Journal

It is with weary eyes that I watch the seemingly endless parade of Ukrainian refugees plodding along rubble-strewn streets, clamoring over half-destroyed bridges, and leaving their lives and homes behind as they look to an uncertain tomorrow. Their hearts are heavy with grief, their bodies and souls tortured by circumstance.

It is a trail of tears like so many that have been created in the course of conflict.

Millions have found refuge in the neighboring countries of Poland, Romania, Moldova, Slovakia, Hungary. Others are still boarding the trains and buses that will provide transportation for broken families to unknown destinations.

It seems from what I’ve been able to glean from a variety of news sources that the Ukrainians are not so much fleeing their country as they are seeking safe haven from an enemy whose attacks on the nation are aimed more at civilian targets—businesses and warehouses, schools, hospitals, residences, monuments, churches, and synagogues—than at strategic military installations. They don’t want to leave their homes and country. The Ukrainians are blowing up their own bridges to slow convoys of Russian troops and their tools of war. In its eighteenth day of conflict, the 40-mile column of offensive vehicles has been widely dispersed.

They are making Molotov cocktails and learning to use the government-issued Kalashnikov assault rifles. They are becoming a guerilla force fighting a superior power.

Thus far, the Ukrainians are not losing. They are showing themselves to be a formidable power against the un-caged bear that is Russia.

The Ukrainians, a wise friend suggested this week, seem more in love with democracy than we are. Or perhaps than any country is. Young men see their families off to safety, while they stay behind to fight for their country. Older men join the fight, as well as women of varying ages—all in the hopes of saving their country. Their sacrifice is what a free country’s people do.

Most of us can hardly imagine the terror and trauma of displacement. How, I wonder, does one react to the reality of leaving everything behind. The bags, backpacks, and suitcases we’ve seen being carried by the refugees: what’s in them? A clothing change or two, a cherished wedding gift, a photo album. The small children clutch a favorite toy, perhaps a stuffed animal that fuels the imagination, offers warm comfort, and provides the memories of a better time. They are something cuddly to be hugged while trying to sleep on a folding cot in a subway tunnel or gymnasium.

This invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces is the work of Vladimir Putin, president of Russia and a career KGB operative during the Soviet era. His ambition seems to be to restore the USSR by taking back lands that were once controlled by Moscow. With it, of course, come the spoils of war. It is not difficult to imagine Putin invading Poland, the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, and then, perhaps, Finland and Sweden, neither of which are NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signatories.

Of course, any move against Poland or the Baltic States would be met with the invocation of Article Five of the treaty, which states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, “it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.”

This is how we all should offer solace and protection to our neighbors. If one person is under siege then we all are.

But this war seems to have much to do with the annihilation of the Ukrainian people. So-called humanitarian corridors have been routinely attacked, as have the country’s food supplies. It hauntingly mirrors the 1932-33 Ukrainian famine which claimed 3.9 million people. This was no act of blight or drought; rather, it was caused when Stalin wanted both to replace Ukraine’s small farms with state-run collectives and punish independence-minded Ukrainians who posed a threat to his totalitarian authority. Crops of Europe’s breadbasket were either stolen for the Motherland or burned.

The targeting of non-military installations further indicates Putin’s interest in obliterating the land and its structures.

Putin, the 21st century embodiment of evil, justified his move into Ukraine by falsely citing Nazi forces at-large in that country, a country led by a Jew, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was elected with a 70 percent majority. Antisemitism, in that sense, seems of no more concern than that which is normal. Lately, Putin is suggesting, wrongly, that Ukraine is preparing to use chemical or biological warfare to justify his own use of such weaponry. It’s a playground taunt, a bullying act by a tyrant.

The 5’5” Putin, who is 69 years old, has also not taken nuclear attack off the table.

America has been asked to intervene. President Joe Biden has declined, saying that our involvement—either by land or air—would potentially lead to a third world war.

It seems to me that we’re already on the brink of such a heinous situation. Escalation will in all likelihood come to the eastern edge of Europe over the coming days or weeks. The narcissistic Putin will never admit defeat. The laying down of arms just isn’t in his wheelhouse.

While America has provided humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine, it seems to me we need to ratchet it up a bit. I’m generally opposed to boots on the ground, but I’m not opposed to helping develop a no-fly zone for the Ukrainian people. We have sophisticated drones and aircraft that could bring the bear to its knees. And for the sake of humanity, we need to aid in the stopping of the enemy.

This is not comparable to our conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, or various other countries. I don’t think that helping to secure a democratic state from a blood-thirsty tyrant is anything more than just the right thing to do.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Chicken Kyiv

This was a classic restaurant dish in the fifties and early-sixties. It’s delicious.

1/4 unsalted butter
1 Tbs. fresh parsley, plus more for garnish
1 small bunch fresh chives or scallions
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. kosher salt, divided
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs
2 large eggs
1 Tbs. water
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups vegetable oil, for deep frying


Cut butter into 1/2-inch cubes. Place in a medium bowl and let sit at room temperature until softened, about 45 minutes.
Finely chop fresh parsley leaves and chives or scallions. Mince garlic cloves. Add salt and mix into the butter until well-combined.
Spoon the seasoned butter onto a piece of plastic wrap and roll into a 1-inch-thick log. Wrap tightly and freeze until firm, at least 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, pound chicken breasts to an even 1/4-inch thickness. Take care not to split or break apart the chicken breast.
Remove the butter from the freezer. Cut in half lengthwise, then cut each piece in half crosswise, for 4 even pieces.
Roll and wrap one piece of chicken at a time: Place one piece on a sheet of plastic wrap. Season with kosher salt and a few grinds black pepper. Place a piece of compound butter in the center of the chicken breast. Tightly roll up the chicken, tucking the short sides in as you go. Tightly twist the ends of the plastic wrap to create a log shape.
Place the wrapped chicken seam-side down on a plate. Freeze until the bottoms are slightly firm and hold together, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat oven to 400º. Fit a wire rack inside a rimmed baking sheet.
Place 1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl or pie plate. Place 1/2 cup all-purpose flour on a large plate. Whisk 2 large eggs and 1 tablespoon water together in a second shallow bowl until evenly combined.
Unwrap the chicken. Working with one piece at a time, dredge completely in the flour, then dip into the egg, and thoroughly coat with the breadcrumbs. Return to the plate.
Heat 1/2-inch vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet (about 4 cups in a 12-inch skillet) to 350ºF. Add 2 chicken breasts and cook until golden-brown all over, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer to the rack and repeat with the remaining 2 pieces of chicken. The chicken will not be cooked through.
Bake until the chicken is cooked through and registers 165ºF on an instant-read thermometer, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with the parsley.

Twice each year during my grade school years, I would join my classmates for a trip into the future.

With sack lunches in hand, we’d load into a yellow bus and travel the short distance to the Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson Park, a neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Housed in what had been the Palace of Fine Arts from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, the museum was endowed by Julius Rosenwald, the Sears, Roebuck and Company president and philanthropist. Supported by the Commercial Club of Chicago, it opened in 1933 during the Century of Progress Exposition.

That was only twenty-odd years before my curiosity was being piqued by the displays of mankind’s achievements in science and industry.

The takeaway from those field trips was that the future would be fantastical, full of weird and wonderful devices that would change our lives. It was barely imaginable. Every exhibit was hailed as the Future of whatever…kitchen, bath, etc. We got a glimpse of what automobiles, trains and planes might look like.

