Dirt Road Devil Babies

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

Travelling a rural road with few sign posts can take you miles out of your way. Be forewarned: it’s not all peace and quiet and bucolic scenery out there. Iffy cell service, animals on a collision course with your bumper, and a frisson of fear at the thought of breaking down in the middle of nowhere ferment in your gut. Country driving is straight out of a B horror movie. Cue the creepy music. If I were you, I’d turn around.

On your way to nowhere in particular you expect to see farms and fields, a few cows, and long stretches of dust. But not much else. But there’s one road, a Class Four dirt road tucked into the recesses of eastern Rensselaer County, NY, where you might come across the unexpected: the heads of two devil babies. It’s a touch of the macabre in the pastoral countryside. The two heads are part of two columns at the end of an overgrown dirt track running off a dirt road. How did they get there? 

According to the locals at the mom and pop a couple of miles down the paved road, the devil babies have been there for at least a hundred years glowering at passersby and scaring the daylights out of children. But no one knows who put them there. There’s never been a house on the property. Are they telling the truth? Do the locals know more than they’re saying? If you can sniff out a story, this might be a good one.

Consider it a dog with a bone kind of thing but I checked in at the local post office one town over and it wasn’t the same story. This time the postmaster mentioned a house built by a stranger who shunned local company but entertained several times a year with giant bonfires and eerie music the locals could hear through the trees. One night at the end of October, 1912, the house burned to the ground. What started the fire, so the story goes, remains a mystery. “The house just burned to the ground in a coupla minutes,” the postmaster verified. “The owner and his guests were long gone. All that’s left out there are the two devil baby columns and a cellar hole, unless you count the round patch further out in the woods where nothing grows.” Was the postmaster having me on?

Sometimes it pays to ask a few more questions, but that depends on how friendly the locals are. Locals tend to regard any passersby as snooping in their business or worse: working for the government. Back at the mom and pop, and with a few more purchases laced with some questions about the house in the woods, I was shut down. No more information would be forthcoming and scoot.

It was late afternoon and the woods were falling into shadow but curiosity has a way of getting the better of good judgement when you’re talking two devil baby heads. There was just enough daylight to snap a couple of photos of the heads glowering at me in the fading light. Every kid knows that no good comes of stumbling around in the woods in the dark. The eeriness of the site and the chance to revisit when the sun wasn’t going down put me back in my car and down the road before you could say Old Scratch.

Two weeks later on an ideal weather day of sun and a light breeze, I was back at it. Finding a dirt road off an unmarked dirt road is no small trick when you didn’t pay much attention the first time. After an hour of backing out of driveways and heading in the opposite direction, I found the turn off to the smaller dirt track. Calling it a road would have been too generous and if I had any thoughts about calling for help, a quick check showed I was in a cell dead hole.

Putting yourself in a pickle on purpose is foolishness. There were choices to be made. Folly or not, I made mine. Covered with bug spray I set out for the cellar hole and the mysterious barren circle. Unless you count the two leering beat up devil babies, I was alone.

I hadn’t succeeded in convincing anyone back home this was a good idea. “If the locals say “scoot” that must mean they don’t want anyone tramping around back there,” it was reasonably pointed out. While I was lacing up my boots, there was a quick as a wink moment when I asked myself if maybe my lack of common sense and poor impulse control was going to finally catch up with me. But operating on the “you only go around once” principle of risk taking, I set off.

A few minutes later, and a short walk into the woods on a partially overgrown track, I found myself staring down into a cellar hole I was sure marked the foundation of a sizable structure. The stacked stone foundation had small trees and shrubs poking through and stones in one corner were charred from high heat. What had happened here? If I was a betting woman, I’d put my money on the story the local postmaster told me. The next step was to find the strange circle in the woods.

I’m not superstitious but being alone out there made a tiny prickle run up the back of my neck. After a half hour traipsing over an overgrown path and hopping around poison ivy, I found a clearing. If I was going to direct one of those cheesy devil movies with people standing around chanting in black hooded robes with torches burning off the darkness, I’d chose this spot for the location.

The clearing was barren, except for a ring of tall scraggly pines with peeling bark and dusty barren earth beneath. The lack of vegetation and a deep bed of rusty red pine needles didn’t explain the symmetrical pile of stones in front of me. I have a pretty good imagination but the closer I got the surer I was they hadn’t been stacked there a hundred years ago. It looked as if they had been piled up to look tumbled down. Someone was having me on.

The temptation to fool with local folklore, or to invent a whimsical scary story, is irresistible. If someone goes looking for something and it doesn’t exist, it’s hard to pass up the chance to accommodate their desire for a good story. Plus you can never under-estimate a person’s desire to be fooled. Some time between my asking questions and taking a walk toward the clearing I was led to believe would be the scene of devilish shenanigans, I’d talked myself into the veracity of everything I was told. Two conflicting accounts only made it more mysterious, more enticing.

Should I go to the local post office and mom and pop to thank them for the fun or should I get back to the point: why were there two columns with the heads of devil babies in the middle of nowhere? Was there a story out there or not? Should I let it go? Or should I do what I ultimately did: go to the area historical society and the town assessor’s office and ask questions. I wanted to believe in something otherworldly but after an hour of toggling between the two offices I learned the real story was more prosaic.

It turned out the devil babies were a later design feature installed by a guy from Brooklyn with a weird sense of humor who loved a good party on Halloween. Having a couple of devil babies on posts beats tying balloons to the mailbox when you want your guests to find their way. A little more investigating and I discovered you can find those devil baby heads at a concrete statuary dealer. The same place you can buy your garden gnomes with pointy red hats. I have to admit I’m a little skeptical of devil babies as a stock item but so much for mystical mystery.

There is, however, a word of caution here about the willingness of even the most cynical to believe in something improbable. It’s easy to create a tall tale. What do you want to be today? What ghost story do you want to believe? What fairy tale? What do you want and who do you want to make life a whole lot better? Religion or politics? Food or alcohol or drugs? A special someone to love or elect or deify? Americans have an amazing gift for naivete turned to sour tears at the glass slipper not fitting.

I’ll admit I was let down by the way this turned out. I might not be Fox Mulder but I’m no different than anyone else: I want to believe. Maybe I’m just being wistful at missing a good story, a tall tale to tell. I sure don’t need devil babies to scare the hell out of me these days, I just have to listen to the news.

It would be wonderful to have something magical hidden in the woods you can stumble upon accidentally on a meandering drive through the countryside. Do people really do that anymore: go off on an unplanned backroads adventure hoping they’ll find the unexpected? I’ve decided I won’t tell you where the devil babies are. But they’re worth the trip. They’re out on a dirt road off a dirt road headed nowhere in a rural county headed east. Those are the only directions I can give you. You get to imagine the rest.

Photo credit: The Author took this picture and she still won’t tell you where it is.

