Calling 1998

This archaic bit of technology reminded me of old times the other day when I was traveling through Union Station in Chicago.

What’s that, say you teenagers? It’s what we used to have on nearly every street corner, in the rear of many stores and in the entryway of most restaurants, back before we carried our phones with us everywhere we went.

There are about 300,000 pay phones across America, say phone industry officials, but the national total is tiny compared with the all-time high of 2.6 million in 1998, just before cell phones took off, according to a recent story about pay phones in the San Francisco Chronicle.

That silver snake-like thing? It’s a cord, a device to keep you tethered to the phone while speaking (or listening). No privacy for you, no siree bub. That big black U-shaped thing? It’s the handle connecting the speaker for your ear with the mouthpiece. And those finger-sized buttons. Yes, they are buttons big enough to actually press the correct numbers.

Oh, how quaint.

And if I had composed a better picture, you could see the coin slot on top — for collecting money for every call. “Changes may apply” never goes out of style.

Meditations on waiting and remembering

My grandmother and my uncle Byron, circa 1970

One of my uncle Byron’s last letters, written to his brother and wife, signed off this way:

“Will write more next time. I’m fine and wish there was some way I could step up the clock. See you in July.”

Three weeks later, Byron’s helicopter was shot down by enemy fire, deep in the jungles of Vietnam.

The Army sent a typewritten letter to my grandparents listing my uncle as “missing in action.”

Over the next few days or weeks, the army issued additional missives:

“Due to the presence of a hostile forces in the area in which the crash occurred, it has not been possible to conduct a ground search for Byron.”

“Although all four crewmen carried survival radios, no transmissions have been received.”

“The name of your son, listed as missing in action, has not appeared on the list of captured U.S. Servicemen and Civilians presented to the Paris negotiators.”

About eight months after my uncle was reported as missing in action in the Vietnam War, my grandmother celebrated a birthday. In the same album where she carefully preserved the Army’s letters and newspaper clippings of her son’s disappearance, there’s a birthday card with pink glitter adorning a tree.

The front of the card reads, “With Our Love, Mother, On Your Birthday.”

The card, no doubt, was picked out by my aunt, my uncle’s wife who was also waiting, wondering and praying about Byron’s fate. Inside, she signed it “Love, Byron & Leona.”

My grandmother’s careful handwriting notes the year: 1973.

My aunt couldn’t know that my uncle was unable to join her in any birthday wishes when my grandmother celebrated another year, but in the midst of her waiting, she held out hope and chose this card for her mother-in-law.

Four months later, a year after he was first reported missing, the Army informed my grandparents that my uncle was dead:

“The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deep regret that your son was killed in action in Vietnam on April 2, 1972. … Information concerning his death was received from a returned prisoner of war.”

The waiting was over.

I know this story because my grandmother preserved the evidence in an album. My mother recently recompiled the photos and memorabilia in a scrapbook and asked me to make a copy of it. For details and more photos about that part of the project, check out my Clickago Storywerks blog here.

“Nothing is really ever lost as long as we remember it.”

~ L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl

Take the chill off spring with a special chili

Somehow, I’ve managed to write this blog for four years, and I’ve never shared the recipe for Cincinnati-style chili. How could that be?

This unique chili brings back great memories of living in Ohio in the early ’90s. Competing quick-serve restaurants Skyline Chili and Gold Star Chili serve this tasty treat at location primarily in Ohio and Kentucky. I indulge in a bowl whenever I’m near there.

What makes it special is the spices. This chili has no beans but includes cinnamon and unsweetened chocolate. Honestly, the flavor probably isn’t what appeals to me — it’s the presentation. The “soup” (which is more of a sauce) tops a pile of spaghetti noodles and a huge pile of finely shredded cheddar cheese tops the whole concoction, and who doesn’t like cheese? Former Minnesotans certainly do.