One brief peek into the imagined future that I remember was a demonstration of a telephone that had a visual component. In those days before we had yet to see anything beyond a rotary phone, this contraption, the name of which I can’t recall, allowed a two-way communication of both audio and visual. You could actually see whoever it was you were talking to. (In his 1968 song, “Younger Generation,” John Sebastian made a reference to a “videophone.”)

My mother, who accompanied my class on this particular trip, was appalled at this cumbersome device, noting that she would have to put on her makeup before answering the telephone. She was, in short, opposed to progress on that level.

The promise (threat?) of having telephones being portable was only a few years down that early road. Now, of course, Zoom meetings, spurred by the Corona-19 virus, have replaced having to be present in the course of doing business. There are several other competitors in that burgeoning field, not all of which are compatible with just any device. My smartphone is smarter than me.

On my desk, I have my computer, an iPad, and a cellular telephone. Each device allows me to do different things, from research to amusement, video-conferencing to simple conversations. My phone goes with me always. I remember when my desk had a typewriter, a fax machine, and a telephone that was actually plugged into a wall.

None of the above were portable.

The way we get news and information has been changed dramatically. I grew up with newspapers and radio. (We got our first television on the day of JFK’s assassination.) The Sun-Times adorned our breakfast table. On the pages of that paper was everything one could hope for: entertainment, world and local news, op-eds, feature stories and a weekly food section. One’s fingers would darken from the ink while reading it.

Our research was done at the library, where we could also check out books.

Today’s e-books I find to be a poor substitute for the books I want to read. I like to hold books, just like I prefer a newspaper to a video feed.

Sadly, newspapers are shutting down operations from coast to coast. Those that remain are smaller and many have cut back on the number of publication days. They generally have more wire service stories than locally produced news.

Of course, television offers an immediacy that can be overwhelming. When the effect of 9/11 was first compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor, my mother noted that one saw the newsreels of Pearl Harbor and that was that. Few could know how many times one saw the video of the planes crashing into the twin towers. Today, we’re being fed continuous tape loops of the action in Ukraine. A sense of urgency to not miss something of significance keeps many of us glued to our screens.

And what will the future hold for ways to stay informed? What will replace what? There is, after all, a replacement for everything.

A wire story I read last week told the story of the demise of Kmart. There are only four stores left, the story reported—down from 2,400.

Sebastian Spering Kresge (1867 – 1966) was an American businessman who created and owned two chains of department stores: the S. S. Kresge Company, one of the 20th century’s largest discount retail organizations, and the Kresge-Newark traditional department store chain.

The first Kmart opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. In 1977, the S. S. Kresge Corporation changed its name to the Kmart Corporation. In 2005, Sears Holdings Corporation became the parent of Kmart and Sears, after Kmart bought Sears, and formed the new parent company.

Sears, founded in 1892, is a retail operation that sells everything from tools and appliances to clothing and household furnishings. It had begun as a mail-order operation that made big city goods accessible to rural America. Throughout the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the nation.

Both Kmart and Sears put several small retail operations out of business. Boutiques, shops, and hardware stores suffered, with the larger operations replacing the small with discount pricing and vast selections of goods.

The emergence of Walmart and Target on the retail scene cut deeply into other businesses, again with the behemoths trouncing on the local stores. Their wholesale buying power allowed them unmatched market share.

So what will replace Walmart and Target in the future? Amazon, buffeted by the pandemic, will be replaced by God-only-knows. It seems that goods from every retail outlet can be found on the internet, including the retail giants.
Clearly the brick-and-mortar operations will continue to suffer.

But I’m old fashioned. I like to touch those things I wish to buy. I want to make sure that clothing will fit me. I want to pick the vegetables and meats I’ll prepare. And I want to support those little shops whose revenues help sponsor the community in which I live.

I’d also like to talk on the telephone only when I’m at home.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Five-Bean Casserole

1/2 pound bacon, chopped
2 cups onion, coarsely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 (15 ounce) can butter beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can great northern beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can baked beans

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Sauté bacon over medium-high heat in a deep pot and cook until evenly browned. Drain and set aside.
Sauté onion in bacon fat over medium-low heat until soft (5-6 minutes); add garlic and cook another minute or so. Add the brown sugar, mustard, salt, and vinegar. Cook covered on low heat for 20 minutes.
In a four-quart baking dish, combine the bacon, onion mixture and beans. Mix well, and bake covered for 1 hour. Uncover and bake another 10-15 minutes.

Like most Americans of my age, I have spent the better part of the new year winnowing through the names of my Facebook friends—separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were. But for every one name that gets the heave-ho, I get countless friend requests from “People You May Know.”

There is little-to-no chance of my actually knowing any of these prospective friends. Do I want to know them? I’m not sure.

Most of us have no clue about the friends with which we share personal stories, videos of “epic fails” by men (mostly) doing exceptionally dumb stunts that in a just world would have proved fatal, and cute videos of puppies and kittens being, well…puppies and kittens.

But how does one say goodbye after several years of not knowing someone? And how does one select replacements to keep one’s friend list at full capacity?

The most obvious of ways to edit the friend list is to wait for them to post something they might have heard on Fox News. Just this week, I gave the boot to eleven people who sided with Putin and Trump regarding the invasion of Ukraine. Those individuals don’t have even the slightest notion about genius, and they have no quarter in my book. Then I resolved to excise from the list anybody who mentions “face mask” and “freedom” as an either/or proposition.

The arduous task of picking new friends I’ll never know and denying other applicants to my inner circle is a sticky wicket, potentially. Rules must be established, procedures followed.

I find myself initially relying on the pseudoscience of phrenology. There are two ways to approach what might be closely akin to astrology. First, there is the notion that the bumps on one’s skull are used to predict mental traits. This version is based on the concept that the brain—the functional organ of the mind—has localized and specific functions.

Some might find that to be a load of crap, without even mentioning the left-brain, right-brain functions that presumably decide if one is going to be a mathematician or a busker.

A second approach involves the detailed study of the shape and size of the cranium as an indication of character and mental abilities.

When selecting Facebook friends, the latter approach is the one to be used because the first requires a tactile search of the head of somebody you don’t know. Unless you find yourself on a crowded subway and just happen to recognize the person from his FB “Profile” picture, that groping of one’s scalp may result in being denied assignment to the Federal Court of Appeals. That latter approach seems unlikely in that few people use a picture of the backs of their heads as profile shots.

The profile, when properly displayed, is our next line of approach for making new friends. It’s usually a picture of somebody projecting an image of what they want to be known for. The under-25 crowd tends to dress in black; their  gaunt faces reflecting the angst under which they suffer without knowing the meaning of the word “angst.” The over-70 crowd tends to wear odd outfits while showing themselves to being active, which typically entails holding up a cocktail under a beach umbrella.

Some people show as their profile picture exotic animals. Why? If I relate a person’s image with the image of, let’s say, a hippopotamus, what exactly am I to draw from that?

Others, that I’ve seen, are of frogs, turtles, various birds, tetra fish, dwarf horses, Vietnamese pigs, roosters, and Frank Zappa. Except for Zappa, they are all kind of cute in their own peculiar ways. But as a profile?

The next part of the profile of potential friends involves how many friends we have in common. If I find that we have 236 friends in common, I click on the number and a display of 236 names pops up. I scroll through the list and discover that I don’t know a single one of our 236 friends in common. At that point, I might randomly select a name from the list and discover that Suzanne Schwartz and I have 153 friends in common, none of whom I recognize as friends.

