Journal

If you ever have the opportunity to spend two-and-a-half hours squirming uncomfortably in your chair, cringing with embarrassment, shaking your head in disbelief, and seething with anger, please attend a presentation about human trafficking offered by Billings activist Penny Ronning.

That full spectrum of emotion should provide incentive to get educated and take actions that will help alleviate the pain and suffering endured by the victims. And it should at the same time provide incentives to ensure that the perpetrators get lengthy sentences for their most heinous of crimes against humanity.

I accompanied my daughter, an activist in her own right, to Montana State University’s Procrastinator Theater earlier this past week. The Yellowstone Human Trafficking Task Force, a non-profit co-chaired by Ms. Ronning, was hosted by The HEART Initiative, a student organization that was formed in 2016 to help increase awareness and education of human trafficking in Gallatin County and beyond.

It wasn’t that long ago that I didn’t know a thing about human trafficking, so it was quite enlightening to hear Ms. Ronning speak. While her expertise is vast, it is her commitment to the cause that impresses most. She, along with my daughter and handfuls of other devoted men and women around Montana, want us to better understand the problem.

Simply put, human trafficking is the business of stealing freedom for profit.

In some cases, notes the Polaris Project, “traffickers trick, defraud or physically force victims into selling sex. In others, victims are lied to, assaulted, threatened or manipulated into working under inhumane, illegal or otherwise unacceptable conditions.

“It is a multi-billion dollar criminal industry that denies freedom to nearly twenty-five million people around the world.”

The fact that such vile behavior even exists is difficult to imagine. It knows no politics, but it deserves our efforts at the local, state and national levels to properly fund and police the problem. With limited resources, it demands our vigilance to protect our children from this most unfathomable crime. We need to push for legislation that will help curb the violations against our children.

The following poem, written by a survivor of human trafficking, captures the essence of the pure evil that can befall our children.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

AMERICA’S DAUGHTERS (Credit: The Polaris Project)

She was four years old the first time a man looked at her the way a man looks at his wife on their wedding day.

Little girls are supposed to dream about being models and doctors and veterinarians, instead she fought sleep, eyes wide with terror of another night greeted by her stepfather’s shadow.

He was the real monster in her bedroom and mom, she was too fragile, too selfish, to accept the truth that her little girl’s innocence was stolen one night when her boyfriend decided she wasn’t good enough anymore.

And since the little girl never had a real father, she accepted his advances because he always promised her his touches were acceptable because he loved her.

When you don’t know yourself and you don’t love yourself, you will fall for anything that sounds like love and feels like love.

She was a walking corpse stained with the fingerprints of strangers and all she wanted was to walk the earth without the heaviness, the weight of all the men who tore a piece of her and took it with them.

She never made it to see her 18th birthday.

This is for the pain, for the stains that bath water won’t wash away, for the scars left on the hearts of the fatherless child.

This is for the girls objectified instead of praised like queens.

This is for the agony growing up without a father,
but all you really want is love and you don’t understand love, so one day when some guy stops you in a train station or a street corner and tells you you’re beautiful, you’re quickly intrigued.

You like the fact someone notices you and you will do anything that feels like his everything. And he promises you everything and the things he convinces you to do—they don’t seem that bad if afterwards he shows you how much he loves you.

Your morals are abandoned on that sidewalk where you turned your first trick.

Your beauty is left in that hotel room where some stranger touched you like his girlfriend and then left money on the nightstand.

And every night you die again, compromising your worth for what your pimp calls love and security.

The hustle, the streetlights, the schemes, it never seems worth it, but you have the liquor to comfort your fears and as long as your profits meet expectations you will have what you always wanted your whole life: Love.

Love that doesn’t feel right but it’s all you think you’re worth, so you take it every day.

You sleep when the sun comes up, rise when the sun is down,
conceal the torment with makeup and stylish hair, put on your best outfits, something arousing because you have to make them happy.

The men, the tricks, the pimps.

This is for the pain.

This is for America.

And hopes that you will notice that 12-year-old girl who was forced to trade her lunch box
and sneakers for a Chanel purse and pumps.

This is for the 16-year-old girl kidnapped by a gang of men on her way to school and held captive in a house right next door to you.

This is for the 20-year-old girl who took her last beating today because she couldn’t bring herself to let another man hold her down and violate her.

We are all slaves for love,
degrading ourselves for acceptance of a man that’s the closest thing to a
father figure we’ve ever known.

We were once just girls with aspirations and a small piece of hope.

Now who will notice us?

Who will save America’s daughters?

There comes a time in everybody’s life that may prove to be transformative. Actually, many of you have had this happen more than once. I’m not sure where I am on this spectrum. I’ve had many life-changing moments that in retrospect seem somewhat less than transformative.