Posted in Country weirdness, Devilish stuff, Halloween, It's outta this world!, Lies, Nature, Spirituality, Stories, Stories from the Boonies, Travel, Weird stuff, Wilderness | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What happens when beach reads get uppity

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

Blame it on Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Julia Keller. It was a steamy 2009 Chicago summer when she encouraged us to read a book over summer vacation. It should be something light on plot and a bit savory and it certainly shouldn’t sit as heavy as the lobster roll with fries you just ate. The “beach read” was born.

Beach reads offer a sweet lick of mystery and romance with a lot of froth. No one is fooling anyone here: in six months this summer’s crop will be at the library book sale. The formulaic characters are pretty much the same: a spunky heroine with long hair and no cellulite, a muscular male with wavy hair and a mysterious past, a cove, a beach, a summer house, a bed and breakfast, a creepy mansion on a hill overlooking a cove or a beach, money, and at least one car you will never be able to afford. Girl road trips are big this year, so are some version of family dysfunction or rediscovery around the campfire.

Chucking the coastal theme, there’s the “urban romp” sub-genre. Everyone is engaged in self-serving ennui while earning a six-figure income and dreaming of escape to a simpler life in a small town with at least one interesting reclusive local. Our protagonist will buy the local hardware store and run for town council while solving the unusual number of murders in town. No one will notice the murder rate sharply increased with this newcomer’s arrival.

What you’re not likely to see is anyone overweight, or living in a trailer park, or driving a beater box, or unemployed or disabled, except as a plot device to elicit laughs. Beach reads tend heavily toward vanilla-flavored white middle class self-serving schlock. If there was ever a case for keeping cheap paperbacks flowing, beach reads are it.

Let’s up our game. It was 1851 and after a year and a half of writing with a quill pen by candlelight, Harper & Brothers, London, published a story by 31-year-old Herman Melville chronicling the tale of a whaling expedition to the South Seas, an obsessed sea captain and a white whale. The story was narrated by a novice crew member, Ishmael. Based on the real-life white whale, Mocha Dick, and the sinking of the whaler, Essex, the 800 pages of Moby Dick remain the singular most compelling narrative of whaling and obsession in literature. The first and perhaps the best beach read.

It’s interesting this acknowledged Great American Novel can be had for as little as $3 while some transient bit of fluff will set you back $25, if you want a hardcover, or less if you want the e-reader edition. Does Moby Dick qualify as a beach read? If you consider the elements of a beach read are there: angst, friendship, the fine line between love and obsession, money, exotic locales, colorful characters, the sea, the beach, a couple of inns, a coastal town or two, and something menacing. It may not have long-legged blondes or hedge fund brokers but it does have tattooed harpooners and men of the sea.

If stories of the sea take you to a place of endless summers and danger, consider this: Peter Benchley’s Jaws did for sharks what Moby Dick did for whales. There are parallel plot devices in both novels. Jaws had an out-sized murderous shark, an obsessed shark fisherman looking for revenge, a great struggle at sea that resulted in the death of the shark fisherman and the shark, and the same level of anatomical detail that Melville used when he described the whale. If you saw the films, you watched Gregory Peck rage across the deck of the Pequot and Quint across the deck of the Orca. You knew these two would come to a sticky end.

There aren’t any rules about how long it should take to read a beach book, except maybe the self-imposed one that says, “I have to finish this thing before vacation is over.” Sorry not sorry, Moby Dick won’t be finished with you before you head back home. And maybe Jaws made you wonder if you wear the slinky black bathing suit that makes you look like a seal and go for a splash, will you catch the attention of a Great White migrating up the coast? Why mull over human angst when you can have terrifying sea life to worry about. Nothing beats sitting on a beach looking out over the water and wondering.

Reading should never be a slog. It should take us to places we will never see and to adventures we could never have. If we agree on that, open your beach bag and I’ll drop in a few of my favorite summer reads: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Jaws by Peter Benchley, and In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick, winner of the National Book Award in 2016. The Essex inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. The Perfect Storm, by author Sebastian Junger, the true story of the loss at sea of the fishing vessel, Andrea Gail, and her crew, during the “no name storm” that raged along the eastern seaboard during the last week of October, 1991. And Typhoon, by Joseph Conrad, a tale of human folly steering a course into the face of a South Pacific typhoon.

We both know all of these were made into films; but, do this first: take these voyages waiting for you this summer in the pages of five near perfect books. Can you feel the salt spray? Did you check the horizon for a rim of clouds that signals a storm? Remember the old saying, “Books falls open, you fall in.”

Photo credit: Ricardo Martinez

Posted in Beach reads, Creatures of the Deep, Great reading, Nature, Stories, Tales of the Sea, Travel, Uppity reads, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Johnsonville Lights: Is the truth really out there?

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

June 6, 2017, 01:17, Johnsonville, NY, looking southwest toward the Johnsonville Dam on the Hoosic River in Rensselaer County. Reporter states he witnessed seven “or so” pulsing red-orange lights moving in formation over the spillway and proceeding downriver toward the Town of Schaghticoke. Residents interviewed in vicinity indicate this phenomena has been observed multiple times in the same area over the past two years. (Reported 6/7/17)
What’s going on here?

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any crazier, there’s now a way to check on a UFO sighting against similar sightings in an area. Just released is the blandly named U.F.O. Sightings Desk Reference: United States of America, 2001-2015. It’s not a page turner, unless you like statistics and graphs, but it does give a national county-by-county analysis of UFO sightings reported to the nation’s two largest UFO investigative agencies, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC).


Don’t expect to read about lizard people or politicians or any other weirdness in America, this is a scientific analysis of all the data collected about UFO sightings across the country. Parsing the charts, graphs, and numbers, the authors, Cheryl Costa and Linda Miller Costa, let the data speak to a fourfold increase in UFO sightings around the country from 2001 to a high of nearly 125,000 in 2015. These are sightings documented in the MUFON and NUFORC databases.

It’s speculated that the majority of sightings are never reported. According to nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman, the original civilian investigator at Roswell, statistically only 1 in 10 sightings are ever reported. If this is correct, the number shifts to a million and a quarter sightings during the same period, 2001-2015, or over 85,000 sightings in the US annually.

The study’s authors, Cheryl Costa, a military veteran and aerospace analyst, and Linda Miller Costa, who served as a librarian with NASA, as well as the National Academy of Science, and the Environmental Protection Agency, believed it was about time to analyze what direction the “UFO Phenomena” had taken. Their exhaustive data analysis found the majority of sightings in New York State are over Long Island and Manhattan, the state’s most densely populated area. But sparsely populated rural America has also seen a significant number of UFOs. You might not want to count out upstate New York just yet. Every county in New York has reported UFO sightings, at least two as recent as June 5 in Clifton Park (Saratoga County) and the Johnsonville lights report of June 6.

Are we all-seeing things? Reports indicate the majority of sightings are people walking their dog, sitting on the porch, driving to or from work, or just looking up at the stars on a clear evening. What exactly do these observers believe they’re seeing? It seems to depend on where you live. In the Capital Region, fireballs and triangular craft seem to dominate. New York ranks #6 in reported fireball sightings.