This process can last for weeks.

If I choose to investigate a little further, I merely click on what’s-his-name’s profile picture to discover that he likes to take photographs of French pastries to display on his page. It’s a welcoming gesture but it does not facilitate my eating any of the French pastries which, as we all know, is much better than seeing a picture of those delicacies somebody else probably ate–specifically, the guy, whom I’ll call Glen, who ate them and chose to lord it over the rest of us. He is not a desirable friend, even virtually.

Because of my unfortunate experiences with the likes of Glen, I will not entertain the possibility of an FB friend who has fewer than 250 mutual friends. Nor will I delve deeper into those whose profile pictures involve food, especially food that during its transition from life to death includes pictures of said transition. If you’re a catch-and-release fly fisher, for instance, the fish will have died by the time the photographer finds the focus control on his phone.

Pictures of dead deer, elk, moose, and antelope, with the rifle nestled into the grasp of the antlers, just seems inappropriate. I’ve shot three of those species and having a picture of me smiling behind my quarry would be as distasteful as having a picture of me and my smiling face standing next to my grandmother’s casket.

Some easy ways to dispense with potential FB friends is to pay close attention to the names of those belonging to the Lonely Hearts Club which, in all reality, is what Facebook is. Suzy Serendipity, Winter Storm and Gayle Force and arguably fake names, as well as Rocky Beach who married Sandy.

I won’t befriend anybody who has to use a significant other or a child in the Profile. I don’t know why, but it seems a prudent decision.

It’s early Sunday, but I’m almost late for a chat session with 35 of my most revered friends. I think the subject has something to do with something that someone thought was important. Maybe.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Deruni (potato pancake)

It seems that it might be nice to share a Ukrainian recipe. Like in most eastern European countries, the potato pancake is a dietary staple. Cheap and easy-to-make, Deruni, is not much different from latkes.

2 cups grated russet potatoes, squeezed dry
2 eggs, well beaten
2 Tbs. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Kosher salt
½ small onion, grated

Mix all ingredients well and form into 3” to 4” pancakes. Fry in vegetable shortening until brown and crisp. Drain on a rack and serve warm. Traditionally, they are served with sour cream.

From the nothing-we-can-do-about-it department comes word that our fair little burg is being invaded by foreign entities based in the Socialist territories of Seattle, a settlement on the Pacific Ocean that celebrates diversity and rampant veganism. While there is no timeline for the threatened invasion, the danger seems real, and it is making the local citizenry fret as they make their ardent pleas for a withdrawal of forces and armaments.

We’re waiting with bated breath for Joe Biden to weigh in.

Despite the imposing threat of authoritarianism, all is relatively calm. The amassing of enemy forces on three sides of the village is scary. “We must be vigilant in our class struggle,” somebody of no particular import said.

Villagers are scurrying about, stopping to pray on bended knee that Starbucks’s baristas, 1,500 of them armed with diminutive demitasse spoons and protected by cup sleeves, will retreat to the big cities where they thrive in the valleys created by glass-and-steel towers of commerce. The villagers, outpowered by the weapons of profit, are pledging their allegiance and support to the multiple, independent coffee shops and drive-thru kiosks that dot what is becoming a battlefield over caffeine—that most addictive of stimulants that few can survive without.

Cigarettes, crack, heroin…forget it. Easy-peasy compared to denying the ravages of coffee—that early morning hot brew needed to wake up, get juiced, and experience that sense of being slightly on edge to face the rigors of what any day might bring.

Actually, the battlefield in our fair village is limited to a corner nearly under the I-90 freeway that passes by the southern edge of town. It is the former location of an Arby’s that closed shop, leaving McDonald’s as the only fast-food outlet visible from the freeway. Prior to that, it was a Hardee’s that didn’t draw enough traffic to sustain its business.

Our little town depends on the revenues of visitors stopping to buy stuff on their way to Yellowstone National Park. Since we have no sales tax in the Last Best Place, it’s difficult to think that anybody other than the store owners realize that increase in profits. Our streets are pocked with potholes and the infrastructure suffers from the weight of a few million visitors who cross the overpass on their ways to Corporation Corner.

Yes, the McDonald’s, along with the hidden Subway and the pizza-by-the-slice place, provide food, sort of, for the travelers. There are also three gas stations that serve corn dogs, day-old French fries and fountain sodas (one of them even has gambling); a supermarket that sells supermarket stuff. Further south are a Domino’s, a Taco Bell, and a rustic strip mall that houses a beauty shop and a quilt store. Maybe. I’ve not gone out that way since the pandemic, so I’m not really sure what’s out there. I’m guessing somebody must be selling pot.

These attractions, it seems, grab the attention of visitors exiting the freeway for their 52-mile drive south to the north entrance of the park. If they—the visitors—were to turn north, they would discover the magic of our quirky little town. Currently, we have about 17 coffee shops, each owned by people who live here, send their kids to public schools here, support Little League and ballet classes here, and generally are down-to-earth folks who are friendly and thankful that their little businesses thrive, or at least survive.

We also have countless art galleries, bookstores, thrift shops and stores that sell knick-knacks and T-shirts. There are restaurants—one of which even offers sushi—and the number of bars match the number of churches.

So, spending an hour or two in our downtown is a great way to see how we live. One can immerse oneself into the history of a railroad town at our two museums. If one takes to time to speak to a local, you’ll get another slant on our history.

Nestled in the parking lot at Albertson’s, the supermarket referred to above, is a drive-up kiosk that sells excellent coffee drinks. The owner is named Cathy, and she works long hours to provide a good product. I don’t recall the name of the shop, just like I don’t know the street addresses of many of my friends. I just know where they live.

Cathy’s place is about the size of four phone booths. Its signage is confined to the placards on each side, just above the eaves beneath the rustic roof. There are two windows and one can order their coffee from either. The little shop is in the shadows of what will soon become Starbucks. It’s likely that few of the travelers will see past the familiar Starbucks logo and see my friend’s shop. I hope that she might relocate to attract more business. I hope her business thrives.

I’ve been to two Starbucks stores. One was in Hollywood. It was the only coffee joint near the hotel where we were staying one June weekend. The second was the original shop in Seattle, across the street from Pike Place Market. I wasn’t impressed by either of them. The coffee seemed syrupy, the plastic-wrapped pastries seemed factory made, and there was no persistent aroma of coffee.

I like our little dedicated coffee shops here. Some of the joints offer indoor seating and I’m eager to return when we all feel safe to do so. That’s a sign of our community. We care about each other.

In the meantime, I patronize a few of them. My budget doesn’t allow daily ventures to the shops. I wish it did. But whatever my budget does allow will go to my friends and neighbors who brew the real thing. I don’t need my name on a paper cup. The places I frequent know my name.

Starbucks will not even notice the petitions striving to keep the company out. Their marketing studies guarantee success at the bottom of the I-90 off-ramp. And we’ll be fine. The plethora of coffee places north of the off-ramp will continue to succeed. They depend on locals, as they’ve not ever had to depend on out-of-staters.

We’ll keep the coffee places going as we pity those who make a wrong turn and miss our little town.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Scones

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
2 Tbs. sugar
¼ pound cold unsalted butter, cubed
1 cup heavy cream & 1 lightly beaten egg
3 Tbs. melted butter

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Toss dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Using your fingertips or a pastry cutter, blend butter and flour mixture together just until butter pieces are the size of peas and covered with flour. Make a well in the center of the bowl and pour in cream. Mix ingredients together by hand until a shaggy dough is formed.