Perhaps one is on its way. I’m not holding my breath.

Several of those moments have come courtesy of a change of jobs, a move to another place, an inheritance that would place me in a yacht club. Having a Cooper’s Hawk here for a visit could also have been. I’ve changed jobs numerous times. I have lived in numerous places: Chicago, Michigan, Cleveland, New York, Champaign-Urbana, Los Angeles, and Montana.

It was while living in L.A. that we almost made a move to New York. I was being scouted for a magazine job that sounded wonderful. We hastened to facilitate this anticipated moment by scouring the back pages of The New York Times magazine in search of suitable housing. We found what seemed to be a mansion in Rockland County, just west of the Hudson River.

I fantasized making a daily commute to the city by train. In some of my daydreams, I wore a fedora and carried an umbrella.

We were pretty giddy with excitement. The job was a perfect stop on my career path, such as it was. It almost seemed unreal. As it turned out, this magazine job was in Washington, D.C., a place that Geri and I agreed would be the last place on American soil that we would choose to live, albeit Texas was right up there.

As a nine-year-old I began playing drums in a little trio at clubs and weddings. I was paid for my efforts, but the gigs were low profile as few of my friends were allowed to spend weekend nights in bars listening to music their parents grew up on. By the time I got to high school I wanted a summer job—a job with perks that included hanging out in town while I worked.

The kids in this far western suburb spent their evenings hanging out a stand-alone kiosk that sold popcorn and soft drinks. The kids were actually just loitering. No good came from any of it, but I endeavored to jump feet-first into the culinary arts while actively hanging out with the cool kids.

I got the job running the popcorn stand, five nights a week. It was hot and nasty inside the stand. Oil spattered, the soda machine was sticky, the floor gritty with salt. My vision of hanging out with the kids who smoked cigarettes and whistled at the girls was replaced with the more realistic vision that while they played, I worked.

Following the summer of ’69 spent cleaning sewers, I headed off to Cleveland to try my hand at college. Spring of ’70 saw the closing of colleges all across the country as we endeavored to end the war in Vietnam by our refusing to attend classes. While that didn’t immediately become apparent, I joined a rock ‘n’ roll band whose music and lyrics would surely put an end to the war.

That didn’t pan out very well either.

But rehearse we did every day, practicing in an old wood barn filled with pigeons. To afford this luxury of playing music, I moved into a house with several other people and got a job driving hack for the Yellow Cab Company. I wasn’t crazy about driving a cab. The pay was unpredictable, with many a night going fareless or not getting tipped by stingy riders who didn’t care about tipping because they knew they would never see me again.

Always on the lookout for a job that would be better than driving strangers to hotels and the airport (oh, how I longed for a return to the sewer) I answered an ad to become a telemarketer, although I’m not sure that the word had been created yet.

Anyway, the gig was to sit in what was called the “boiler room” with several other callers and call small businesses in Cleveland. We were, I told the recipients of my calls, a charity trying to send inner city kids to a circus. The businesses could become tax-deductible donor-sponsors to this charitable effort.

When I would score a sale, I would hold up a note with the name and address of the business. A runner would grab the ticket and go to the business to collect the money. This routine would be used throughout the morning—four hours of calling strangers with maybe a 10 percent success rate.

Our first lunch break came at noon that Monday and everybody had an hour to roam around downtown Cleveland.

It was on the elevator going down that I commented to the boss, who would later join the cast of The Sopranos, that the whole circus charity thing was very cool. He grunted “uh-huh” and I pressed on: “When is this circus?”

“There ain’t no friggin circus.”

It was just a short walk to the cab company.

Photography by Courtney A. Liska

Oven Fries
This is my preferred method of preparing “fried” potatoes.
Cut a large russet potato into eight or more wedges. Place in a bowl and season them with salt and pepper. Add olive oil to cover and add a pinch or two of dried thyme. Toss until seasoning and oil are well distributed. Bake at 450° for 15-20 minutes. Toss with salt and serve.

“Music hath Charms to soothe a savage Breast,” wrote the poet William Congreve in 1697, “To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

As a single phrase from his poem, The Mourning Bride, it falls far short in describing the magical, mystical properties that belong to the universal language that is music.

As I look back at my life, after my family and worldly obligations, nothing is more important than those moments spent with music. As a listener, student, performer and writer, music has been a source of grounding, camaraderie and livelihood. I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of meeting and hearing musical artists at every level of accomplishment, and I’ve cultivated friendships with people that have endured more than five decades.