Where’s the photographic proof of all this action up in the sky? It’s not a secret that objects in motion don’t photograph well on a smartphone or digital camera. Distortion, handheld movement and the speed of the object create unique challenges for anyone who wants to capture one of these objects in motion. NUFORC and MUFON receive hundreds of images and videos every month. Most don’t withstand scrutiny but 6-20% have left questions with no current answers.

If you live near water, a military base or a power plant you might see shapes flying around the vicinity or observe an aerial light show. Rural Rensselaer County is a case in point: the small power generating dams on the Hoosic River seem to elicit a high number of sightings of pulsing orange lights.

With the volume of reported sightings, why are some observers reluctant to report? The reasons range from feelings of fear to feeling foolish, concern about becoming the object of ridicule, second thoughts about what was actually seen and belief the military is testing a mysterious new prototype. The other question that vexes researchers is why the increase in sightings now? Sightings peak in the United States during July, the belly of summer, when the weather is warm and people are outside in the evening. Belief in visitors from other worlds is as old as humanity and documented in art, the Bible, and thousands of reports; but, the real reason for increased reporting now may be as simple as internet access and a smartphone.

There’s a chasm between seeing something in the sky you can’t identify and actually seeing an alien, believing you have been abducted, or seeing a UFO land. In our nightmares we see War of the Worlds not E.T. The U.F.O. Sightings Desk Reference doesn’t get into this other side of reporting.

Since the 1947 Roswell Incident there have been documented and creditable unexplained contact reports but the majority of reports remain unexplained aerial phenomena and a bit of foolishness: a pie plate on a string and a stick, a smeary photo of someone winging a trash can lid passed the camera lens, or someone thrashing around in the woods in a wrinkled alien suit. But there are Americans who claim a more sinister encounter. Science finds little to support the majority of these claims and sleep science suggests that close encounters are actually night terrors and sleep paralysis manifesting as a dark, sinister alien presence in someone’s house.

Is the truth out there? You be the judge. Do you want to believe? How about a visit to Johnsonville on a clear summer night.

Posted in Country weirdness, It's outta this world!, Stories to read when you're not alone, UFO, Weird stuff | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Once upon a time on the Allagash…

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

A few years ago a friend of mine, an avid backwash fly fisherman, got himself into a pile of trouble up in the Allagash wilderness. For those who don’t know where the Allagash is, it’s in the remote northern part of Maine that butts up against the triple border of the US, Quebec and New Brunswick. There’s a whole lot of nothing there for jobs but a whole lot of black flies in the spring.

On this particular wilderness fly fishing weekend for city slickers, led by guides who were far slicker at lifting several hundred dollars from their acolytes then the lads were at lifting fish from the Allagash, my friend made the acquaintance of a swarm of black flies.

Black flies have two things on their minds in spring:  a nice warm blood meal and making little black flies. Thankfully their lifespan is measured in days. You never see a black fly travelling alone. They like to swarm and bedevil anything with warm blood. That bottle of Skin So Soft some smartass back at the office told you would ward off Satan himself might as well stay in your backpack. This is Fly Dope country.

Pat, my friend, a red-haired Irish kid from Boston, came outfitted by Orvis and LL Bean but not with an ounce of sense. On Day Two of the great wilderness adventure, the black flies caught up with him. He recalled the first thing he heard was a humming and the second thing was being engulfed in a black cloud. Within a few minutes of screaming and swatting he was being dragged away by two guides wisely covered with Fly Dope and black fly netting and gloves. But it wasn’t over for Pat.

It took a bit for the symptoms to develop but he began to swell up like a party balloon. At this point the guides knew there was trouble and it was time to evacuate Pat to a hospital. But the nearest hospital was a 60 mile round trip on poor secondary roads and with their charge looking like he had come out on the wrong end of a prize fight and beginning to complain of burning and difficulty breathing, it was time to call the medivac helicopter way down near the other end of Maine and the New Hampshire border. Still, it was the best bet.

Pat was evacuated several hours later full of Benadryl and epinephrine the guides carried for this kind of emergency. After several days in the hospital during which he had what the doc called “Black Fly Madness, he swore off fishing, gave away his gear, and made some promises to friends he would later regret.

I’m telling you this because this is the time of year when we all have bug stories. Maybe not as dramatic as Pat’s but some beauts nonetheless. And we have black flies. The no-see-ums and mosquitoes come later. Maybe if you live in the center of a city or stay indoors with the shades down and the doors locked, you will not experience the torment that is black fly season.

For the rest of us, how about some black fly trivia? Did you know these things can survive underwater in 32 degree weather? Or a determined black fly will fly up to ten miles to get a good burger? And did you know there are about 40 species of black flies in the northeast out of the estimated 1500 species spreading their misery across the globe? And, yes, you can die from black fly bites, although it’s not likely unless you’re like my friend Pat who is allergic. On the plus side, if water is polluted, black flies will not pause and they’re an excellent source of nutrients for bats, fish, and a few other insects.

What’s a gardener, hiker, angler, or anyone interested in being outside in the summer to do? Wrap up. Wear netting over a hat, wear light colors and long sleeves and don’t give them a chance to chew on your ankles. For about $11 you can buy some summer mesh bug gaiters that go from ankle to knee.

Midday is a great time to get outside and avoid the black flies, especially if it’s sunny and hot; but, overcast, humid, still days ring the dinner bell and swarms go cruising for brunch. And you might want to stay away from the woods or great outdoors at the ends of the day when they’re especially active. Avoid perfumes, smelly shampoos and consuming lots of sugar. These change your body’s pH and set you up as an entree. And don’t forget to apply DEET insect repellent to your clothes.

 If you hike or camp, take Benadryl and calamine or witch hazel in your kit. If you get bitten, be alert for signs of an allergic reaction: swelling of your face and extremities and difficulty breathing or swallowing. An acute reaction is unlikely but be prepared. Wash the bite site with soap and water and liberally apply the calamine or witch hazel you brought with you. Remember, if you have any symptoms of a true allergic reaction, don’t wait to get to medical care.

Black fly season in the northeast extends from early May to early July. We still have a couple of weeks to go. The folks over in Maine know all about black flies and Downeast.com has a handy Black Fly Survival Guide, the one-stop guide to what they are, why they’re after you and how to thwart them.

It’s Summer. Don’t let the black flies, ticks and mosquitoes get you down.

Posted in Bugs, Flyfishing, Health, Nature, Travel, Wilderness | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Professional Porch Sitters Union, Local 518

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

Porches are as much a part of an all-American summer as barbecues, flip-flops and swimming. A lot happens on a porch: lovers spoon, a dog naps in the sun, iced tea and lemonade taste better, and reading a book just seems perfect on a warm summer day. A porch is a space where everyone is welcome and hospitality abides.

The front porch is as old as history but in America front porches appeared in Colonial times when getting out of the house in the stifling summer heat was not only a chance to socialize but a necessity to drop the body temperature a few degrees. Porches come in all shapes and sizes from long horizontal spaces, to wrap around Victorian porches, to just enough space to sneak a couple of chairs.