Turn out onto a floured surface and gently knead dough together just until smooth and all ingredients are incorporated.

Pat dough into a 3/4- to 1-inch-thick, rough rectangle shape. Use your hands if you like a nice bumpy top; for smooth tops, use a rolling pin, pressing lightly. Using a sharp knife or dough scraper, cut rectangle in half lengthwise, then cut across into 8 or 12 rectangles or squares. Place them on the baking sheet, spaced out.

Brush tops with egg wash (2 eggs beaten with 1 tablespoon water). Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons brown sugar.

Bake until light golden brown, about 22 minutes; rotate the pan front to back halfway through. Let cool slightly on the baking sheet. Serve warm or at room temperature.

All one really needs to know is that the Scots invented curling. They also invented golf and are responsible for refining the Turkish invention of bagpipes. The Turks knew when to give up.

Oh, and the Scots use leftover sheep bladders as a conveyance for innards to create the renowned, yet mostly feared, haggis, a delicacy in a country that has yet to wholly appreciate a Big Mac. I forgive them because they also created Scotch, an adult beverage that is known to either solve or create all of life’s problems.

Speaking of alcohol and the Olympics…

When Daniel and I were in Indian Guides, a YMCA-sponsored father-son program that focused on the customs and practices of Hollywood’s idea of Native Americans, we went to winter camp in Big Bear, California. After talking about tomahawks and beaded footwear, the boys went to bed, guarded by one of the fathers, a lawyer who was more responsible than the rest us.

The irresponsible of us decided to drink just enough to inspire us to build a luge course on a downhill slope of considerable slope. Working in the moonlight, we created a course that twisted and turned. And as if that wasn’t cool enough, we found a couple lengths of garden hose to spray our creation. The water froze on contact.

The next morning, the excited little boys couldn’t wait to go sledding. After a horrible breakfast in the cantina, we made our way to the slope to show the boys just what alcohol could do. They were shaking with anticipation. The fathers were assessing what we had created, with some of us going so far as to say, “What were we thinking?”

The icy surface of our luge course glistened in the morning sun. One of the fathers, a Mormon who envied our drinking, finally volunteered to test the track. Sitting atop a red snow disc—a sled that has a mind of its own—he pushed himself off the starting point and was soon careening down the track at about 84 mph. At the bottom, he was vaulted off the course and crashed into a wooden fence. The crack! we heard could be one of two things: the fence or his back. Fortunately, it was the fence.

But back to curling, or ice shuffleboard.

Shuffling around on ice wearing what appears to be ballet slippers, the curlers, who, in the off-season, mop and polish floors, sweep a path for the rock, a puck-like thing about the size of a Fiat. For some reason, it has a handle.

The Olympian players all wear microphones clipped to the collars of their uniform shirts. Since most of the players are from Nordic countries or Canada, Americans are left to wonder if their commentary (Åh, jäklar) which translates into “oh shit, you sniveling turkey wattle,” is spoken to the rock, which by now must be somehow symbolic of something.

Although Jamaican bobsledding is the most preposterous of all winter Olympic sports, snowboarding is both the hippest and most insipid. Snowboarders—who eschew multi-colored, high tech clothing for pre-torn jeans or Magic Johnson’s discarded basketball shorts, woolen plaid shirts, and unrelenting attitude—compete on modified surfboards made from organic hemp that can be smoked after elimination from competition, provided their parents’ Grateful Dead records are played.

The winter Olympics and NASCAR have one thing in common: we watch them in hopes of a death-defying crash. A speed skater, for instance, in the final turn on his/her way to an easy Gold, loses it. We feel sorry, but actually are grateful that finally, after watching eight of them, each with one hand in a position to execute self-wedgies, they do something interesting in a contest that has lasted somewhere in the neighborhood of five hours.

Ski-jumping follows suit. Hell, anybody with the physique of Adonis and the agility of Gene Kelly can flip in mid-air a few times before gliding down a snowy embankment the size of Mount Everest to a perfect landing. It takes special talent to crash and be taken by an ambulance to an ER to see if any vital parts of the neck were broken or if the spleen—an organ whose very existence even medical science still regards as a mystery—may be in jeopardy. We know we don’t need the spleen—specifically—but if it bursts, we’re toast. What’s up with that?

And let’s not forget about ice dancing or whatever it’s called. Figure skating? Other than an 8, what figure can be skated? A 2? How’s about a 7? By now, we’ve seen all the quintuple axels we can stand. Let’s see one of those leotarded dancers fall squarely on their keisters while their partner looks on in disbelief and breaks into uncontrollable sobs as their Ice Capades futures disappear before their very eyes.

Failure is what we expect from competitive sports.

Today, for instance, 297.63 million Americans will interrupt the important activity of living their lives to watch the Los Angeles Rams meet the Cincinnati Bengals play in Super Bowl MCLDXVIII at the 80,000-seat SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles while gorging on snacks meeting 857% of the daily recommendation for salt intake. It’s also a very big day for avocados, unless you’re an avocado.

The Bengals last appeared as championship contenders at Super Bowl XVI, which is like 16 or something, in 1981. It was a close contest that could only be called a “nail-biter.” At halftime, the San Francisco 49ers were leading 20-0, but the Bengals fought their way back to a 20-7 loss.

But back to the matters at hand. Although an acronym, it’s anybody’s guess what the $6 billion SoFi means. That notwithstanding, the 2020-built gridiron, entertainment venue, hang-gliding site, 18-hole indoor golf course, and a 14,000-seat bingo parlor will be paid for with the receipts collected by the end of today’s competition. (For the most curious, at the latest count there are 1,430 toilets at SoFi, which will be desperately needed by those who see a case of Bud Light as a first-half challenge.)

The cheapest ticket for the two-and-a-half hour game, plus another three-hour, half-time rap festival featuring hip-hop poets who are not actual doctors, hover in the area of $6,498.35. The most expensive are the private, 24-seat sky boxes whose $350,000 price tags do not include tips, taxes, or parking. For a meager $2,000 more, limos can be redirected to pass through street-side homeless enclaves where passengers can express their scorn through tinted glass for those who haven’t eaten in three days.

But back to failure.

One team will lose, which roughly half of the fans expect. The other half will get to revel in the glory of victory, despite the fact that by Tuesday nobody but the losers will remember who even played. By week’s end, they too will have forgotten.

I’ll be watching the game today because every other television programmer has scheduled documentaries about the expected life-spans of sea snails, reruns of My Mother the Car, or non-stop Medicare Part C commercials by Joe Namath.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so defeatist. I could read a book, or watch an Ingmar Bergman film. In Swedish.

“Åh, jäklar,” he said with a knowing smile, staring deeply into Ilsa’s radiant blue eyes.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Guacamole

2 ripe avocados, peeled, the flesh placed in a bowl
1/2 tsp. salt,
1 Tbs. fresh lime or lemon juice
4 Tbs. minced red onion or thinly sliced green onion
1-2 serrano chilis, stems removed, minced
2 Tbs. cilantro (leaves and tender stems), finely chopped
1 ripe Roma tomato, chopped
Freshly ground black pepper

Mash the avocados to your desired consistency. Stir in remaining ingredients. Enjoy!