I’m still in touch with Terry Applebaum, my percussion teacher when I was studying music at Northwestern University as a high schooler. It was he who sent me notifications from the U.S. Department of Educations about a pair of days earmarked to celebrate orchestra conductors and band directors. To thank them is to acknowledge the influence that their very beings have been to all of us who took up the tonette in third grade and picked an instrument of our choosing the following year.

While I can’t remember a single group study session from my school days, I can remember the hours spent jamming with like-minded friends or listening to endless plays of “All Blues,” the 1959 seminal Miles Davis composition with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans. More than sixty years later, the album ranks number one on my Top-10 list. In my couple years in public high school, I recall getting to school an hour early just to hang out in the band room and play some blues or work out the “rhythm changes” from George Gershwin. I can’t think of anybody getting to geometry class any earlier than they had to, let alone test out extra theorems or study the early years of Euclid.

In its release, the Dept. of Education wrote “Take a bow, orchestra educators! You help students realize their love of music by expertly guiding them, shaping a cacophony of clarinets, cellos, & cymbals into beautiful performances created through teamwork & talent.”

Similar kudos were offered Band Directors: “Strike up the band! Thank you for guiding students as they make beautiful music together—from pep bands & marching bands, to concert bands, jazz bands, chamber ensembles, and many other groups.”

Borrowing from the scientific camp, music at almost every level develops from a theory of chaos—making something out of almost nothing. Or, as we like to say in jazz: “It’s a remarkable recovery from a series of accidents.”

Because of its universality, music can serve as a bridge to other cultures and traditions.

In 1999, Daniel Barenboim, the conductor and concert pianist, and the late Palestinian literary scholar Edward W. Said created a workshop for young musicians to promote coexistence and intercultural dialogue. They named the orchestra West-Eastern Divan and created an ensemble comprised of young musicians from Israel and neighboring Arab countries.

Based on this notion of equality, cooperation, and justice for all, the orchestra represents an alternative model to the current situation in the Middle East. The only political aspect that prevails in the orchestra’s work is the conviction that there is no military solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that the destinies of Israelis and Palestinians are inextricably linked.

Sadly, neither Netanyahu nor the leaders of Hamas seem likely audience members, although such a meeting might at least provide a context for peace. From a single page comes melody, harmony and rhythm in unmistakable concert. Unlike drama, there is no need for conflict; there is only a starting point that leads to the coda that echoes through the soul and haunts the imagination.

Without giving it too much thought, many of us take music for granted. The radio hosts the buttons that control the accompaniment of sound as we run our daily errands. Pay services offer all the world’s repertoire for the ask. Sadly, many composers and musicians are being skewered by such services whose rate of pay has been reduced from dollars to cents.

Musicians are frequently asked to take drastic cuts in pay scales for live music. The ridiculous assertion is that “exposure” will come to those musicians playing at your daughter’s wedding.

At almost every school board meeting in America are those who are quick to suggest budget cuts come by scaling back or eliminating the arts programs. I suspect that those soulless folks are also behind book-banning or the adoption of historical papers far more honest than many of the white-leaning revisions of a more pleasant history currently offered.

All aspects of education have intrinsic value. But topping my list comes music. It is there to “soothe a savage Breast.”

Illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Retro salad

This was a pretty common salad in the Midwest in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It was served in restaurants and private homes.

2 strips bacon
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 tsp. finely chopped fresh dill (or 1 tsp. dried)
1/2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 head iceberg lettuce
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 scallions, chopped

Slice bacon crosswise into thin tabs. Sizzle in a cast-iron skillet set over medium-high heat until crispy, about 8 minutes. Scoop out with a slotted spoon. Drain on paper towels and set aside.
Measure mayo, buttermilk, blue cheese, dill and mustard into the food processor. Swirl until smooth.
Carve lettuce into 8 wedges. Cut out and discard core. Place 2 wedges on each of 4 plates.
Season lettuce wedges with salt and pepper. Pour on dressing. Top with scallions and bacon.

Perhaps the most egregious example of market manipulation came in 1896 when a Chicago-based confectioner introduced the All-Day Sucker to fans of professional baseball, which had made its debut twenty years earlier and had pre-dated the Battle of the Little Bighorn by two months. The chocolate-covered mealworm-larvae-on-a-stick cost a penny—roughly the cost of feeding a family of five for a week, unless actual food was involved in the equation. It (the candy) derived its name from the simple fact that it took an entire day to consume. By happenstance, that was also the amount of time it took to complete a single baseball game during daylight hours.

That, of course, was before television, a medium that shortened the game by eliminating groin-scratching, was readily available to anybody with a wire coat hanger, a roll of tin foil and something that may resemble the focus window on a Brownie camera.

We need not be reminded that history, as illustrated above, can be a tricky subject.