Over the centuries, porches have become the heart of the house in summer with neighbors competing for the snazziest porch furniture, flowers, rugs, and artwork. So important is the porch to homeowners that the trend to make the porch a “three season” affair has been in vogue since the Fifties. But, beware: the modern raised ranch and post-WWII utilitarian construction was nearly the end of this cherished American architectural tradition. What replaces it? The deck. An open-air wood creation of slats and railings elevated above the ground and sequestered behind the house where privacy rules. Despite attempts to glorify deck construction, decks lack the welcoming charm of the all-American front porch.

If you’ve spent anytime porch sitting you might have noticed that porch ceilings are sometimes painted blue. If you thought it was to give the feeling you were looking up at the summer sky, you might be wrong. Blue porch ceilings are a Southern tradition, and one originating in South Carolina, where fear of restless spirits, haints, impelled homeowners to paint their porch ceilings, and often their window frames, blue to ward off evil spirits from entering the house and stealing family members away.

In New England you’re likely to see blue ceilings but what’s underfoot comes in two flavors: battleship grey and stained wood. There was a rumor going around a few decades ago that floors were painted grey to resemble the decks of whaling ships or the decks of battleships during WWII. The truth is grey hides dirt better than any other color underfoot. Nowadays folks have traded wide plank floors for the likes of concrete and tiling in newer construction.

Decorating a porch is big business and Pinterest and Houzz have page after page of ideas ranging from the rustic to high-end urban to DIY to “let’s pay a designer to do it for us.” If you’re of the “a coupla fold up chairs and a cooler” school of decorating your going to be ridden over by the color- coordinated crowd that worries their front porch won’t have enough curb appeal. There’s a lot of worrying that goes on with porch decorating. For something that’s supposed to evoke a slower life and banishing stress for a few hours, the angst that goes with creating a picture perfect setting can get to be expensive.

If you gravitate to old houses, you can be pretty sure you’re going to get a porch with that homestead. In rural America the Vernacular Greek Revival farmhouse followed the Greek Revival style of the mid-nineteenth century but added simple touches: side porches, smaller pediments and side additions. But the porch remains in nearly every farmhouse you drive passed or in every faux farmhouse in every development in America.

When I was a kid we had a Victorian porch in a neighborhood of Victorian houses with porches. Every porch was occupied at some point of the day or night no matter the weather. If you came home late, you could bet someone would be standing on the porch waiting for an explanation. If someone was sick, neighbors would gather on the porch with best wishes and covered dishes. You stepped out on your porch on a Sunday morning and stepped off to church or to breakfast. The porch was part of the family.

Across America there’s a no dues, no rules, no regulations, no contracts, no scheduled meetings, no agenda loose knit network of porch sitters that call themselves the Professional Porch Sitters Union. The motto: “Sit down a spell. That can wait.” The PPSU claims member locals in fifty states. The only thing you really need to join is a porch and a few chairs or a desire to sit a spell and take a load off your body and mind.

As a nation we don’t seem to agree on much anymore, except maybe that we like to sit on a porch and forget there is anything but a book, a cold drink, the warm sun and maybe a breeze. Maybe there’s a little subdued conversation but the porch is a place to shed your stress, forget politics and religion, trade a few stories, share a laugh, and watch the weather go by in a world that gets crazier by the day.

How about a Capital Region chapter of the Professional Porch Sitters Union? All we have to do is give ourselves a Local number. How about Local 518? We might even organize a few spontaneous porch sitting events. According to the union’s founder, Claude Stephens over in Louisville, KY, PPSU Local 1339, some suggested topics to get the conversational ball rolling are: “You think we’re going to get any rain?” Does it take more energy to argue over who will get more lemonade than it does to just get up and get it?” and “Sure is hot.” I can live with that kind of conversation on a sweltering summer day. How about you?

Photo credit: Professional Porch Sitters Union of America, PPSU Local 7

Posted in Community, Family, Neighbors and Neighborhoods, Relationships, Unions | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Memorial Day means to one soldier’s little girl

Posted on May 27, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

Memorial Day never struck me as a mini-Black Friday, the day to run to the nearest holiday sales or tell anyone who will listen, “Thank God I’ve got Monday off!” Memorial Day is about remembering. A day to do what we should do everyday: remember our veterans. Those who died in combat or from the battles that rage in their minds long after they return.

I write about veterans because I respect what they have done. I may not respect the politics that put them in harm’s way but I respect their self-sacrifice, especially in a time when being self-satisfied seems to have become a mantra for America.

I’ve mentioned before that I come from a military family: father, husband and son have all served in different branches of the US military. I don’t believe any American does not know at least one person who served.

My adult life has been a search for my Dad, an Army veteran so broken in body and mind that he spent most of the year occupying a bed at the VA hospital in Vermont. I grew up there. I was the only kid I knew who ate dinner at the hospital commissary, a quonset hut left over from the war, or first tasted the wonders of a black and white ice cream sundae supplied by a sympathetic hospital cook. And I’m fairly certain that riding in the back of an ambulance with your Dad is not a normal childhood experience.

I mention this because I don’t want any of us to forget. Memorial Day isn’t a bunch of old men standing around a forgotten town memorial saluting the flag. There isn’t an American who hasn’t been touched by war; we’ve had too many of them. It’s hard for us to see the young soldier hiding in the wrinkles of a 90-year-old. And it’s a stretch to try to fathom the experiences of a generation of young men and women sent to places with names we struggle to pronounce. But we must do that for them and for us as a nation.

Memorial Day is the gateway to a red, white and blue summer. But we’ve lost the sense of what the day means. We don’t come to earth long enough to think about what this special day symbolizes and why we need to join those folks around the town memorial. We’ve moved the date from May 30 to one more convenient for a short holiday. We publish sale flyers weeks in advance and hope the weather holds to get in the tomato plants. What we lack in all the noise is a sense of generations and the legacy of having someone in the family come back from war. Or not.

Maybe what we need to remember in this country is that once upon a war we were all in it together. We don’t need another war to teach us that lesson. Or maybe as Andy Rooney told us: we don’t really need a Memorial Day to remember the dead so much as to remember all the young people who will die in future wars if we don’t make war disappear forever.

Memorial Day for me is a little girl pushing a wheelchair down the endless hallways of a hospital filled with sick, injured and dying veterans. We can do better than this.

Posted in Family, Government, Health, Politics, Relationships, Stories, War and Peace | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A front row seat at the Pearly Gates: 2018 is coming

Posted on May 8, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

Elizabeth Warren was right on when she said she hoped that Republicans would donate their bodies to science so that, when they were cut open, we could end the speculation about whether or not they have a heart. I don’t think we need to wait that long. We found out who has a cardiovascular system on May 4.

For the Republicans in the House who did not answer Paul Ryan’s siren call to screw millions of Americans out of healthcare or throw them into the arms of insurers, I salute you. There were only eight and two were from New York, John Katko, R-NY24 and Dan Donovan, R-NY11.

The rest of this smug Republican crowd voted to gut national healthcare. The smiling pictures of Paul Ryan and his toadies rubbing their hands and giggling over their actions is revolting. The Affordable Care Act was flawed but negotiation, collaboration, compassion and decency could have changed provisions of the Act that would have refined the existing law.