Stereotypes are a given. There was a time when stereotypes were not called out for what, in fact, they are: broad characterizations of people based on the perceived traits and behaviors defined by race, ethnicity, sex and/or religion.

Today, their mere utterance are recognized with such immediacy as to render the speaker a villain against all that is considered right and proper in society.

When I was a kid, people told ethnic jokes—many of them suggesting a number needed for changing a light bulb. (Blondes had yet to be recognized as an ethnicity.) Although seemingly unkind in retrospect, they didn’t mean to be. They were not mean-spirited or vulgar. A morning drive-time radio host on WGN in Chicago told jokes about Poles, Irish, Italians, French, British, Germans, Mexicans, and Bohemians. I am part of that latter group, and the host would ask if his audience if they knew what a set of Bohemian luggage was. The answer: “A pair of matching shopping bags from Goldblatt’s.”

Goldblatt’s was a discount department store that would have made Kmart look upscale. When my grandmother Liska would take the bus to come visit us, she carried her belongings in a pair of shopping bags from Goldblatt’s.

Because we, as a nation after World War II, were still in the throes of being a melting pot, certain stereotypes unwittingly defined us as an emerging nation. Jobs further defined us and there were certain trades that were somewhat exclusive by nationality. The Irish became cops; the Italians worked in sweatshops and groceries; Poles worked in the steel mills. Previous generations of Chinese had built the railroads. My grandfather was a steelworker; his wife, a seamstress.

As I recall, there were no jokes about Blacks or Jews that made it to the radio. Those jokes whispered on the schoolyard to select friends—not quite out of earshot to those being ridiculed—were vile, mean and decidedly racist. The kids who told those “jokes” no doubt learned them at home—the then-modern birthing grounds of antisemitism, racism, sexism, and hatred.

Jews and Blacks, along with other peoples, share in common a history of slavery. The escape from servitude is never quick or easy, and certainly not guaranteed. But escape is the key word. It is our nature to escape what we see as holding us back, that which is littering our paths to success, equality, and acceptance. Poor people want to rise above the cruel and unforgiving poverty that wrongfully defines them. And so it is that work has been the promised escape vehicle.

Greeting the arrivals to the gates at Auschwitz were the words Arbeit Macht Frei, or “Work Makes You Free.” To the Jewish prisoners, it provided false hope. There was no promise of freedom in Hitler’s “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.”

But hard work and diligence are admired traits. We are taught to value education and are encouraged to strive for something better than what our parents had.

Jews, another group of which I am a part, are not particularly known for our athletic prowess, although there are a great number of renowned Jewish players in American sports. Culturally, we trend toward science, the arts and letters, dentistry, business, anxiety disorders, and chess. (Personally, I gave up on chess when a cousin cried “checkmate” on his third move against me. It added to my angst.)

The topic of both Jewish and Black participation in sports is discussed extensively in academic and popular literature. Some scholars believe that sports have been an avenue for both peoples to overcome obstacles toward their participation in society. As a kid, I participated in Golden Gloves, a boxing program as common as Little League on Chicago’s West Side. Boxing one’s way to fame and fortune was as good as any other route, save crime. (I was as bad a boxer as I was a chess player.)

It worked for the Nebraska-born Max Baer, the world heavyweight champion from June 14, 1934, to June 13, 1935. Two of his fights (1933 win over Max Schmeling, 1935 loss to James J. Braddock) were both rated “Fight of the Year” by The Ring magazine.

Baseball provided outs for Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Greenberg, the first Jewish superstar in American team sports, and Sandy Koufax, a left-handed hurler who pitched 12 seasons for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966. At age 36 he became the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and has been hailed as one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Both refused to play on Yom Kippur, garnering national attention as a conflict between religious calling and society.

In Olympic swimming, Mark Spitz won nine gold medals, one silver and one bronze, and has the second-most gold medals won in a single Olympic Games (seven). It wasn’t that long ago that Jews were not even allowed in the pool.

Currently, Ryan Turell, the 6-foot-6 senior center at Yeshiva University in New York, is averaging 28.1 points per game, the most by any basketball player in all three divisions of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, male or female.

With all that Blacks and Jews might share in common, I was somewhat taken aback by comments last week on “The View” that got Whoopi Goldberg a two-week suspension from ABC Television.

I’ve known Ms. Goldberg since 1986 when she and I worked on the first of seven HBO’s Comic Relief, a televised program hosted by her, Billy Crystal, and Robin Williams to aid the homeless. She is kind, obviously witty and talented, and as sweet as a person could hope to be. She also doesn’t take any crap from people.

The thought of her being antisemitic is as preposterous as her being called a racist because her one-woman stage production that launched her career was titled Spook Show. As Al Franken pointed out, she even took a Jewish name as her stage name (she was born Caryn Elaine Johnson). Her comment about Jews not being subjected to racism is based on her belief, however misinformed, that racism is based on the color of one’s skin.

Technically, there is not a Jewish race. Hitler deemed Jews as a race, and there are interesting genetic traits that, for instance, Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews share, namely, an occurrence of the rare disease, tay sachs. But anybody can become a Jew. (As my father opined when Sammy Davis, Jr., converted, “Doesn’t he have enough problems?”) I cannot, however, become Black, Hispanic, or Asian.

As Ms. Goldberg pointed out to Stephen Colbert, if she and a Jewish woman were walking down a street and the KKK was approaching, she’d run. It is unlikely that the Klan would identify the other woman as a Jew.

Sadly, I think we’ve reached a point where Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, the play on which Hello, Dolly was based, couldn’t be produced without cries of antisemitism.

As for life as a Jew? (Here comes the last joke.) It’s like Fiddler on the Roof without music.

Composition and photography by Courtney A. Liska

Beef Brisket

There was a time when brisket was a cheap cut of beef. It needed hours to bake, which meant it could be prepared before sundown on shabbat and eaten the following day. Serve with roasted potatoes and plenty of horseradish.

1 beef brisket (point cut), about 5 to 6 pounds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large carrot, cut in 1/4-inch dice
2 sticks celery, cut in 1/4-inch dice
1 large onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sprig fresh rosemary
3 chicken livers
1, 15oz. can of crushed tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1 bottle (750ml) dry red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
4 sprigs of parsley, chopped

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Score the fat cap on the brisket and season with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large, heavy casserole, and sear the brisket on both sides until it starts to brown. Remove the brisket from the casserole.

Add the diced vegetables and garlic, and sauté for about 5 minutes over medium heat or until onion is translucent. Add the rosemary, chicken livers, tomatoes, and bay leaf. Return the brisket to casserole. Completely cover the meat with the wine, adding chicken stock if necessary.

Cover the casserole and bake in the oven for 3 to 3 1/2 hours or until the meat is fork-tender. If the liquid reduces by more than half during cooking, add a small amount of chicken stock.

Transfer the meat to a dish and keep warm. Remove the herbs, and purée remaining liquid with the vegetables and chicken livers until smooth. If the sauce is a little thin, return it to the casserole and reduce over medium-high heat until it reaches the desired consistency. Slice the brisket and arrange it on a deep platter with the sauce. Garnish with chopped parsley.

It is, indeed, the smallest of things in this life that can make the biggest difference.