Recognizing the agony of properly recording the day’s events, a lot of respected historians with college degrees, and everybody at Fox News just make this stuff up. Anybody doubting the veracity of one’s reportage need only to check out any of the millions of factual entries found on Google. Fox, of course, is at a disadvantage because nobody there knows how to spell Google.

To illustrate how this works, merely enter firstmlbgamewithcandyandcuster’sseventhcavalry and your search will be rejected because apostrophes (‘) aren’t allowed. Remove the apostrophe (‘) and you’ll be directed to a cheap motel room in Valentine, Nebraska, via Trivago. (Be sure to have the chicken-fried steak.)

Rob Manfred was elected Major League Baseball’s first commissioner in 1900 when he ran on the promise to “make this game go faster.” Everybody except the fans was in favor of Manfred’s move to shorten the game. The players and coaches because they got paid the same amount of money one way or another. The fans were opposed to the move because Manfred had rid baseball of the All-Day Sucker, replacing it with ten-cent glasses of Brew 102, a crappy little beer named for a freeway that had yet to be built.

Obviously, Manfred’s introduction of the cheap, yet potent beer (40 proof) did not go as planned. In fact, most of the fans wouldn’t leave the ball parks until they were so plastered and foul-smelling that Manfred felt compelled to halt beer sales after the first inning which, as it turns out, was all the time needed to get smashed. Three years later, after conducting a series of focus groups hosted by Abner Doubleday, the Commish settled on nine innings to be the length of a regulation game, unless there was no clear winner.

It should be noted that the only thing Manfred hates more than the game of baseball is the crowd of people who go to the games. And okra. He hates okra. Oddly enough, Manfred works for thirty billionaire team owners who cannot fire him. Clearly, the owners inherited their fortunes. Nobody that stupid could actually earn that kind of money.

Manfred has toiled for more than a century to make baseball more palatable, i.e., something that is good enough to eat or drink. To whom, exactly? While palatable means something entirely different than appealing, it certainly does not to the fans who want the game to go into extra innings over the course of eight days. Beer sales would have to be increased, which doesn’t make sense as part of anybody’s argument.

The idiot Comish wants there to be clocks and timers, so nobody takes too long to throw a fastball. No scratching. No sliding. If one hits a single, he is awarded third base and a rainbow lollipop. An extra run is given if the runner skips home.

The singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the middle of the seventh inning will be replaced with “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” The Animals’ YouTube version will be played on the center-field Jumbotron. Unless Harry Caray comes back to life, in which case he’ll be featured on the Jumbotron singing the theme song used in Cologuard commercials.

Finally, after years of let’s-see-if-this’ll-fly attempts to improve baseball, Manfred announced that the term “foul ball” will take on new meaning this season when MLB adopts sheer (or, see-through) uniforms for its players. Managers and coaches will not be required to put their junk on display unless they want to.

I’ve offered many times to become commissioner of Major League Baseball—based on my life-long love of the game, my respect for its timeworn traditions and my delirious hatred of the DH (designated hitter). But I’ve got to hand it to Manfred. I never would have come up with his latest attempt to destroy the game: Bring Chippendale’s to Chavez Ravine.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Petti di pollo al burro (butter chicken)

I’ve dined on this signature dish from Sostanza and watched it being made in the tiny kitchen that divides the dining room and the bathroom. These notes are from the travel and food writer Elizabeth Minchilli. While not quite the same as eating it in the trattoria established in Florence, Italy, in 1869, it is damned good. Serves two.

1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 (7-oz.) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, lightly pounded to 3/4-inch-thickness
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. coarsely ground pepper
1/2 cup, plus 2 Tbs. cold salted butter, cut into pieces, divided

Take a pair of plump chicken breasts, lightly grill them over burning coals. Take the breast off the coals and while still hot dip in flour, then egg and set in a small pan filled with entire stick of melted butter to finish cooking.

It wasn’t abundantly clear, but I could have sworn that I spotted George Santos in the crowd of politicians on the floor of Thursday’s joint session of Congress. It was my only glimpse of the ousted Representative from New York’s third congressional district, so I decided that my eyes were deceiving me.

But it turns out I was right. He was there. Right there on the floor of the House, seen hobnobbing with the groin-groping Lauren Boebert.

I would have thought that even having the slightest sense of self-respect would have kept him at home somewhere in Queens, watching the proceedings of President Biden’s State of the Union address on television while rehearsing answers to questions about the speech that nobody would really care to ask. After all, any answer from Santos about anything would quickly be regarded as either idiotic or a lie. Possibly both.

Friday morning I learned that once somebody is elected to Congress, that somebody has lifetime floor privileges. This is a situation that needs addressing. Why, after all, aren’t those privileges given to any one of the rest of us? I, for instance, would have made an appearance there in hopes that Representative Jamie Raskin from Maryland’s eighth congressional district could give me a quick tutorial in political theory and constitutional law.