The lie is that a pre-existing condition will not disqualify anyone but what it will mean is potential premiums that will likely triple for elder Americans and range into the thousands for those who are ill. I defer to a higher Judge to settle this crowd when they arrive at the Pearly Gates.

And to those Republicans in Congress and the Senate who have compared those with pre-existing conditions to burned houses or who callously threw away those Americans and their families by telling them they can move away from their homes if they want insurance or boldly said that their lack of morals or some character flaw caused their illness, I condemn you. I’m not mincing words here: you are evil. You do not deserve the honor of elective office.

But this is what will happen: no one who voted for Trump and this madness will give a damn, will see this as the horror show it is until it knocks on their door and they have to deal with the illness of a loved one or themselves or until some illness from an earlier part of their life comes back to haunt them. It’s OK to not hold anyone in Washington accountable for what they do in another state but when it parks itself in your driveway, game on.

The United States is the only economic power that does not have national healthcare. All of our allies have it. All of them. By 1995 all of those countries had embraced a national healthcare system as the right of all their citizens. The United States also leads the world’s developed countries in infant mortality. There just might be a correlation.

When I listen to New York’s Republican Congressional delegation, with the exception of Mr. Katko and Mr. Donovan, yak on about how we just don’t understand how terrific this is and how they’re just trying to save us from ourselves, I think about how oily politicians can be in order to keep their place in the limelight. If you associate with your colleagues who call us names and dismiss us then you are no better than they are. You are known by the company you keep.

We can change that in 2018. It may seem far away but it isn’t. Every seat in the Senate and House of Representatives will be up for grabs. Every seat. There is a chance here to change business as usual. To bring humanity, courage and common sense back to elected office.

But you have to vote. Trust me, it won’t happen if you expect someone else to do it.

There are deaf ears in Washington where Republicans laugh at our anger and vote for legislation that destroys the fabric of our country. It’s a real party down there. But not for long.

2018 is coming…

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Miss Manners, you’re our only hope

Posted on May 1, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

Before we start tossing around words like “bunker mentality,” let’s review some recent encounters with my fellow homo sapiens.

Last Thursday, crawling out of my rural farmhouse for supplies, I must have driven over a nest of pick up trucks, the kind with gun racks mounted over the back window and bumper stickers extolling the benefits of motor oil and large breasted women instead of peaceful co-existence and “eat more veggies.” These types of encounters, albeit infrequent, are part of life in the exoskeleton of the tri-city area. At some point someone is going to try to run my arse off the road because they’ve got dual exhausts and more chrome than Justin Bieber’s Fisker Karma and all I’ve got is this dinky peace symbol cling on my bumper and a bad attitude.

Or how about telling me to move when I’m in your way. And don’t say it just once, be sure you’re voice rises with the hot air you’re exhaling. Don’t ask, just tell. Have you noticed I’m not moving? Don’t make me tell your momma on you.

Or how about you slamming your cart into my cart because you’re in a hurry and I’m just malingering by the potatoes. Or you park in a disabled parking space even if you aren’t disabled because you’re “just running in to pick up a few things.” Or maybe you tailgate me so closely I can see your nose hairs.

Or maybe you get to jigging on one foot and then the other and sighing and muttering when I hesitate before ordering at the deli because I know you’re in a snit and a hurry and it’s all about you and my life is dedicated to this moment of making your life hell at the deli and “Hey, can’t you read English?” It depends on who’s asking and how politely.

Here are a few facts brought to you by a curmudgeon: (a) there are too many damned cars on the road being driven too fast by adults acting like kids at a bumper car fun fair; (b) speed limits seem to be posted more as a guideline than a legal requirement to obey and when you get a ticket everyone within earshot hears you whine about how the universe hates you; (c) there are too many loud diners in restaurants shouting across the table at roughly the decibel level of a B-52 headed down the runway; and, (d) it’s hard to tell the difference between a drunk driver and somebody texting because both dangerous fools are all over the road. There are more letters of the alphabet but that’s enough to get you started.

Let’s take a side trip to Canada. I was a grad student at McGill in Montreal. I lived there for over a year not so long ago. There are no dinosaurs roaming the earth in this retelling. During my time there, the Canadians were all “please’ and “excuse me” and “thank you.” I found myself sitting up straighter, smiling more, making nice to shop keepers, and listening to chamber music in the Montreal subway. It was magnifique.

When my time came to return to the US of A, I realized I had been spoiled by civility. If I said “excuse me” someone would look at me as if I had burped or broken wind; if I said “please” it was taken as a request for pity; and, if I said “thank you” there was suspicion that I was about to ask for something more. We’ve come a long way from a time when it was okay to hold a door for someone, to offer a seat to someone, and to keep a voice at a decent level for conversation. I don’t think that we’ve evolved. I’m more inclined to think we took a nose dive somewhere along the way.

What happened to us? When did we get to be the self-obsessed rabble we feared? I’m not saying we’re one big pitchfork mob but we sure act like we’re about to light the torches on Saturday night. I did a little social research and what I found surprised me/not surprised me. Most of the folks I spoke with were worn down and worn out with the noise and anger, the craziness and the chaos of it all. There’s too much incoming. But they also felt that it was okay to respond in kind. And they blamed the other guy for starting it. Anger for anger. Rage for rage. Cheap shot for cheap shot.

As a nation, we’ve forgotten how to be civil to each other when we don’t agree. We’ve forgotten the meaning of “collaborate,” “discuss,” and “negotiate.” We take no prisoners if they disagree with our entrenched views. I’m right and you’re not. In the coming year or so we’ll see the toll it takes on our national health, our mental health, and our burgeoning addictions. I’m not painting a happy picture because I believe we’re in deep trouble here.

Which brings me to Mark Twain and I. He’s often quoted as saying, “The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.” I have a dog. And, yes, the more I see of where we’ve come and where we’re going, the more I like my dog.

If you’re a writer you get to spend many jolly hours talking to your dog, yourself, the birdies, muttering to yourself or shouting out dialogue and generally making your family wonder if maybe you’re not really writing anything and the boat has drifted out to sea. Having a few stories on the go can get you out of social engagements, justify your battening the hatches and pulling up the moat on a world gone mad with itself.

I think Miss Manners might be our only hope. In the April 30 issue of The Washington Post she indicated that “because etiquette evolves Miss Manners has to act as the impartial judge of which are legitimate changes and which are not.”

I don’t know if those over-heated boys in their chromed out pick up trucks would agree, but I think Miss Manners has the steel to make America stand up straight and tuck in its shirt tails again.

Photo credit: the author wishes to thank Demotivation.us for the use of their photo of Mr. Twain and his excellent dog.

Posted in Dogs, Good manners, Government, Pitchfork mobs, Politics, Relationships, Walk like a Canadian | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Sunday Dinner Incident

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

spaghettiketchup

Life growing up in our Italian neighborhood was one long food fight that finally ended when a Norwegian family with eight kids moved into the old Cabaldi place.