For nearly two years we, like most of us, have spent too many months isolating and/or quarantining. The more thoughtful of us have masked and social-distanced; we’ve been vaccinated and boostered, tested and re-tested and tested once again. We’ve learned to adjust aspects of our lives in ways most of us could never have imagined in our wildest dreams. We’ve learned new social protocols, giving up weekend nights at our favorite watering holes and restaurants. Some have learned to work from home, while others have lost their jobs and then their benefits. Friends and neighbors less vulnerable to COVID-19 have done our shopping.

Shops have closed and businesses have gone under. People have lost their homes, been evicted from their apartments, or otherwise displaced. Homelessness is on the rise. Security seems at a premium and our health is in a perpetual state of uncertainty.

On Thursday, we did something we haven’t done in what seems like the longest time. We went for a drive. Not for a drive over the hill to a doctor’s appointment, or across town for a grocery or pharmacy pickup, but for a drive with no purpose other than to get out of the house and appreciate where we live.

Driving south from Livingston, Montana, a town of about 7,500 we’ve called home for almost thirty years, you leave town and its roadside businesses—a campground typically vacant this time of year, the shuttered fireworks stand—to travel through a narrowing of Route 89. We noticed the Pop Stand, a burger-and-a-shake place in the Happy Days style, is now a marijuana dispensary. It shares a parking lot with a long-abandoned nightclub called The Melody, where people once gathered on weekend nights for cocktails, live music and dancing.

To our right, the canyon walls start a gentle rise, and the two-lane blacktop heading south offers an unfolding view of the Valley, specifically, the Paradise Valley. In the distance are towering, snow-covered peaks of the Absaroka Range—a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains—that arc westward. This valley is a wide expanse bisected by the Yellowstone River. It measures about fifty miles from the edge of town to the North Entrance of Yellowstone National Park, which on March 1, 1872, became the world’s first national park.

It is the crown jewel of America’s richly diverse national park system and offers unique hydrothermal and geologic features. Within its 2.2 million acres, there are unparalleled opportunities to observe wildlife in an intact ecosystem, explore geothermal areas that contain about half the world’s active geysers, including the iconic Old Faithful, and view geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. It’s home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope.

It is also home to the Yellowstone Caldera, a super volcano in the northwest corner of Wyoming. It is huge, potentially life-threatening for hundreds of miles, and it is ready to blow anytime now—give or take ten-thousand years.

We quit worrying about it years ago.

And we certainly weren’t worried about it as we took an unpaved offshoot from the highway. The snow-covered, barely two-lane road dipped and rose across many miles. Officially, the road is the Old Yellowstone, but everybody seems to call it Trail Creek. It is a long and winding road that takes travelers through yellowed pastures awaiting spring for its return to a verdant green. The cattle, most of them black Angus, huddle around the hay racks. They are on both sides of the road, held in by fences—some of which seem ancient and in need of repair. Other fences seem to announce that there is an estate beyond the electric gates adorned by No Trespassing signs, with the additional, if not downright redundant, caveats that hunting and fishing are not allowed.

It’s about an hour driving time from the beginning of Trail Creek to where it officially becomes Trail Creek. There’s a fork in the road, either tine taking you to a road of the same name. The almost-stagnant waters to the east disappear as the Yellowstone River comes into view over a dramatic rise, its shores wider this time of year. From there we saw a bald eagle silhouetted against the afternoon sun. Or maybe it was a magpie.

We never saw a vehicle in motion. Three trucks were parked at a turnout, and we could see their owners working on an irrigation pipe. Unlike the county and city workers—characterized by one worker and two supervisors—these men were all at work. It was cold and windy, which it usually is between November and April.

The wind is the only sound one hears. It’s pure, with no leaves for it to quake—the cottonwoods with their lacy tendrils reaching to the sky. And it’s too windy for its sound to be pierced by the bugle of an elk. We see no elk this day, but their tracks leading up the roadsides are ever-present.

The mansions we knew were behind the board fences were, for the most part, unseen. Several trailers and smaller houses were close to the road’s edge. One house had a playground set in a side yard. There were gas-fired grills on some of the porches, and bird-feeders swinging from the eaves. We assumed the help lived closest to the road.

We came across one rather impressive stockpile of junk, off to the north of a cluster of barns. Farmers and ranchers, perhaps taking their cue from Maine dairy farmers, live by a credo that says, “make do, get by.” Somewhere in that heap of scrap metal, discarded parts, and broken implements are the makings of needed repairs.

The pavement was yards away and we turned onto the highway toward town.

It was a good day for a drive.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Pan bagnat

Though we settled for drive-thru coffee, the pan bagnat is perfect road trip food.

Split a baguette lengthwise and smear with an olive tapenade. Layer with canned white tuna, sliced red onion, roasted red bell peppers, tomato and sliced, hard-cooked egg. Dress with mustard vinaigrette. It should be made and wrapped tightly in cellophane a day or two before eating to make sure the flavors have fully melded and soaked gently into the bread.

Tapenade

1/2 pound pitted mixed olives
2 anchovy fillets, rinsed
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 Tbs. capers
2 to 3 large fresh basil leaves
1 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

Thoroughly rinse the olives in cool water. Place all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Process to combine, until the mixture becomes a coarse paste, 1 to 2 minutes.

Of all the responses and comments I got about last week’s essay, “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” the most interesting came in the form of a challenge. My longtime friend, Ira, suggested I adopt a tarantula to supply at least enough fodder for another essay.

Well, Ira, I don’t need to adopt a tarantula to write about one. My background with spiders is enough for me to know that they, along with other creepy beings (bats, sea urchins, banana slugs, Trump Republicans) make lousy pets.

I suffer from selective arachnophobia. That is, I’m only afraid of those spiders which can bite me and cause undue suffering (skin lesions, death). Sadly, I don’t know which spiders might be able to do that. And, quite frankly, I don’t care to learn. I believe I could identify a black widow, based on its colored, hourglass shaped marking on its abdomen. I just don’t care to wait around long enough for one of them to roll over and show me its belly.

My major defense against all spiders is that I’m rarely without shoes on my feet.

I can quite easily identify daddy-longlegs, the world’s most venomous spiders whose jaws are so small that they can’t bite humans. That, of course, is an urban myth. In fact, a daddy-longlegs, a ground-dwelling creature, is not even a true spider. It is an arachnid, but not a spider because they have one body section (spiders have two), two eyes on a little bump (most spiders have eight), a segmented abdomen (unsegmented in spiders), no silk, no venom, a totally different respiratory system, and many other differences. Not all of them even have long legs.

There was no shortage of daddy-longlegs at my grandparents’ house in western Nebraska. I’d bravely pluck them from the stucco walls by one their legs and fling them directly at my sister’s face. Her screams were matched only by those of my grandmother’s when I gifted her a snapping turtle that I had found in the dirt road that ran in front of her house.

My son-in-law likes spiders to the extent of letting them crawl around on his hands while he tries to rub their soft underbellies. He grew up in a household that had little money. His only toys, apparently, were things that he could find. He chose spiders.

But to return to the idea of having a tarantula as a pet: You can’t really play or cuddle with them. They won’t fetch anything they can’t eat. I wouldn’t know where to attach a leash to take one for a walk around the neighborhood. And I still associate the little creatures with an episode of The Tonight Show in which Steve Allen allowed several of them to crawl all over his body. I believe the following act was Frank Zappa playing Bach on an over-turned bicycle.

The tarantula is noted for having inspired a dance—tarantella—in the south of Italy, sometime during the 15th to the 17th century. The bite of the tarantula was what caused tarantism, a disease or form of hysteria. The cure was frenzied dancing, accompanied by tambourines.

