The Original Recipe

My dad once told me he thought my mom got the idea of the chocolate chip cookie and the rolling pin from Eve. He said it all started with a recipe for sugar cookies mom received from Eve shortly after “the fall” when she and Eve were having a conversation about Adam’s depression and reluctance to getting off the bed of leaves. It seems he was fretful one evening, something about having to go to work, and Eve, in her intuitiveness, had the brilliant idea to bake. She threw some stuff from the fields together; made dough, got the stick she was going to use on Adam, started a fire (which was also new) rolled the dough instead of lambasting Adam, baked it and called it sugar cookies. This got Adam off the leaves and naming the left over animals which made him feel like he was contributing, I suppose. It also led to Adam going to work in order to come home hungry and enjoy Eve’s cooking which, prior to the cookie and fire, wasn’t much. At any rate, it may have been Eve who said, “The way to a man’s heart is through the rolling pin” or something like that.

Well, as soon as chocolate was discovered she put that in there and there you have it…chocolate chip cookies were conceived. Dad was convinced mom was there when this happened due to the fact that he saw her as very intelligent and she seemed to know everything, which could only mean she had been here since everything began and that would include the chocolate chip cookie…he may have been right. Actually I can only guess at how long mom’s been here because she was here when I got here.

My wife seems to know everything also but I cannot explain the source of her knowledge and would not attempt to estimate how long she’s been here…so we’re not going there. She arrived after I did but seems to have caught up with me and a whole bunch of other folks when it comes to cookies and every other thing. But there’s no way my wife’s as old as Eve or even mom because her cookies are loaded with oatmeal. Eve, from what mom says, never baked a cookie with oatmeal as it wasn’t even invented until after oats came along and that was probably years before my wife was born. Suffice to say, my wife appears to have infinite knowledge, is expert with the rolling pin and learned all of it from someone other than me. By the way, Mom knew the guy on the oatmeal box and says he was a very nice Quaker and Dad thought Mom hung the moon so inventing the chocolate chip cookie wasn’t much of a stretch. But I digress, again.

My daughter is now baking the chocolate chip cookie and I think she’s got the original recipe down pat! She’s been struggling with this for years because the “brilliant” people at Toll House changed mom and Eve’s recipe a few years back and since writing wasn’t invented until long after the original cookie recipe this thing has just been handed down from mouth to mouth you might say. Seems someone had the “bright” idea of inserting more flour and less yeast (things I know nothing about) or less salt and more butter or whatever and now with the box recipe, you have a cookie that tastes an awful lot like a pancake. So, somebody pass the organic milk, the daughter’s finally got it right and I can gain ten more pounds.

Half Full Vs. Half Empty

Have you ever been around anyone who loves to say, “no” or “we can’t do that”, “it just won’t work”, or “I don’t believe it”? One of those folks who sees the glass half empty? Or someone who can find ten thousand reasons for not doing something or being able to do something and not one single reason for doing it? For example: “I’d like to cut this tree down sometime next week”, says the man. “Nope, can’t do it, says Mr. Neanderthal, it’s too tall, too close to your house, too windy, too many roots running here and there, you’ll lose shade, the birds won’t be able to sit…and on and on he goes when you know darn good and well that tree can be felled. These people do exist you know? Some are very near and keeping the half full folks from solving some really big problems. Have you ever wondered what would happen if? Here are some half full/half empty potentials when one wonders, what would happen if? I left the glasses half full.

What would happen if?

1. Folks stopped buying tickets to professional sporting events. Half full: Ticket sales would drop and ticket/vending prices would decrease. Half empty: Vendors would complain, revenue would be lost, shucks, might not see a game on TV. Half full: Until folks decided the prices were “fair” and returned to the games.

2. A higher academic standard was set for high school and college athletes. Half full: Graduation/literacy rates would increase and there would be fewer athletes having problems with local law enforcement as a result of being dismissed from school with no marketable skills. Half empty: Many would be prevented from playing a sport, it’s a form of discrimination. Half full: Perhaps some would spend more time studying.

3. Everyone gave two cans of food and ten dollars to a local charity. Half full: Poverty and hunger would be lessened in communities and a spirit of community service would prevail. Half empty: There would be no place to store all the food, waste and fraud would prevail, there will always be poor people. Half full: More children would learn the lessons of giving.

4. Small town residents were allowed to use golf carts for transportation. Half full: The demand for oil would decrease, more communication would take place as people drove to and from work, and the environment would be cleaner. Half empty: Cars would run over people in golf carts, it would cost too much to provide cart/bike paths. Half full: Ever been to Peachtree City?

5. Everyone became a vegetarian. Half full: No more chicken trucks loaded with bloated, over fed chickens ten to a crate, less heart disease/obesity, fewer chemicals in our food. Half empty: McDonalds and Chick-fil-a would suffer, real men eat meat, deer’s good for you and where do I get my protein? Half full: Eat more beans.

6. Everyone who had a job skill and was out of work spent the down time making their neighborhood more attractive by using donated paint and materials. Half full: The depression associated with being out of work could be offset by the feeling of accomplishment one finds in doing a good deed. Half empty: I’ll be dadburned if I’m going to lift a shovel or a paint brush without getting paid…it’s un-American. Half full: Sometimes a volunteer job turns into the real thing. Think intrinsically.

Now I know you half empty folks are dreaming up some more half empty stuff to write in about. And some days the half empty syndrome hits me too but I really do make an effort to see the glass half full. In the words of John Wayne, “You do what you think is best!” I also try to hang out with mostly half full folks because it’s less stressful and they seem to get more done. There’s a lot of stress goes into thinking up why things won’t work as opposed to getting down to work. What if we raised our children to see the glass half full? Would they approach learning and life in a different way?