It took about a month but the local cuisine took a nosedive when kids in the neighborhood discovered the delights of Mrs. Larsen’s Norwegian French toast, which she insisted the Vikings brought back from France. I guess they also brought back the foot deep powdered sugar she sifted over the top. Mrs. Larsen introduced us to potato klubb and lefse but it was the desserts that dissolved any remaining loyalty to the Wednesday pasta days. You can eat just so much pasta but those cream-filled Norwegian desserts were powerfully intoxicating to an Italian kid. It was mutiny.

To be honest, if you grew up in an Italian neighborhood you already know that food is not just fuel, it’s a whole lifestyle. And because Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti Day for the rest of America, the homemakers on the street would work overtime on Wednesdays outdoing each other with fresh pasta and homemade sauces. My mother, who was Irish, never quite got into the swing of “mucking about in the kitchen all day,” as she put it. To be fair, she was a career woman whose idea of haute cuisine was bread pudding made with Wonder Bread and topped with heated up lemon pudding mix.

Grandma, however, was the neighborhood food critic and arbiter of all things Italian culture. At just under five feet with sensible black cuban heel shoes and a bobby pinned bun perched on the top of her head, she was the only one who didn’t bother to hand out fresh pasta and sauce every Wednesday like it was Christmas fifty-two weeks a year. Grandma saved herself for her ravioli and pannetone and hassling old Mr. Fumagali, the bread baker.

Mom and Grandma had an understanding and it involved keeping a shouting distance between them. Considering we lived next door to Grandma it took some doing to keep a sparring distance. Mom would pretend she wasn’t home when Grandma would knock on the door and Grandma would mutter, “Oh, my poor son, Joe” when she was within earshot of the front door, or anyone in the neighborhood willing to listen.

This is how it starts. First it’s the muttering, then it’s the words, then it’s plates of pasta and some sketchy sanitation. Let me explain. Fact: Italians love to cook and they love to eat. Mom, being Irish, never quite got the memo but she did get Grandma sitting like a troll next to Dad one Sunday afternoon each month. Until the Sunday when it all went to hell.

On this particular winter day, after much exhortation by Grandma that she needed to step up her wifely and motherly game in the kitchen, Mom was ready with a little surprise. The best dishes were set atop the best linens and the center of the table was ready to receive the main course. Pasta. Of course it was pasta. But not just any pasta. Mom had prepared a big platter of nude pasta she plunked dead center on the white tablecloth. To this day, what happened next is a bit of a blur. You’ll have to forgive me but I spent part of that meal under the table cowering beside our old collie.

Mom was a fan of Hunt’s Ketchup, or “catsup’ as she indicated was the proper way to pronounce it. Mom came out of the kitchen armed with a bottle of the ketchup/catsup shaking it like a rag doll. She unscrewed the cap and smacked the bottom of that bottle with the force of ten years of rage and most of the bottle came to rest in the center of the congealing pasta. Grandma grabbed her water glass and looked faint. My Dad looked trapped. Hostilities had commenced.

Mom merrily forked the pasta around to our plates and proceeded to slurp a few strands from her own plate until she realized the shock was wearing off. Jumping up with a hearty, “Dessert time!” she took her plate off the table and offered it to our collie, her faithful ally in any scheme to infuriate Grandma.

Old Lassie licked the plate clean as Mom declared, “She sure beats washing dishes all the time.” Being well brought up, she politely excused herself and marched back into the kitchen and shelved the plate in the cupboard with extra clatter that matched her mood.

My Dad didn’t dare move. But Grandma did. She jumped up plunging her place setting to its death on the dining room floor. I should probably tell you Grandma liked to tuck the tablecloth into her collar to catch any spills, something I noticed she only seemed to do at our house. But just than Mom stuck her head around the kitchen door frame and declared, “Who wants bread pudding? I made that lemon pudding sauce you like to go with it.”

The last I saw of Grandma for a long while was her rigid back marching next door to the beat of her sensible black shoes followed by the slamming of her front door. My subsequent visits were held at Grandma’s house. Mom was not invited. Dad went into hiding. The Sunday Dinner Incident was never spoken of again and remains, until today, the subject of much speculation and few facts.

We moved two hours away three months later. Dad told everyone he liked the idea of a little breathing room. Mom never said a word.

Posted in Family, Food, Food you fight with, growing up Italian, Relationships, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bombs bursting in air

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

JoeAlbericiEvery American alive today has lived through America’s involvement in a war. Everyone. Call it “war” or a “military action,” it’s the same outcome bolstered by rhetoric to justify our heading out the door to help or harm. We like to keep these things thousands of miles away from the kitchen door.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re attacked you have the right to defend yourself. But our national tendency to go picking a fight makes our carrot and stick diplomacy more stick than carrot. No matter what you hear, history bears witness to this: America is always spoiling for a fight.

When politicians sit in Washington and tell us their decisions are good for America and help to keep us free, let’s take a step back and look at the defense budget, the giant maw digesting tax dollars at the expense of social programs and education. It begs the question about what our national identity truly is and what our legacy will be. The fact is we spend so much money on either making war or getting ready for the next one, there isn’t much left over for the rest of us.

And there’s another price to pay. One that isn’t factored into the cost of materiel. It’s the personal cost. When you see someone you love damaged in mind and body, you tend not to be a fan of war. You turn down the flag waving adrenaline.

Which brings me back to why. I understand a desire to serve your country, to protect it and eliminate threats. My family is a military family. And I understand there is a price to pay. But that doesn’t stop me asking why we put such effort and resources into something horrific.

We glorify war and consider those who oppose it to be milquetoast wimps incapable of true patriotism. The storyline goes: if you don’t have a strong military in a state of constant readiness or flexing its biceps around the globe there might not be an America left to celebrate the Fourth of July. Let freedom ring.

I mentioned that we’re a military family. I know what it looks like and what it feels like to have a father so injured mentally and physically in war that he was labeled 100% disabled. I grew up visiting him in a VA hospital eight months out of the year and stood by his grave when he died at the age of 52. And I know what it’s like to worry about a son deployed and to work for the military and watch troops return to their families. And to go to Walter Reed Army Hospital and see the physical and mental cost to a generation of young women and men.

There’s a human cost to be paid for the decisions made in Washington. I am opposed to war and saber rattling and spoiling for a fight. Opposed to any military action that is not undertaken as a direct threat to our safety, my safety, your safety. Not the manufactured perception of threat for the sake of justifying our actions but a real threat that lands on our doorstep: U Boats in the harbor, planes over Pearl Harbor. Not “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.”

When the people do not question what their leaders are doing or seek to remove dangerous and potentially unstable individuals wielding power like a child’s rattle than the world becomes a sandbox for the few at the cost of us all.

Photo credit: Joe Alberici, the author’s father.

 

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The politics of yarn

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

bird heartThere are few things more convivial than a group of folks showing off their latest projects and talking yarn. Whether it’s knitting, crochet, spinning or weaving, yarn is the thread that binds those of us who love the fiber arts.

So what happened? Politics happened.