I would also take the occasion to show Secretary of State Antony Blinken my tattoo of the number given to his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, in Auschwitz, the Nazi deathcamp in Poland. I think he’d approve of this most sincere gesture to honor a Holocaust survivor.

But back to George Santos, America’s favorite fabricator who most recently claimed that his mother had died for the fourth time, this time while crossing the Rio Grande in her attempt to gain refugee status.

Actually, Mr. Santos doesn’t need my help in generating untruths about anything. It seems his story telling is perhaps the only thing he’s capable of. It’s unknown if he’s suffering from a disease or syndrome that is defined by habitual lying, or if it’s caused by an un-diagnosed degenerative brain trauma.

While there are many who think the disgraced former congressman belongs in jail for lying and for any of his 23 felony counts in an unresolved criminal case, it should be noted that if every elected politician who lied to Congress was convicted of doing so, our prisons would be bursting at their seams with white-collar criminals writing their memoirs.

During Thursday night’s broadcast of President Biden’s speech, Mr. Santos decided to use social media to announce his candidacy for the Congressional district next to the one from which he was ousted. The announcement was met generally with guffaws and head-shaking laughter.

For as long as I can remember, chutzpa has been defined by the story of the boy who was found guilty of murdering his parents, then begging the judge for mercy because he was an orphan.

George Santos seems to have inherited—actually, created—rights to that definition.

If memory serves, government has been a beacon of opportunity for the unsavory among us. The electorate has typically looked down on those caught with their mitts in the cookie jar. Saving face, they have resigned their offices, returning to their districts with their tails between their legs. Richard M. Nixon demonstrated a modicum of decency by resigning his office, even if a prearranged pardon was in the offing.

Today’s political climate seems to tolerate bad behavior. Afraid of losing his party’s slim majority, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy made little effort to oust Santos. Elevated to Speaker on the fourth ballot was Mike Johnson, R-La., a constitutional lawyer who looks like a suburban high school algebra teacher and is opposed to supporting Ukraine. He has used his skills to craft some creative legal theories, the most notable of which was to devise an argument aimed at keeping Donald Trump in power, despite his having lost the 2020 election.

While Trump certainly can’t be credited with creating political crime, he surely has perfected it as a culture. He has been indicted on four felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the culture of hate he’s cultivated.

Trump, whose dinners with Ye, the antisemitic rapper, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, have paved the way for the likes of Mark Robinson to gain favor in certain Republican circles.

The African American Robinson “has promoted various far-right conspiracy theories, has engaged in Holocaust denial, and has often made inflammatory anti-LGBT, antisemitic, racist, anti-atheist, and Islamophobic statements,” according to Wikipedia.

Among his many other terrible qualities is that of misogyny. The lieutenant governor of North Carolina has made clear his vision for the future.

“I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”

Yet another reason for Republicans to quit calling themselves the party of Lincoln.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Pickled Onions (Cipolle sott’aceto)

This is a wonderful condiment or garnish for hearty courses of grilled meats.

4 red onions
1 Tbs. crushed juniper berries
1 qt. white wine vinegar
1 qt. water
2 bay leaves
1 Tbs. black peppercorns
½ c. granulated sugar

Place all the ingredients into a 6-qt. saucepan over medium-low heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and let onions cool in the liquid. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

If you haven’t played Trivial Pursuit in a few years, like I hadn’t, you’d probably have noticed that some of the answers are now outdated and therefore wrong. Although no examples come to mind (I don’t know why I even bother to carry a notebook) they mostly were in the categories of Science & Nature and Sports.

The inaugural version of the game was released in 1981, four years before my son Daniel was born. There are vast expanses of trivia about which he and his wife, Pauline, have not a clue. In turn, they have both the original and a newly updated version of the game. The newer version has vast expanses of trivia about which Geri and I haven’t a clue because at some point in time we stopped paying attention.

On our recent trip to Ferndale, the bedroom community of Bellingham, Washington, in which Pauline and Daniel live, we melded the two versions of the game. Obviously, we got the old version questions; they, the new. It was a fun time, a fitting end to each day.

Another highlight, besides the beautifully prepared seafood we consumed at every meal, was learning of and then watching “Ted Lasso,” the sports comedy-drama on Apple Tv+’. It’s sports satire like I’d not yet heard, and it was wonderfully funny. I highly recommend it.

But the greatest part of the trip took place on Tuesday when Pauline took her citizenship test and was sworn in as an American citizen. It was plain to see that she was proud to finally be an American. So too were her and Daniel’s friends who gathered to celebrate.