Put America Back to Work!

I don’t claim to be an economist, don’t even know one actually, but I have a question for the next politician who says, “I want to put America back to work!” The question is, “doing what?” The fact is, there are no jobs for Americans to do because the jobs we used to do, and the stuff we used to make can all be done and made cheaper someplace else. What we are good at is growing stuff. Start reading the labels on the things you buy and you will soon find out that if it’s edible it’s grown here at home… but, if it’s wearable it comes from someplace else.

So the next time you hear some person standing on a podium somewhere say, “I want to put America back to work” you pull up a big ol’ sign that says, “doing what?” If he/she can name you ten jobs that have nothing to do with the state or federal government, ten jobs that can earn you a living, insurance coverage and retirement, vote for him.

Of course I exaggerate here but you get the point. Having said that I believe Americans will find a way by hook or crook, as they say, to make things better for ourselves. My eighty nine year old mother can still remember watching my grandfather chase the favorite chicken around the yard during the depression years, prior to wringing its neck. She says his reputation for wringing chicken necks was matchless back in the thirties. I guess they ate a lot of chicken.

One way I can always tell we’re in deep financial dodo is when mom starts heading for the chicken. I took her to the grocery store the other day, not looking for anything in particular and sure enough she gravitated toward the wings. This is how it happened. She’s on one of those fixed incomes but she’s healthy (thank you Lord) and still enjoys a few hours browsing through a grocery store. It usually takes that long because once she gets in there she acts like a food inspector, slowly making her way from the veggies to the meats. The woman has to inspect every veggie whether she intends to buy the thing or not, so it might take twenty minutes to get from the celery to the squash and then she’s got to check out the potatoes, which could take forever because they lend themselves to scrutiny.

 She’ll pick one up, bounce it around in her hand, flip it over and either put it in the cart or back on the rack. The other day I got tired of watching her flip potatoes and headed on over to the meats, figuring she’d wind up there sooner or later. There were three fat ranch wings left on the wing island. At one time it must have had them all, ranch, hot, buffalo, salt and vinegar, you name it but here sat these three lonely wings waiting for me. I put those three on a plate and into a bag figuring I might be able to hide them until we got home where I might let her have just one. She must have been watching because sure enough here she comes, straight out of the bell peppers looking for some chicken. “Whatcha got?” “I have some chicken mom, just a few wings.” “Lemme see.”  “Here, see, just three wings.” “Lemme try one.”

She ate that one and had the other two eaten by the time she finished inspecting the ground round. When we got to the check out counter there were three bones left in the plate. The cashier took each item through the scanner and when she got to the wing plate full of bones she took one look at me and said, “Sir, these are sold by the pound!” Mom had left the building and methinks we’re all going to be eating more chicken.

The Scents of Fond Memories-- And Some Bad

There’s no doubt that something stinks in Washington, D.C. We just can’t quite put our fingers on it, but if we go there a trip to the washroom would be needed afterward.

I’m not going there. My sense of smell is too sensitive, plus, it just doesn’t take much effort to write about what could be called Potomac dysentery -- where our politicians are always running either toward an office or away from responsibility.

The sense found in D.C. seems to have evaporated, but some scents stay with us forever. Those that bring back memories of childhood or events, that in some way, made a difference in our lives are the best.

I remember the smell of chlorine at the crystal clear Whittle Springs pool (Knoxville) years ago when Mike Lucci (Detroit Lions linebacker, All-SEC) was the lifeguard and god of the pool.

That pool had two low diving boards and one high dive that seemed, when seen from below, to be akin to cliff diving. Lucci guarded the U.T. cheerleaders and us 10-year-olds from that high dive for several summers. His record was sterling; we didn’t lose a single cheerleader.

I remember the smell of hot pavement after a summer rain in Panama City as we rode our bikes through the puddles trying to kick up a spray. You’d get a good running start at the puddle then pull your feet up and weave through it as long as your speed would allow. There were no sidewalks, so once in a while you’d find yourself sliding into someone’s front yard.

I remember the smell of cooking coming from homes before air conditioning when you could just about tell what was being served for dinner by simply walking down the street. Fried chicken was on a lot of menus.

There was the smell of the leaf pile from the big oak trees in my grandfather’s yard after raking. No one can resist taking a running leap into a pile with that musky smell of leaves and acorns.

His neighbor didn’t like the trees, said they were dangerous, so my grandfather, in a fit of rage, had them cut down. Things were never the same at the big house on the hill after that.

I remember the greasy smell of bacon as it cooked on the docks in the bay. We used it for bait until we caught a fish and then we’d use him for bait. Needle fish made great bait because when you cut them up they looked like links made for a fish hook, and it was great fishing off a saltwater dock because you never knew what you were going to catch. I always had to take my brother when I went fishing. I didn’t like to take fish off the hook.

Then there was the scent of security. Do you remember? For me it was Aqua Velva after shave. Dad put it on early in the mornings before heading for work and it gave us a sense of well being some have never experienced. For some folks it was Old Spice or just a clean smell coming from the bathroom. There’s a lot to be said for that sense of smell if you use it right to bring back the good stuff.

Do you wonder what scents the guys on the Potomac remember? I think maybe Elmer’s glue or Play-Doh would fit their mold. Seems like they’re always trying to put something back together when it gets broken or make something that never lasts long at the “D.C. Fun Factory.”

But who needs D.C. sense anyway? We have great scents, and more important ones right here at home?