Hello, Home Fries!

Once again, Matea and I are flying south for the winter. After a quick trip to a mountain cabin with my immediate family, we will head to Greenwood to engage in non-stop Thanksgiving feasting with the rest. As a 5-year vegetarian, these days I don’t partake in the ubiquitous turkey, ham, fatback-seasoned green beans, and giblet gravy (although Matea has developed excellent substitutes). My family has been gracious in preparing the dressing with veggie broth and the beans with fake pork seasoning, and I think they find it somewhat novel to be eating a delicious vegetarianized dish.

Despite the accommodation my diet necessitates, I won’t miss out on the entire southern dining experience while there. Grits, biscuits and peppermill gravy, fried squash, fried okra, hush puppies, cole slaw, boiled peanuts, macaroni pie, pecan pie, and, of course, sweet tea, will be in abundance. There will be an extra-large helping of grannies, cousins, aunts and uncles on the side, also, strangely, covered in gravy. Yes, I will be lucky to have an esophagus upon my return to Vermont, due to all the inevitable acid reflux I anticipate having. But that’s what the holidays are all about, an intense burning in your chest signifying both good and bad.

Just Deserts

Last weekend we raked and bagged the yellow maple leaves blanketing my mother-in-law’s front yard. With temperatures in the low 50s, it seemed that all the neighbors were out in their yards mowing, blowing, raking, clipping, and weeding. It’s the necessary preparation for the long winter season that’s upon us, but being out in the crisp air doing hard, dirty work was a reward in itself.

Once when I was about 8 years old, I took it upon myself to rake up all the dead grass that had accumulated along the chain-link fence in our backyard. I made neat piles of the clippings at each corner of the fence and went inside proudly to tell my Dad about the work I had done for him. He was mildly appreciative (it was a big job for an 8-year-old but relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of our back yard). “I did all of that,” I said, then after a few more seconds of thinking, “and I’m just going to charge you...ten cents.” Dad chuckled a little and explained to me that you don’t request payment for a favor you’ve done out of kindness. I have to admit, I was a little bummed at his offering of a mere “thank you” in return for my hard work. I guess that explains why it took me 20 years to pick up another rake.

Embarrassing Admission #11

Matea and I always refer to our car by its proper name, Belle. As in, “Did you take Belle in for an oil change today?” or “Does Belle need to go see Joey (the detailer)?” Matea’s last car, a green 1999 Ford Taurus, had the inventive name “Turtle.” Similarly, we used to call my Nana’s old Dodge Diplomat “Big Red,” both because of its color and because Nana was never in short supply of either Big Red or Juicy Fruit gum. And finally, the most odd: at the time Matea and I met, way back in the 7th grade, both of our families had huge, ugly beater cars, and both families separately called these cars “The Gray Ghost.” Ahh, I guess it was meant to be. :)

The Prufrock is in the Pudding

My dear friend Sarah Lenes refuses to read my blog (or any other) because, she says, it’s like reading a person’s diary; it’s too personal. Anything she needs to know about me, I can tell her, she says. But as she knows, I would never invoke images of fairy dust or liken myself to Cinderella in my day-life, and I probably wouldn’t even discuss with zeal the swelling pride I have in my country (overall). She’s right, though, that my scribbling here may verge on the personal or confessional. In fact, hitting that “Publish” button for the first time a week ago, to dispatch my first blog into cyberspace for all the world to see, was crushingly nerve-racking for me. Until now, the fear of rejection or critique has left me in a state of expressive paralysis, like an incarnation of T.S. Eliot’s indecisive, self-deprecating character J. Alfred Prufrock. I am not an aging, sexually frustrated man, of course, but like Prufrock, I have been afraid to let loose the things I want to say, to become vulnerable.

In an internal monologue, Prufrock weighs his decision to “force the moment to its crisis” and suggest an intimate encounter with his female companion:


And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse


As a writer of short fiction, the fear of charges like, “How her adjectives and verbs are growing thin!” keep me up at night. So when considering writing a blog (a much less formal style), I wondered, as he did, “Do I dare?” Prufrock admits to himself in the end that he is no Prince Hamlet, nor is he meant to be, and here I likewise proclaim that I am no William Faulkner, no Flannery O’Connor. This will be a compilation of nothings and somethings, of meandering and non-polished writings. So judge away. This will not be an attempt at perfection but an unabashed celebration of my bald spots. After all, this is places i’ve gone barefoot, not places i’ve gone in prada.

America on the Bubble

I feel like I can’t write much on the election here that wouldn’t sound trite, recycled, or obtuse. But the fact is, as I bubbled in my vote today on the (very accurate) Vermont paper Scantron ballot, I felt a dizzying sense of patriotism (which doesn’t often strike me, to tell the truth). I felt not only that I was executing my civic duty but that I was undoubtedly making history there in the cafeteria of Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School. We are approaching an encouraging new era in this country when, no matter the outcome tonight, we have a multi-racial Democratic nominee with the ardent support of millions of Americans from diverse backgrounds. The paradigm of the old white man (and there have, admittedly, been some good ones) is crumbling at the roots. Not that I voted for Mr. Obama because of his race—I voted for him because we need a president with vision, humility, equanimity, and intelligence—but I cannot deny that having the opportunity to vote for someone of African-American descent made me a little giddy. Because I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. (As my co-worker Dan Jacobs noted earlier today, neither did Tupac.)

Some weeks ago, my uber-conservative-southern-Republican father told me over the phone in a very genuine way that, for the first time in his life, he feels like he could someday vote for a black man for president. Even though I’m certain he voted for McCain today, along with many others in my family, this was a huge step forward for him. I can only hope that the same seed growing young roots within my father is taking to the wind and propagating all across Palin’s “real America.”

On the wall in my office I have a clipped photo of Rosa Parks, just after her arrest in Montgomery on December 1, 1955 for civil disobedience. I often look up at her and wonder if it’s indignity, insolence, pride, or fear in her expression, but I swear today she looks on the verge of smiling. Just 8 years after Mrs. Parks’ arrest, Sam Cooke had it right when he prophetically sang that “a change gone come, oh yes it will.” In the year of his death, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation largely precipitated by Parks’ brave actions, was signed into law. Two generations since that time, we still haven’t come full circle, I know. Racism is still entrenched in every corner of the country. And there are other civil rights issues still challenging our legislators, judiciary, and electorate. I myself live in Vermont (again, now not the sole reason) because, when I moved here in 2003, it was the only state to allow civil unions. Every morning when I come in to work, I see this mug shot of prisoner 7053 and condemn myself just a little for seeking refuge in another state. I wish for a time that I could have exhibited the same sort of bravery, although I do take solace in the fact that even Rosa Parks and her husband eventually fled the hostile environment in Alabama and moved to Detroit. But I am doing my best to find my own brand of courage, and filling in that bubble today was just a small part of it. I know, whether it’s this day or another day, whether from me or for me…a change gone come.