Daniel had decorated the spacious living area of their house with all things red, white and blue—flags and banners made in China. Hamburgers and hot dogs were served. I don’t know why there was Mexican beer, although Modelo is far preferred (by me) to Coors Light. Thankfully, my son avoided the country pitfall that is Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”

Through some bunch of treaties with some other countries, Pauline is accorded dual citizenship: her native French and now American. I’m jealous because I think it would be cool to have dual citizenship. Unlike Geri, Courtney and Daniel, who are blessed with that status in Ireland, I have no opportunities given by birthright to make a similar claim.

But that doesn’t stop me from wondering what countries I might gain such status through study and allegiance, and which ones reflect my ancestral background, cultural interest, or indoctrination of faith.

Having a dual citizenship in France is most appealing. I love the food and I can get around a French menu and wine list without too much effort. There are many parts of France I’ve yet to visit, but having an apartment in Paris or a cottage in Dijon would be great jumping-off points for learning more about the country.

For similar reasons, Italy is next on the list.

I spent a week in the Czech Republic a few years ago. I loved every minute of it, from the slivovitz (vile plum brandy) to the knedliky e zeli (dumplings and sauerkraut). The food is what I grew up eating, and they make a variety of delicious beers. The history is fascinating, and the people are, for the most part, warm and friendly.

While most of the people in Prague speak English, it would seem prudent to know more of their language than the names of a few menu entries. It’ll never happen, as there is nothing about the Bohemian (Czech) language that is recognizable. For instance, this is the warning message printed on cigarette packages:

Kombinovaná / zdravotní varování / Pro tabákové výrobky / určené ke kouření.

See?

Currently, Israel is nowhere I’d care to go. I don’t speak the language except for a few lines from Passover seders. I know only show-biz Yiddish, but not enough of it to gain entry to the Friar’s Club. And the unrest there is far too unsettling for me. I’d much prefer to be friends with my neighbors than view them as enemies.

My mother was 100 percent Scottish. After brief stays in Appalachia, her grandparents (both sets) found their way to central Nebraska. Her mother’s side were clod busters who lived in a straw-bale house. Her father’s people hailed from a somewhat dysfunctional bunch of drunk lawyers who were anti-abolitionists. One relative was an Indian hunter.

I’ve never been to Scotland. Pictures reveal a terrain that I find attractive. I know nothing about the Scot’s food other than haggis, which sounds utterly revolting. Golf was created in Scotland, which demonstrates how its residents can endure both masochistic tendencies and tedium. It’s also where Scotch—both blended and single-malt—was first created.

That by itself might be enough to entice me to carry an additional passport but then I remember that Scotland is the home of both kilts and bagpipes.

And there is a language problem: they speak a form of English that I can’t quite understand.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Babi’s Bread Dumplings
As told to my mother

1 package active dry yeast (2-1/4 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup milk, scalded and cooled
1 cup milk, warm
1 egg
½ tsp. salt
3 ½ cups flour
3 slices white bread, crumbled

Mix yeast & sugar in the ½ cup milk. Let stand for 10 minutes.
Mix warm milk, egg, salt, yeast mixture and flour. Add bread. Knead on a floured board for five minutes or so, and let rise, covered, for ½ hour. Divide and shape into three loaves. Cook in boiling water, about seven minutes per side. Drain, let rest for a few minutes and slice. Serve with butter or topped with gravy.

It all came to me as an epiphany in the late stages of my evening reverie. It was as brilliant an idea as it was transcendent. It captured truth and explored the notion of ideation. It could be written to meet the needs of those in transitions of their very lives.

I smiled at what would become this morning’s essay; an essay worthy of a second or third reading to completely capture each moment offering crystalline clarity in the realm of the metaphysical.

I went to my bed and fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of oddities that had no relation whatsoever to that which I had imagined to meet the needs of today’s work.

A faint light entered my room, pale yet growing stronger. It woke me. I laid in bed for a while, staring at the ceiling and thinking of a five-letter word that would allow me to succeed at Wordle in no more than three guesses. Suddenly it occurred to me that my evening’s thoughts had disappeared. I had no recollection of my epiphany from just hours ago, although I remembered having one. Again, I was reminded of the advancing years that came adorned with memory slips, if not fails. No doctor has assessed me having an early onset of Alzheimer’s; early being an odd word to apply to a septuagenarian.

There are many rewards that accompany growing older. Other than Medicare and senior discounts at the movie theater, I can’t remember any others. Forgetfulness and failing to lift one’s feet high enough to clear the edge of a throw rug are mere asides to that daily wondering about the waning days of life.

I am growing more forgetful these days. For instance, I haven’t a clue about today’s ramblings. I also have trouble with names, which is nothing new.

