts on the grass, or swatting flies warming themselves on the sun-baked house wall. I loved to grab his black, round-topped lunch box with the shiny handle on top. He’d hold my one hand, and I carried the pail in the other as we ascended the front steps. Once inside, it was always a treat to open up the lunch pail to see the thermos in the lid with the smell of now cold coffee, and the white plastic dividers in the base of the box. The large compartment inside where my mom would put the sandwiches, was empty save for just the wadded up wax paper that she had wrapped them in, and maybe some dark crumbs in the bottom from the homemade bread she would make that often had slightly burnt dark crusts. There would be an apple core or pieces of orange peel too. If I was lucky, I might find a raisin remaining from her homemade raisin cake. I’m not sure what the fascination was for me with that lunch pail. It wasn’t like I was hoping to find a left-over candy bar or potato chips, because we didn’t have those things back then, at least not in our household. But the excitement was that it was my dad’s lunch box and I knew one day I would have one just like it.
Sometimes when my dad arrived home I found him alone in the car, motor off and just sitting there. He wasn’t listening to the radio, because our old Dodge didn’t have a radio. As I think back, there were many times I found my dad in the car alone. I always thought these moments were a special invitation just for him and me. But maybe he was also there for a silent moment alone, and other reasons I was too young to understand.
I’d run to the car, jump up on the running board, twist the T- handle and climb in. “Tommy, how ya doing?” he would say and then wait for my response. My father was never much of a talker, a quiet, patient sort, he was. I’d immediately start fondling the knobs and levers in the car. “What’s this knob do, dad?” “That’s the choke, you pull it out when you start the car in the morning”. “Choke? Why would you want to choke the car, dad?” “Well, sometimes the car is being ornery and doesn’t want to start so you have to choke it to make it behave”. I never got the pun there but my dad would replace his few words with such dry humorous gags as often as not. “What’s that button on the floor dad?” “That’s the starter button”. He reached to the dash-board to make sure the key was off, and then put his left foot on the floor button. The car would growl, “rrrr rrrr”. “Wow, dad, that is a funny noise”. “Yup, when you get older and start to drive, you will learn that the car will talk to you if you understand its language of mechanical noises”, dad would say. He was like that, an engineer at the local mill. I think he had better conversations with all the machinery in his life than he had with most people, except for me, of course. Sometime we would communicate by just being together, never saying a word. I treasured those moments we could sit alone.
Every day was an adventure with my dad. Like a trip to the hardware store or venturing close beside him into the noisy mill where he worked. Everything became a college education into the inner workings of screws, nuts, wrenches, and the reasons for clunks in noisy machinery and the excitement of how stuff worked or didn’t. My dad was a living encyclopedia, and I had a question for every page he opened.
Life was not all sugar and jam with my dad. I remember autumn days. I’d have on my black and red checkered wool coat, denim bib overalls patched at the knee and my red leather hat. You know the kind, with the bill out front and the ear flaps that tied with string over the top, but my flaps were always down with the string dangling on to my shoulders. I don’t think I thought about trees having leaves except in the fall when they fell to the ground. One afternoon, my dad was out raking leaves into piles, and we kids would jump into the stacks and roll around in them like swimming in a pool. In those days we would burn the piles. What great fun. I could see Tonto sending smoke signals to the Lone Ranger in the billowing clouds of smoke rising from the smoldering pile. The burning embers at the center gave me glimpses of half-naked cave men roasting fresh saber-toothed tigers for dinner. I’d pile on sticks I gathered and blow on the flames to get a bigger thrill. All of a sudden I was shocked from my dreaming by what seemed to be the hand of god grabbing me by the neck of my coat and whisking me off my feet only to set me down three feet away from the fire. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that fire!” boomed the authoritative voice. Of course in times of peril, my natural inclination was to run to the security of my daddy’s side, but this peril was my dad. Frozen in place and a bit trembling from my short flight, I was left alone to contemplate my situation. What seemed like forever, but actually only minutes later, I was back in his shadow, scooping up leaves and tossing them back on the pile.
Now, nearly three-quarters of a century later, I’m driving alone in my car down some backcountry road, remembering…… My father at the wheel of our old Dodge, and me like a shadow beside him, sharing the worn, fuzzy mohair upholstered bench seat, and his soft and gentle voice with only the floor-mounted gearshift lever separating us.
tom darby 3/2015
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The First Kiss
A starlit stone-age night.