I warmed up with Cincinnati-Style Chili on this kind of chilly spring day (sooo tired of this weather, but I hear we’re in for a warmup this weekend). When you make Cincinnati-Style Chili at home, you can serve it with a beer (the franchises in the Cincinnati area don’t have liquor licenses, though in my decades-ago experience, college kids like Cincinnati-style chili after hitting the bars). And I used gluten-free quinoa noodles.

Don’t let the long list of ingredients stop you from trying this recipe. It’s delish.

Cincinnati-Style Chili

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped fine
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons chili powder (I used 1 tablespoon mild, 1 tablespoon hot)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-1/2 teaspoons beef bullion
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1/2 ounce square unsweetened chocolate
• 8 ounces spaghetti
• For topping: finely shredded cheddar cheese and chopped white onions

Directions:

1. Saute onion in oil in large saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add beef to brown, breaking up into small pieces.
3. Add wet ingredients. Add spices and chocolate. Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for at least an hour.
4. Meanwhile, prepare spaghetti noodles. To serve, remove bay leaf from chili. Mound spaghetti in low bowl. Top with generous portion of chili, then cheese (also generously) and onions. This is called 4-way (spaghetti + chili + cheese + onions). Really die-hards add beans for 5-way. Serves 2-4.

Life isn’t fair

It’s that time of year.

Before terrorist marathon bombings, bankruptcy filings, terroristic letters filled with poison, possibly terrorist-inspired explosions, metropolitan stay-in-place orders and terrorist man hunts mesmerized the news junkie in me this week, the biggest news in my life was that my Adored Stepson was about to graduate from high school.

It’s still the biggest news in my life. I’m proud of him.

As has happened repeatedly when he takes another step towards adulthood, I reflect on those steps in my own life (and I try to forget I graduated 28 years ago — uffda).

As I pondered my own maturity (and lack thereof) at that age, I ran across the editorial I wrote for the last edition of my high school school newspaper, which at the time was called “The Tomahawk.”

Oh, how times have changed. The Indians were the mascot of my high school back then so naming our newspaper after an implement of violence made perfect sense.

The headline of the editorial was “Life isn’t fair.” I thought it was brilliant at the time. Some of it is still brilliant. Some of it is so simplistic. And some of it is so dated (does anyone say “brown nosers” anymore? and does anyone remember why Nicaragua was relevant?).

In any case, here is my 28-year-old editorial, for your weekend reading pleasure. May life return to simple pleasures like graduation parties and old newspaper clips.

From The Tomahawk, May 24, 1985

“Hey, That isn’t fair! He got more than I did!”

When we were in elementary, our teachers and parents did their best to even things out so that everything was fair. Our parents gave each kid the same number of Christmas presents and made us take our turn washing dishes. Our teachers made sure that everyone got a chance to be line leader or team captain. Of course, sometimes there’s a teacher’s pet, but if some things weren’t equal, it generally didn’t matter much anyway. Your future didn’t depend on an extra piece of cake or losing your recess because you punched somebody (and it was his fault!).

But life got more complicated. Fancy Nancy had nice clothes and a boyfriend. Athletic Al could run faster than anyone and never got less than straight A grades. It wasn’t fair! But it got worse. The National Honor Society was just “a bunch of brown nosers,” and you were the one who decorated for the prom — why does someone else get to enjoy it? And how fair is it when someone in the spring of their life is handicapped? Or worse yet, killed? It isn’t fair.

But no one promised us that life was going to be fair. I think our teachers misled us. And what’s fair anyway? It’s all relative — fair is inside the third base line until it reaches the outfield. And it isn’t always we who are cheated. We come out on top just as often as we’re stepped on.

We can say, “It’s not fair” all day long and blame someone else because we were stepped on, but it doesn’t change anything. Instead of expecting life to treat us all equally, we should hope that it does but expect that it probably won’t. And when it doesn’t, instead of holding a pity party for ourselves, we should go out there and attempt to right the wrong.

You’re right. Life isn’t fair. But complaining about it wastes a great deal of time. Life is a journey, and a bad attitude ruins the trip. Accept life’s inequalities. Don’t let them get to you — take them in stride and take consolation in the fact that Fancy Nancy will probably become an unwed mother and Athletic Al will die in Nicaragua. It all evens out.