A dozen or so years ago I attended a wine tasting for fewer than ten or so sommeliers, all of whom I knew from other tastings. The host apologized for giving us name tags. I kissed him on both cheeks like an exuberant Frenchman, expressing my heartfelt thanks. Without being encumbered by memory, I could fully address another oenophile by merely glancing at his or her bosom.

It is with increasing frequency that I need to stop to think of a word that I needed to complete a thought. It’s only evident in conversation; nobody knows my struggles at the keyboard.

President Joe Biden seems to be having a few lapses of memory these days. So does his apparent opponent in the next national election. Biden’s slips, I think, come from his wanting to use exactly the right word to best express a thought whose purpose is to make our lives more bearable. It is exasperated by the remnants of a childhood stutter.

His opponent is just an idiot who seems unconcerned about any clear expressions of thought, presuming that he might have had one; he settles on whatever will arouse his base audience.

I once attended a lecture given by Igor Stravinsky, the Russian-born composer of such orchestral works as The Firebird and The Rite of Spring. He spoke several languages and was insistent on finding the precise word to best inform his audience. His wife sat behind him on stage, and he deferred to her word choices when he couldn’t find one on his own. That the two of them could settle on a single word in Polish wasn’t all that helpful to those of us who didn’t speak Polish. But they seemed happy.

That level of communication was antithetical to understanding. He would have better reached us with even a vague notion of his idea in a language we all understood rather than demonstrating a level of definition that was both exclusive and elusive.

I wondered what my paternal grandparents would have thought. They spoke Polish, along with several other languages. My guess is that they would have had trouble with the English parts of the lecture.

When my sister was going for her second doctorate in some esoteric field of communication, she sent me her dissertation proposal—a forty-page introduction that would someday blossom into a full-fledged book that would never find a place on any best-seller list.

I was on winter break at the University of Illinois, and I welcomed reading the proposal. Since I had to refer to a dictionary to understand the title, I knew I was in for a long winter’s slog. Blue pencil in hand and reference materials at the ready, I blew through that sucker in about two weeks of 10-hour days. By the time I was done, I had whittled her work down to seven readable pages that could be understood by anybody with an eighth-grade education.

She was livid.

Her work was not for the masses, she informed me. She was clearly not interested in having any part of doing what her proposal suggested: communicating.

When I pointed that out, she grew angrier. Her work, as it turned out, was meant for the fifty or so fellows in her tiny corner of academia.

She vowed to never show me her work again. I was relieved. We didn’t speak for two years.

Now, where was I?

Photo Illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Caramelized Leeks

My family likes leeks and none better than how my daughter-in-law Pauline captures the onion-essence and silky smoothness with her simple preparation. These are a wonderful accompaniment to grilled meats or fish.

1 leek per person, equal parts olive oil & butter, salt & pepper, water & beef bouillon

Clean leeks and slice into 1/2″ rounds. Saute in butter and oil over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1/2 cup water and a teaspoon of bouillon. Cover and cook until caramelized.

As I prepared for a career in journalism, I found a great attraction to being able to be the eyes and ears of my readers, writing, as it were, the first draft of history, even if that draft was filled with articles of little interest to most people, about people of little note. Jewish tradition says that to save one life is to save the whole world.

I knew it would take a period of writing news and features before—if ever—becoming a jazz critic for a daily paper. Between my start as a newsman and the attainment of the jazz critic post, I covered a wide spectrum of news in a variety of areas. And when I moved to features, I found myself spending many an hour with authors, actors, and movie directors, each with something to sell. No matter how revealing or honest a story, I became a cog in the show biz machinery.

As the newest hire at the Los Angeles Daily News in 1976, my desk was the closest to the front door. From that location, I would serve as the barrier between whoever came in and the city desk, the latter of which had little patience for anything. To say they didn’t suffer fools gladly was an understatement.

They were a crotchety group of chain-smoking men who didn’t dress well. (It was a year or two later that the paper wisely brought on Sandi Gibbons, as tough-as-nails editor as I ever knew. She was fair and had a good sense of humor.)

It was a typically busy morning when a feisty man of 5’9” or so barged through the front door, stopping short of the newsroom because of the counter. “Who can I talk with about my new movie,” the man asked. Being on the job for all of two weeks, I didn’t have a clue who would want to talk to him.

He had a folder of sorts and I asked him if I might pass it along.

“It’s a great movie about a boxer in Philadelphia,” the man said with great enthusiasm. “I play the lead role, Rocky,” he said. “I’m Sylvester Stallone,” he said, extending his hand.

I soon found myself looking at the hard-news scene through a rear-view mirror and moving upstairs where a ragtag group of “features” writers waited around hoping a two-headed turtle would wander in looking for press.