Nothing inspires frenzied dancing—with or without tambourines—more than mice. This is difficult to understand. They are the size of furry walnuts and are the inspiration for an entertainment franchise created by Walt Disney. Mickey and Minnie were anthropomorphized, along with countless other cartoon animals, to endear them to us.

Real-life pet mice, as well as their much-larger cousins, rats, are named because it’s what we do to all living things. It’s pointless because pet mice will never learn their names at any demonstrable level. They never see life outside of their cages. Like the tarantula, they won’t fetch or obey the tugs of a leash. And they don’t offer the soothing purr of a cat.

For reasons I’ll never understand, some people are so enamored by reptiles that they keep them in cages and feed them mice they steal from people who keep mice as pets.

When I was a kid, we went on a family vacation to Florida. While my mother was getting her hair done, Dad took me and my sister to a pet store where he purchased an alligator that would be shipped to our Chicago home. Jo, my sister, and I were excited. Mom didn’t know. Dad built a rather elaborate cage for said reptile, which we named Al. Clever, huh? A package arrived one day, and my father carefully unpacked it on the kitchen table. It jumped from the table to the linoleum floor and Mom jumped onto the counter. We transferred the 12” baby alligator to its cage. By morning it was dead.

I once crashed on a friend’s couch in Cleveland when I got the rather foreboding sense that somebody was watching me. I awoke to see my host’s face within inches of mine.

“Have you seen Bob?” he whispered.

“Who’s Bob?” I asked.

“My snake.”

“Snake!” I enthused as I pulled on my clothes.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a six-foot boa constrictor. He won’t hurt you.”

“I’ll never know,” I predicted, running out the door.

Courtney showed an early talent for picking up lizards off rock faces. This is a rare and useless talent, unless you wish to have lizards as pets, which she did. They lived in an aquarium in her room and Geri would go to a local pet store from time to time to buy a sack full of crickets. Watching the lizards catch the crickets was about as interesting as it ever got.

We had friends who owned an iguana. This prehistoric-looking reptile was about three-feet long, iridescent green, and it roamed freely about their house. As it did, it stuck out its serpent-like tongue in a menacing manner which indicated it was hungry, maybe for one of their cats. Our friends were more than willing to place this creature on anybody’s shoulder. I always declined.

Next to an ant farm, goldfish are the ideal pets. Not fancy tropical fish who need a temperature-controlled tank of salt water to swim around in, but good old-fashioned dime-store goldfish with eyes like Marty Feldman and who can swim their laps in room-temperature tap water. Since they only live about four or five days, there’s no long-term commitment like there is with, say, a pet alligator.

Unless it leaps to its death from a kitchen table.

Photo manipulation by Courtney A. Liska

BUGS

The term for eating insects is entomophagy. While I don’t necessarily recommend its practice, we might not be far from having to rely on insects as a food source. I plan on being dead before that happens.

“Locusts (actually grasshoppers) are used by various African groups consistently as food,” reports Smithsonian. “The locust individuals are gathered in the early day before they are active, then boiled before being cleaned and salted. Even the legs are used by grinding and combining them with peanut butter and salt.”

There are two kinds of people in this world: Dog people and cat people. Three, if you count ferret or hamster people, which I don’t.

While you can have both cats and dogs in your domicile, you can pay allegiance to only one. Dogs will offer their allegiance to you no matter how many cats you might have. Cats don’t really care about you unless you’re opening a can of tuna.

I am a dog guy. There are many reasons for this that my therapist and I are working on. One issue might be control. Another might be that if a cat doesn’t much like me, why should I like it?

Geri and I each brought a dog into our marriage. Her dog, Kona, was a pure white, husky-lab mix whose favorite food was salad and whose mood was exuberant, bordering on ultra-exuberant. My dog, Sappho, was a Cairn terrier who was sweet in her own mean-spirited way. They co-existed warily, though Sappho was clearly in charge.

And then there was a weekend getaway to San Luis Obispo County. After dinner at A J Spurs Saloon & Dining Hall in Templeton, we returned to our motel in Paso Robles. It was dark. I could hear a faint meow. It came from near the dumpsters. I approached it gingerly, reaching out to find a tiny kitten, apparently abandoned or lost.

We took the shivering little kitten into our room. I left to find it some food and when I returned it was obvious that by then we had a cat.

We named her Bird, after the jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, and knew right away that we had to find her a playmate, which we did. We named him Dizzy.

The four of them and the two of us got along just fine. The dogs had a big backyard to play in, though they kept trying to dig their ways out from under the tall wood fence. The cats stayed in the house we had rented—a single-story, four-room cinder block structure painted brown. We called it the Bomb Shelter. The cats seemed happy to sleep on the back of the sofa or on the windowsill, from which they could watch our neighbor’s dogs escape from his backyard to come play at our house. At that point they would hide until they heard one of us open a can of tuna.

After a couple of years in the Bomb Shelter, we moved two blocks away into our own Bomb Shelter. It was painted blue, and had two more rooms than the first one did. And there we were—the six of us. Soon there were seven, with Sappho refusing to stray more than four feet away from Courtney and growling menacingly at anybody who dared to venture near her. When Daniel came along, we moved to a large suburban house with a block-enclosed backyard about the size of a postage stamp. It had a lemon tree.

By then, Sappho had died. We went to the shelter near our new house and adopted Trusty, a golden retriever-type who years later Tim Cahill thought bore a striking resemblance to Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and historian. Tim made Trusty famous when he detailed her near-death experience and subsequent brain damage in Outside magazine.

But before Trusty’s fifteen minutes of fame, we acquired Pongo, a purebred dalmatian who was tortured by the kid next door. He would pelt Pongo with lemons from our tree. At his first opportunity, Pongo lunged at the kid and bit him on the arm. His mother insisted the dog be destroyed, despite his being vaccinated.

And then came Aja, a mixed-breed dog that knew no boundaries. He could escape from any enclosure, or over any fence. On his first day at our house, he ate the bathroom’s walls and woodwork.

We all made it to Montana. The brain-damaged Trusty would stare intently at a piece of cellophane that fluttered when the refrigerator’s condenser kicked on. In our backyard, she’d contemplate a single leaf for hours. Aja continued his Houdini behavior, for which we’d have to bail him out of doggy jail. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, we got OP, a beagle/Shar-Pei mix who was born with fewer brain cells than Trusty had. During the fifteen years we had OP, it seemed she was never even sure of her name.

Somewhere during all of this, we acquired a cat we named Gypsy. Bird and Dizzy just left the house—at different times—and never returned. Another cat for whom everybody seemed to have a different name came to live with us. She had been cruelly dosed with LSD and her entire existence seemed like an endless Grateful Dead song.

Then there was Buddy, the bichon frise who was the best dog I’ve ever had. When he died, we got Beau, a blind little dog whose shrill barking is relentless. To keep Beau company, we got Romeo, a silky terrier who spends much of his time hiding toys and leading the blind dog into walls and furniture. Romeo is a bit of a jackass.

When the kids moved in, they brought two large dogs and two cats with them. Micco is a sweet border collie who suffers from an inferiority complex. He readily accepts blame for anything that happens, which makes me think he might be Jewish. His partner in crime is a blue heeler, Kitchi, whose frequent vocalizations are an eerie cross between a hyena and Yoko Ono.