At the best of years it’s one of those subjects that can take conversation to a new low. But in divisive America 2017 it’s become downright toxic.

Case in point is the Tennessee yarn store that slammed the door on anyone who didn’t wave the flag for Trump’s version of a great America. Granted she could as the owner but that would have been unheard of before this election.

Or the time a knitter with a penchant for sly alt-right factoids had two Hillary supporters trapped in her moving vehicle while her radio blared Sean Hannity on the way to a yarn store and an afternoon of tea and political sympathy.

Or the two activists who love to knit who assured me it was OK for them to wear their pink hats everywhere but it wasn’t OK for someone to question why they would.

Is there a line anymore? The invisible boundary of good manners you do not cross? In 49 BC, Caesar crossed the Rubicon River, the boundary of no return for him and his army as he headed for Rome and the history books. Apparently not much has changed since 49 BC.

Is the chilling of relationships when politics are revealed sufficient for us to drop acquaintances? The determining factor might be a lack of sensitivity, a tendency to gloat, to make the overly loud point. Or to do it at the wrong place and the wrong time and with the wrong people. As my Italian grandmother used to say, “Pensare prima di aprire la bocca.” That’s “think before you open your mouth, bub.”

It’s hard not to feel a twinge or two when you realize someone you used to knit with at a favorite local yarn store is giving you the verbal bird. It might feel good for a minute to ride around on your high horse but the ride lasts about as long as that high you get when you drink too much coffee and realize you’re nowhere near a bathroom.

Politics does that to us.

We say things and we mean them. And we don’t back down because I’m right and you’re not and I don’t care what you think. I can’t talk to you anymore because you don’t agree with me.

Politics makes strangers of friends and acquaintances.

And it makes for poor companionship on a day when you just want to talk about mittens or that shawl you’re struggling with or the wonky arms on the sweater you’ve been knitting for a year.

Sometimes the point is to not make a point. Sometimes it really is all about the yarn and finding the middle and remembering there was a time when we could welcome each other and spend a few hours getting away from the rest of it.

Maybe it’s time we all just got back to our knitting.

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Welcome to Dogland

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Phyllis Alberici

In 2010, I wrote a post welcoming a wonderful, most majestic and decidedly imperious member to my family. This is a different kind of post…

herself1There’s been a lot of talk about moving to another country since this past November. Admit it: you’ve been looking at everything from Costa Rica to Iceland. But what if I told you there’s a country that will fulfill all your craziest expectations for great neighbors, moments of much hilarity and one great sorrow. Would you want to know more? Would you move there? I did in 2010.

There aren’t any Yelp reviews. It won’t show up on Google Earth. It’s everywhere and nowhere. Citizenship is easy. You don’t need a birth certificate, a driver’s license, a passport, a physical exam or a visa. No one is an illegal immigrant in this country. The only requirement is one thing: a dog. That’s right: a dog. You become a citizen of Dogland when you are adopted by a dog.

Welcome to Dogland.

Let’s not kid ourselves, you don’t pick a dog. That’s the ruse. We humans, so convinced of our superiority, lay open our need and into that wasteland steps the dog who has been on a mission to find you. This small puppy you’re smiling at, the old dog who’s seen worse days, the abandoned dog, the beaten and sad dog. Your dog has been looking for you. We don’t fool ourselves in Dogland.

Hearts. Heart dogs. I never knew there was such a thing. What did I know about anything in matters of the heart? People come and go, judge us, inform us, advise us, laugh at us and with us, and sometimes they even love us. But people are people and their love is definitely conditional. No matter what he or she tells you in the heat of the first passion of love or friendship, at some point you’re going to be asked to compromise a part of your spirit. But never with a dog. Never.

I used to think that angels wore pastels and sported glorious wings and had long golden hair and great singing voices. I figured God liked the Heavenly Host that way. But I’ve changed my mind. I think whoever looks out for us upstairs or over the Rainbow Bridge had a different idea in mind when it came time to find a few good friends to share eternity with.

People draw images of angels, everything from flying baby heads with wings to giant avenging angels with swords of fire. But we don’t get it. God does and that’s why we have dogs. I believe that dogs come to us from a different realm and return there at the end of their brief time helping us. We’re better for knowing them than we would ever have been without their love. Dogs are sent to us. We really are only drawn to them. They do the rest.

I’ve been lucky in my life to have had one of these angels come to spend a too brief time with me. I wasn’t prepared for this. I thought we would be a team forever. I didn’t realize she was here for just a blink in time to be my best friend, my confidante, the purveyor of calm listening and a tireless companion when I was ill. I hope she knew how much I loved her too. I don’t know why she chose me but I loved her from the moment I saw her covered with dirt in a muddy yard halfway across the state. I searched for her for nearly a year. Maybe all my life.

When it came time to send her back across the Rainbow Bridge two weeks ago my heart fell into blackness. She taught me a lot about growing old and enjoying the moment and not being afraid when it comes time to cross over the Bridge and rejoin her. And that’s what we’ll do: rejoin our heart dogs who have loved us. Pope Francis said so and I know he gets his information straight from Heaven.

I feel sorry for people who have never allowed themselves the joy and craziness and the pain of loss of a dog or cat or hamster or sheep or snake or any creature that opens them to a sense of wonder at a different perspective on life.

Please don’t delay. Don’t be so afraid of the end of the journey that you never take the first step.

 

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FLASH! Girl power lifts Santa’s sleigh

Posted on December 24, 2016 by Phyllis Alberici

real-santa-claus-sleigh-and-reindeer_555587Let’s talk about this right now: Santa’s sleigh is girl powered! All your life you believed Santa’s sleigh was pulled by tough, male reindeer. Am I right? The fact is female reindeer don’t shed their antlers in winter. The males do. And some of those female reindeer are expecting. Here’s to the girls. Santa’s reindeer have antlers. Bam! Santa’s reindeer are female. Thank you.

Truth is, eleven months of the year we ignore reindeer. In the middle of a hot summer, unless you live in Lapland or around Svalbard, you probably don’t care. But come December reindeer take their place as symbols of the season. Santa can’t arrive without reindeer power and the buffet table looks pretty bleak without at least one reindeer ornament. But reindeer are amazing. Let’s explore…

Reindeer are not to be ignored. They travel further in their annual migration than any other land mammal, covering over 3,000 miles in a year cutting across northern Scandinavia.

Reindeer also have specialized noses with 25% more capillaries delivering warm red blood that heats the air before it reaches their lungs. No reindeer ever said, “Man, it was so cold out there it was like breathing in razor blades.” Rudolph and his red nose? Sort of.

Reindeer have special pads under their hooves that toughen up to withstand the Arctic cold and their hooves are covered with fur to insulate them from the snow. Each reindeer hair is hollow to trap cold air before it reaches their skin. Reindeer are warm and toasty in some of the coldest weather on the planet.

Reindeer have eyes that turn from yellow-brown in summer to deep blue in winter. Why is that? To capture more light in the dark northern winter months. Did you know reindeer are the only mammals that can see in the ultra-violet spectrum? This helps them find their way in the dark and see danger.