The warmth at fireside calms two naked bodies.
The baby cries in hunger.
Mother chews today’s catch to soften it.
Bending over she presses her lips to baby’s and passes her nourishment to him.
Baby coos.
Soon again baby reaches out for mother’s lips and sucks.
With this first kiss, love begins.
T. D. 5/2015
The Tiger
The hungry tiger waits in the brush.
He preys on the weak, the young, the old and the stragglers.
The tribe migrates along the forest trail.
The mother, father, children, and grandfather.
The old man, bent over with cane in hand, straggles far behind.
For the tiger, dinner has arrived.
T.D. 5/2015
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TRANSITIONS From Miss to Mrs.
When my mom was in the last stages of her life and in hospice, I felt it was time to start to clean out her house and ready it for sale. Amongst the clutter and treasures, I found a bundle of envelopes, faded with age and tied together with a small pink ribbon. They were addressed to my mom back during the second world war.
At that time my mother and her fiancé were living apart, she in Corvallis and my eventual dad living in Portland. I wasn't sure what the letters were about, why she had carefully saved them nor what to do with them. So I brought them to her to see what she wanted me to do with them.
She seemed surprised that I had found them and sheepishly embarrassed. With her frail hands she caressed the bundle and after a long uncomfortable silence she said: "Promise me that you will not read them, they are private. Please just burn them."
It was much later after her passing that I was sitting before our winter fireplace burning old documents. I picked up her bundle of letters once again. Before the heat of the flames, I untied her precious bundle. I couldn't help but think that in my hands were treasures of her heart and perhaps a tiny part of my history too. Perhaps representing voices of my now deceased origins. I briefly thumbed through the stack of twenty or so letters much as one would a stack of cards. The first letters were all addressed to "Miss Maxine V. (her maiden name) Salem, Oregon". But about halfway through the bundle the remaining addressee changed to: "Mrs. Maxine D. (her married name). Salem”, Oregon.
I have to admit that I was very moved by the realization this tiny bit of writings evidenced in fountain pen ink, witnessing the transition of my parent's relationship from "you and me", to "we". From a single woman to a married partner. Surely this is would be a milestone in the journey of any couple. But now these letters poised, as promised, to be consumed by the fire.
My mother was a wise, wonderful and honest woman, deserving every respect and her wishes should be fulfilled. I like to think that she brought me up to be so as well. But some promises are hard to keep.
t. d.
Sept. 2012
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Hot Bitch?
I am retired, approaching 70 and enjoy working out at our local college gym. While on the stationary bike, the other day, a handsome young man in his early twenties sat down on the bike next to me. After a few minutes of idle chatter, he asked me a question: “How do I know if a hot bitch is really into me?”
I hesitated a moment not sure if I actually heard him correctly and then said: “Pardon me?”
He said: “I met this hot bitch last night in a bar and she wouldn’t let me take her home, but she said she would meet me at a restaurant today at noon. She didn’t show and hasn’t answered my phone calls.”
I said: “Why would you want to see a woman again that you think is a bitch anyway?“
“No,” he said: “You’re from the older generation. A bitch is a woman you want to take to bed”.
“Oh,” I said. “So what’s your problem?”
He said: ”I thought she was really into me, but she hasn’t contacted me like she said she would.”
I said: “Well maybe you are rushing things… give her a little time.”
He said: “Hell no, if she doesn’t put out tonight I’m out looking for someone else.”
“Wow,” I said. “Isn’t that a little aggressive?”
“No way man… You gotta push them hard or you get nowhere. If you let them think about it they get away. Being nice is for losers. Women don’t sleep with nice guys.”
So I said: “Well how is that working for you?”
He didn’t answer.
Then he said: “So what do you think it means if she didn’t show up or return my calls? “
I said: “Ya know…. I may be older than you, but I don’t think women have really changed that much since when I was dating and now…. Sure the slang may have changed but I think most women, worth dating, would not let you call them a bitch under any circumstances, and would never see you again if you did. But to answer your question, my rule of thumb is to watch people’s behavior more than what they say. If someone is really into you they’d contact you one way or another.”
“So you think I should just ditch her and go for some other bitch?” he said.
“If you don’t mind me being honest, I think you are the one that has been ditched. If this system isn’t working for you, you might want to take a look at yourself and consider a slower, gentler approach,” said I.
“No man,” he said, “You just don’t understand.”
t.d. ‘14
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