The size of reality

You can’t go back.

The old trope is true, of course, but you don’t absorb its meaning until you are confronted with the reality of it.

I visited my old high school today. Only it’s no longer my old school. It’s a 100 percent new building, built on the same piece of property as the school I attended to replace the structure wiped away by a tornado in 2011.

It hasn’t had the name of my alma mater for years anyway. I attended Wadena Senior High School. A district merger and the addition of younger grades has transformed it into Wadena-Deer Creek Middle/High School. Even the mascot has changed. I rooted for the politically incorrect Wadena Indians. Now the Wolverines are meant to strike fear in the hearts of our geographic neighbors.

But it wasn’t the physical changes in the building that struck me so much as I walked the new smelling hallways of the new school — it was how different I felt about the psychic weight of the place.

I remember high school as a big, scary, important place. When I walked those hallways 30 years ago, it was. Today, even though the physical building is bigger, it felt like a much smaller place, not at all scary.

I should have known, of course, it would feel that way. It’s like one’s parents; they feel so formidable when one is a rebellious teenager, but they shrink to human size when one has children of one’s own.

Sometimes, it’s good to exercise one’s perspective.

Everyone knows: Meatballs and sneezes don’t mix

Homemade meatballs over quinoa spaghetti noodles (infinitely better than those rice or corn gluten-free substitutes). All covered with cheese. Alas, the garlic bread is made of wheat.

The meatball song has been repeating in my head for two days.

Don’t know the meatball song?

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball
When somebody sneezed.

That one?

Well, when I was a kid walking uphill to school both ways, it was popular.

I made meatballs on Sunday and served them on Monday, so it’s been the background music in my subconscious for two days.

It’s a parody of “On Top of Old Smoky,” a traditional folk song once recorded by The Weavers about lost love. “I lost my true lover, for courtin’ too slow…” Apparently Tom Glazer created a hit with “On Top of Spaghetti” in 1963. Perhaps hip parents in the ’60s sang it to their toddlers when serving meatballs. Not sure how I heard it so much, I can still repeat the stanzas up to the mushy demise of said meatball. But so you don’t have to wonder whatever happens to the tasty ball of meat on its sneeze-induced journey, here are all the words:

It rolled off the table
And onto the floor,
And then my poor meatball
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled into the garden
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball
Was nothing but mush.

Oh, the mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And early next summer
It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered
With beautiful moss.
It grew lovely meatballs
And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball
And don’t ever sneeze.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but seasonal familiarity … now we’re talkin’ enthusiasm

Absence makes the heart grow fonder certainly applies to Girl Scout cookies.

If they were available year-round, those tasty Do-si-dos would be just another Nutter Butter. But when they’re available only once a year, I go into hoarding mode.

Of course, there’s a certain nostalgia attached to Girl Scout cookies for me. I sold them once (more about that here). Even if they tasted like crab grass, I’d invest in a box or two just because a sweet little girl was selling them.

Other seasonal foods just don’t have the same magic. Fruitcake? Useful for jokes only. Cadbury Creme Eggs? I always think of my sister when I see these, because she loves them, but I think they’re entirely too sweet. Shamrock Shakes? Yuck. I’m not a big fan of mint chip ice cream either.

But a gooey, coconutty Samoa? Give me a cup of coffee and a lull in the afternoon to enjoy with it, and I’m satisfied. During the Girl Scout cookie season anyway.

How about you? What’s your favorite Girl Scout cookie? Or seasonal treat?

A memory of mail that sticks

When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I joined stamp club.

Stamp club wasn’t like the band twirlers, who had sparkly outfits and cute marching boots. They got to learn impressive gymnastic routines while throwing their batons in the air.

That was a cool group.

I wasn’t that cool.

But stamp club had stamps!