Cottonwood is a sweet cat whose days are numbered due to feline leukemia. He spends his days sitting on the dining room table.

And then there is Mușcă, a clumsy cat that is about the size of an SUV. He is kind of a dirty blond cat who frequently misses landing on whatever surface he has chosen for a perch. He knocks over stuff, falls down, and frequently awakens me when he annoys Romeo, who starts barking at the annoyance. It seems that I can’t go anywhere in the house without Mușcă, which is Romanian for bite, racing in front of me and slowing down to make me slow down. He has figured out that Beau is blind and he likes to attack him.

Mușcă has realized I’m a dog person and he’s making me pay.

And I’m re-thinking the whole ferret/hamster thing.

Photo Illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Greek Rice

I have always loved Greek cuisine, dating back to my childhood when my family would dine at Diana’s Grocery on South Halsted Street on Chicago’s West Side. This recipe works well as a side dish to chicken or fish.

1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin oil (or butter)
1 clove garlic, minced
½ onion, finely chopped
1-1/2 cups long grain white rice (uncooked)
1-1/4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
1 large lemon (1 tsp. zest and 3-4 Tbs. juice)
3 Tbs. finely chopped parsley
1-1/2 Tbs. dried oregano
Salt and pepper

Heat oil over medium heat in large saucepan or small pot.
Add garlic and onion. Cook for 5 minutes or until translucent.
Add rice and stir until rice turns mostly translucent.
Add broth and water. Place lid on, bring to simmer then turn heat down to low.
Cook for 12 minutes or until water is evaporated.
Remove from stove and rest for 10 minutes (keep the lid on).
Remove lid. stir in lemon zest, lemon juice and herbs. Season with salt and pepper.

Warning: Some of the following content is graphic and disturbing. There is also a heavy use of italics. You may wish to ask your children to leave the room.

I recently endured a disease called C. diff. It is called that because not even medical professionals can pronounce its real name: Clostridioides difficile. It’s a Latin name that suggests that whatever Clostridioides is, it is difficult, which is true. It’s also highly contagious under certain circumstances that are unspeakable, even in impolite company.

It is a germ (bacterium) that causes severe diarrhea and colitis, which is an inflammation of the colon. If you get it, you should simply move into a bathroom until it’s run its course. Once it has, you still have a one-in-six chance of getting it again, unless you’re over sixty-five, in which case you have a one-in-eleven chance that you won’t see your next birthday.

I am one of the estimated half-million Americans infected by the germ each year, which made me particularly happy to say good riddance to 2021.

There are interesting treatments for C. diff, mostly involving antibiotics different from the antibiotics you might have taken that might have caused the infection in the first place. (Note: Medicine is not an exact science.) I had a pill-form antibiotic for six weeks or so before switching to a liquid antibiotic for another six weeks.

After three months of my living in a bathroom and seeing very few friends, it was determined that a third process might be effective. Imagine, if you will, your own reaction to a doctor telling you that you needed a stool installation—slang for fecal microbiota transplant—which frequently causes the recipient to take on some of the traits of the donor. Geri suggested that I might emerge from the procedure as either a “Valley Girl or a Rasta.”

This is a disturbing process that involves a colonoscopy with an added twist: poop from strangers you’re glad you don’t know because who really wants to know people who spend part of their time contributing to a poop bank. There’s not even a magazine or video to inspire them.

After my telling the hospital staff that I wasn’t used to taking shit from anybody, the doctor told me that the success rate for the transplant was about eighty percent. He was enthusiastic about this statistic until I asked if he would get on an airplane that had only an eighty percent chance of landing safely.

I believe I took the wind out of his sails.

A colonoscopy is a deeply invasive procedure which involves anesthesia and a tiny camera mounted on a caterpillar-like tube that snakes through the intestine looking for polyps and seeds from hamburger buns. In my case, they were adding to the mix, so to speak.

I had my first colonoscopy some forty years ago, mainly because my father’s side of the family—Bohemians who refused to eat fiber—had a history of colon cancer. (When a cousin of mine died of a brain aneurysm, my father proudly noted that we were moving up.) Forty years ago, a colonoscopy did not include an anesthetic. It did, however, involve several rounds of Fleet enemas, about twenty-eight feet of garden hose, and a snickering nurse. The procedure hurt like hell. That memory is what made me roll the dice with colon cancer.

I beat the odds, so far.

What led to all this began with a collapsed lung just after my sixty-first birthday. I should have seen it as an omen.

After several procedures and eighteen months of antibiotics to ward off Mycobacterium kansasii, Latin for “tiny germs that might come from Topeka,” I was in need of a lobectomy, a surgery that involves the lopping off of the top-third of a lung and hoping that no heinous disease moves into the space.

There are several steps involved in a surgery, starting with somebody with a clipboard asking if you’ve had any of the at least seven-hundred diseases known to currently exist. After a couple of hours, the last question was posed: “Do you have any suicidal thoughts.”

“No more than usual,” I answered, grinning.

Not even a smile. Her reaction was merely to start scribbling frantically in the margins of the questionnaire.

Soon after came pre-op. Lots of people, me included, suffer from manic depression and a need to face our fears with humor, frequently quite dark.

When the anesthesiologist asked if I’d ever had an epidural, I informed her that I had had both of our children naturally. Not even a smile.

The surgeon, after using a Sharpie to make an “X” on the right side of my torso to make sure he wouldn’t take out the wrong lung, told me that this operation was routine.

“Maybe for you,” I retorted. Sort of a smile.

Then I asked what would become of that part of the lung they were removing. He wondered why and I told him about the wonderful lung soup my grandmother made. He gagged.

“I’m pretty sure it was made with a cow’s lung,” I assured him.

Once inside the operating room, a rather sterile place with bright lights, I asked them to turn off the country music and play something classical. Then they transferred me from the gurney to the operating table just like they do on television. Then they took my right arm and placed it on a board, palm up.

Growing drowsy, I asked if that was when they drove in the nail.

These people had no sense of humor, but a keen sense of vengeance. I vaguely remember them replacing Mozart with Hank Williams. I woke up with Hey Good Lookin’ stuck in my head.

When I had my gall bladder removed, a nurse asked me I wanted to keep it—a question along the lines of “would you like hot tar poured up your nose?” I had already lost pieces of my ribs and a third of a lung, and I told her to send it over the mortuary where I had a lay-away account.

During Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur I stay moderately kosher. On one Yom Kippur, I was admitted early on that most holy day on the Jewish calendar to the hospital for something or other. They asked for my dinner order, which I would use to break my fast. Please, I asked them, no pork and not before sundown.

I was growing hungry and was wondering where my dinner was. It finally came at the same time most Hawaiians were sitting down with bowls of poi.

The next day, Geri called in my breakfast order. It included bacon.

The dietician told her they had orders to not serve me pork, and that I only ate in the dark.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Ginger Chicken with Peaches

This is a delightful recipe for chicken that is slightly sweet and peppery.

½ pound hard peaches
1 pound chicken thighs
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. dry sherry, or white wine or dry vermouth
2 Tbs. chopped fresh basil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger root, grated
½ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. black pepper
Rice, for serving

Heat oven to 400°. Halve the peaches, remove pits, and slice fruit 1/2 inch thick.
In a roasting pan, toss all ingredients except 1 tablespoon of the basil. Roast until meat is cooked through and peaches are softened, about 20-25 minutes. Garnish with remaining basil. Serve with rice and crusty bread for sopping.