Reindeer are quiet most of the year. Reindeer moms talk to their babies but male reindeer seldom speak, unless it’s to find a mate once a year or converse with a herder.

Did you know reindeer can run at nearly 50 mph? And fly? In fact, research included in the book The Flight of the Reindeer, proved that reindeer can actually fly. Fly! They can run so fast they actually leave the ground. Imagine that.

The Sami people of northern Sweden are one of several indigenous peoples who are traditional reindeer herders. Their lives and their year is spent among the reindeer traveling throughout northern Scandinavia with their herds. One herder, whose family has herded reindeer for generations, described it as “our souls touch.”

And just in case you were wondering: elk are not reindeer. But reindeer and caribou are different names for the same species.

If you want to visit with Santa and his reindeer, I’ll leave you with Reindeer Cam.

Posted in Christmas, GIRL power, Nature, Santa, Santa's sleigh | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

This is the last word on that: fruitcakes and politics

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Phyllis Alberici

fruitcakeNo matter what political firestorms blow over the landscape, at this time of year fruitcake cancels them out. That might not be true but fruitcake has gotten a bad rap over the centuries.

The Romans carried a concoction of barley mash, pomegranate seeds, raisins and pine nuts as they conquered the world. If that doesn’t make you get out a bowl and spoons then how about the Crusaders. It’s hard to find the energy to search for the Holy Grail without stoking up on calories. Yes, fruitcake traveled with the Knights Templar.

What’s the deal with fruitcake? Why doesn’t it have any friends? Why the jokes? Maybe it’s the gummy, gluey stop light candied bits that some bakers insist make it festive. Maybe it’s the weight. A slice of fruitcake has the density of neutronium. It’s a scientific fact.

But that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying a covert slice. Confession: every year during December I sneak off to a local tree nursery that brings in a small shipment of Claxton Fruitcakes. I buy many. And I hide them.

I know that if I get stuck in a snowstorm I’ll have the necessary calories to withstand the northeastern cold until I’m rescued. Failing being rescued, fruitcake provides excellent traction. When I lived in Vermont folks used to put a bag of turkey grit or a piece of their house foundation in the trunk to provide grip on icy roads. I used fruitcake.

Political candidates whine that they get kicked around but they could learn something from fruitcake. Fruitcake has been publicly humiliated for centuries. I don’t know of any politico that’s gotten slung out of a catapult by a guy dressed as a Viking, although I do know a few who should be. Leftover fruitcake gets slammed against a target every year in early January in a place called Manitou Falls, CO. All in the name of fun.

It’s time to reevaluate our relationship with fruitcake. If you’re calorically challenged and fear December’s temptations, then fruitcake for breakfast it is. One slice of fruitcake and you can skip that mid-morning snack and maybe lunch. Fruitcake is a powerhouse of “good” things: nuts, raisins, eggs plus butter, sugar and flour. Three out of six isn’t bad.

When I was a kid my mother taught me that anything that arrived in a round tin and reeked of booze should be left for the grownups. My dad was under orders to lock the car doors at night. Mom insisted that the same people who left bags of zucchini in your car when you weren’t looking were not above dropping off a spare fruitcake or two after dark. This anti-fruitcake sentiment may have fueled my desire to eat all the fruitcake.

A question that gets kicked around every year is how long these things last before they go “bad.” There are a few people who might say they’re never “good” but we’ll forget about them. The truth is that fruitcake never goes bad. There’s a story that Howard Carter found a fruitcake perfect for eating when he opened King Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. In fact, as the story goes, it was served at a festive lunch celebrating the tomb opening. I might have lied a little here but let’s be honest: if you soak anything in enough booze it will never spoil.

It’s nearly Christmas. There’s still time to make a memory. I’d like to see fruitcake take its rightful place alongside cookies and other seasonal sweet delights. You can help with this. Surprise your guests. Listen to the “oohs” and cheers as you wheel out the fruitcake in the shape of your choice, the centerpiece of your dessert buffet. It’s a bold choice and the right choice. Fruitcake. This Christmas.

 

Posted in Christmas, Food, Food you fight with, Lies, Sweet temptations | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

How two Brits killed Christmas

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Phyllis Alberici

krampus_card_by_mscorleyVIGILANT parents, aunties, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, teachers and strangers, with or without candy, you are now green lighted to tell children there is no Santa Claus. No jolly fat man. No rosy cheeked harbinger of the holiday season. Nothing. There is nothing out there. It’s all a retail lie.

But we’re only telling you this because we love you and are responsible adults who do not want to be blamed for your therapy bills when you’re thirty.

You may, however, believe in the Krampus because every kid should be afraid that some demon with horns and bad breath is going to drag them off to Hell on Christmas Eve. Hey, kid, you been naughty? All that’s gonna be left of you is a lump of tar black coal.

Paging Clement Clarke Moore to the courtesy phone. Could we please have a little magic over here on The Night Before Christmas?

Thanks to two killjoys, Christopher Boyle, a psychologist, and a “mental health researcher” named Kathy McKay over at the University of Exeter (GB) writing in the December issue of The Lancet Psychiatry, parents and well-meaning grown-ups everywhere are cautioned to be careful what they say. And watch the fairy tales while you’re at it.

In an over-statement of histrionic proportions, they write: “If they (parents et al) are capable of lying about something so special and magical, can they be relied upon to continue as the guardians of wisdom and truth?” 

Let’s just dump this muppet flail right back in the kid’s lap, shall we? If I’m a kid and my Mom and Dad tell me there’s a Santa, and Dad goes all Clark Griswold with decorations and eggnog, and the Big Night Before arrives and we set out milk and cookies, should I be suspicious? I’m maybe seven and my tiny ego is only half-formed and the tedious reliance on myth and magic is such a trial for the spirit. I’ll be under the couch reading the DSM-5.

I mean, if my pet tarantula, Skippy, dies it’s OK for these same adults to lie to me because it’s “nicer.” As this duo writes: “An adult comforting a child and telling them that their recently deceased pet will go to a special place (animal heaven) is arguably nicer than telling graphic truths about its imminent re-entry into the carbon cycle.”

I want to believe The Lancet is having us on. A bit of fun to lighten up the leaden weight of 2016. If you want to give yourself a treat it’s right there just under Football Therapy and just above To the Batcave.

Is it OK if we keep some magic in our lives? Is it OK if part of us never grows up and starts to believe that maybe Santa isn’t real? Is it OK for adults to tell a child that Santa doesn’t exist and he never did and to do this before the child has a chance to make up his or her own mind? Is being a “grown up” really code for being a self-righteous killjoy?

I want to suggest that Mr. Boyle and Ms. McKay go soak their two heads in a vat of eggnog and leave the magic to the rest of us in this weary fragile world.

Is Santa real? You bet. I have a small silver sleigh bell and a half eaten carrot I’ve had since I was a kid. You want to see them? I’d be happy to share. Magic isn’t magic if you keep it to yourself.

Thank you to Santa and the other nice folks at the North Pole for never giving up on us, even when it seems we give up on ourselves. Now, everybody back to your knitting.

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