For a girl who played office with her mother’s tape dispenser and a rickety metal TV tray, postage stamps were a must-have prop, as crucial as notepaper and a telephone (preferable one with push buttons — “Yes, Mr. Kadiddlehopper? You want me to take dictation? I’ll be right in”).

Back then, in the stone age, stamps had to be licked to affix. People back then mailed things, too, I guess, rather than Drop-Boxing or Instagramming or Facebooking important paperwork.

In any case, stamps prettied up an envelope, and we cavemen found it fun to collect the colorful bits of paper.

I bring up stamps at all, not because I’m waxing nostalgic for stamp club, but because I want to remind you to invest in Forever stamps now. The U.S. Postal Service is charging a penny more per letter beginning Saturday, Jan. 27; first-class postage goes up to 46 cents.

Honestly, it amazes me that I can send a letter across the country from my yard to a friend’s house for just 45 cents, so 1 cent more doesn’t bother me. But saving money is still saving money. So get thee to the post office today.

Senator’s return to work sparks memories of great uncle

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk returned to work today, an impressive act for a man who suffered a major stroke a year ago.

Kirk, 52, represents Illinois. I’m not exactly a fan of Kirk’s or politicians in general, but I’m interested in his recovery.

For a while, I was irked that Kirk could be absent from his job representing me and the other residents of Illinois while he underwent multiple surgeries and months of rehab, but as I reflected, I’m glad he can retake his place in the Senate. If he were a school custodian, I would want the district to offer him his job back, so why not a politician?

His condition reminds me of my great uncle Art, who suffered a stroke in the mid-60s before I was born. I remember nothing of a man who must have been strong and effective as a life-long farmer in north central Minnesota except his halting walk and garbled speech. He and his wife, Great Aunt Freda, were frequent guests around our holiday table because Art was my grandfather’s brother and Freda was my grandmother’s sister (yes, the pair of brothers married a pair of sisters).

Great Uncle Art used a four-pronged cane to get around, on which I read Mark Kirk also depends. To tackle the 40-some steps of the Capitol, as Mark Kirk did today, would have been impossible for Great Uncle Art, I believe.

Art farmed when he was struck down by his stroke. My dad tells me my uncle and grandfather took over Art’s cows and chores for a while until it became apparent Art would never be able to farm again.

Art lived for nearly 20 years after his stroke. He scared me as a child because I couldn’t understand a word he said; I’d like to think I as an adult would be more kind to him. Dad said Art was most articulate when he swore, which he didn’t do much before his stroke, probably because he was frustrated with his state. Nowadays, Kirk likely benefits from better stroke medications, better rehab and a senatorial staff of dozens.

In any case, Mark Kirk gets points for perseverance. Great Uncle Art was nothing if not indomitable to endure his weakened condition for nearly two decades.

Kirk’s return to Congress also is heartening for its symbolism. The Republican was greeted at the Capitol steps by Illinois’ Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Vice President Joe Biden (read the Chicago Tribune’s story here). If only Congress as a whole could share that perseverance and nonpartisan support.

The end of an age

March 5, 1981

Dear Diary,

I got my period today. I hate (!!!) it. It feels so yucky!! I wish I wouldn’t get it. Blahh.

Well, it took 31 years and 205 days, but it looks like I got my wish. I haven’t had my period for 66 days, the longest I’ve ever gone without menstruating (I’ve never been pregnant so no breaks for babies). Odds are, I’m in menopause.

“You’re going to write about that in your blog?” my Beloved asked, incredulously.

Yes. It’s natural. Like, “I had a cold last week.” And I feel a little like a scientist because I actually recorded both the beginning and ending dates. Like a good scientist, I’m sharing the data from my experiment.

Unlike my 13-year-old self, I find the human reproductive system to be miraculous, so a little part of me is sorry to leave my fertility behind me. But I never actually reproduced so I’m not mourning anything. Still, menopause is another coming-of-age milestone to be recognized and, perhaps, celebrated. I would burn the condoms if I were using that contraceptive method. Instead, how about a little cheer:

Ya-whoo! I didn’t get my period today!

Let’s drink to that.