That’s when I met Charles Kuralt, a two-headed turtle guy of his own. He had a new book to push and I had won the daily celebrity lottery. Thinking I would probably have to meet him at some campsite, I was surprised when our 8 a.m. meeting was at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Los Angeles. I called him from the lobby and he asked me to wait for a while because “I’m not much of a morning guy.”

He wasn’t much of a breakfast guy and I told him I wasn’t either. He asked the waitress to please bring two cocktail glasses, a bucket of ice and a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Oh, and keep the ashtray empty,” he said. I enjoyed his company and his stories for nearly four hours.

I filed my story a day late.

I could see from my editor’s desk at The Hollywood Reporter that the motion picture industry has considerable strength in the world of charity. I forget what the event was supporting, but it was at one of the largest hotel convention rooms and Monty Hall, the host of “Let’s Make a Deal,” was there. We shook hands and I could sense that he was a nice guy as he took the stage to emcee the event.

The organizers had decided something new would make the evening more interesting. For an hour or two, there was a silent auction as Hollywood B-listers paraded across the stage to sell donated stuff. It was 9:30 and the dinners were just starting to be served. I had no appetite, nor did The Hollywood Reporter executive I had been ordered to accompany to this event. As we approached the exit, the executive saw Kitty Bradley at the dais.

“She’s one of my best friends,” the exec said. The two of them got into deep conversation and I was directed to take a seat next to them on the dais. There was an empty seat between my seat and Bob Hope’s. I had noticed that the placard said Vidal Sassoon. I knew I wasn’t Vidal Sassoon and Mr. Hope knew it as well. His curiosity finally got to him. “Who the fuck are you?” Bob inquired. I was pleased to know that Dolores Hope knew me, lest I find myself removed by force.

I would have loved to be a sportswriter. Some of the best American authors spent time analyzing a single sport and writing extensively about it. The best of the best–Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Ring Lardner, Jim Murray, Damon Runyon, Roger Angell—became household names. To a great extent, they proved the axiom that the smaller the ball, the better the writing.

I proved myself to be unworthy of such a position in the world of prose.

Ernie Banks was my boyhood hero. “Let’s play two,” became a simple phrase that bore the weight of commitment and dedication. Some Chicago entrepreneur was opening a diner with a gala gathering of Chicago celebs in a parking lot on Rodeo Drive. Ed Debevic’s was right out of the ‘50s and I had gained enough fame in Los Angeles as a jazz writer to earn an invite.

And there he was. Standing at a buffet table filled with sliders was Ernie Banks, my hero. Dick Butkus introduced us and beyond saying how nice it was to meet him, I was completely tongue-tied. He was my captive; I could have had him autograph a slider or tell me the origins of “Let’s play two,” or fill me in on life in the Negro Leagues.

Hell, we could have talked about jazz.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Sliders

These bite-size sandwiches were first sold at White Castle hamburger outlets throughout Chicago. There’s nothing special about them except for their being cute. To prepare, make your favorite hamburger recipe, cut into fourths. Serve on dinner rolls with whatever toppings you like. That’s all. Simple.

This time Kenneth Eugene Smith wasn’t so lucky.

This past Thursday evening, the state of Alabama was successful in murdering the 58-year-old murderer with nitrogen oxide, a gas that replaces oxygen in the body and causes death. Smith was the first convicted murderer in the world to die in this manner.

It’s a helluva legacy.

Despite there being little research on this method of nitrogen hypoxia, it was employed at Smith’s request after the state botched a 2022 effort to kill him by lethal injection. That first attempt was abandoned after several hours of technicians failing to find a vein to accept the needle that would deliver the lethal cocktail.

Despite the lack of much supporting evidence, Alabama officials are claiming that the use of nitrous gas is humane. Amnesty International does not agree and has said that the “untested method could be extremely painful, result in a botched execution, and could amount to torture or other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment, thereby violating international human rights treaties that the U.S. has ratified.”

In the course of this drama playing out, there’s not been much talk about the morality of the state executing its citizen criminals. Neither position—pro, con—is particularly tenable, with the Supreme Court frequently hearing arguments and either allowing executions or not.

The legal term for such judicial practice is “see-saw.”

Mr. Smith’s execution draws new attention to new ways of murdering people without regard to the moral question of the state taking the life of one of its citizens. How, for instance, can anybody find any sense of humanity in murder?

The state expects us not to kill, yet has few qualms about doing so to those of its own.

Maya Foa, the joint executive director of Reprieve, a human rights group, told The Guardian that “the recent spate of disastrous lethal injection executions has shown that whatever the drug, whatever the protocol, condemned prisoners often spend their final hours in agonizing pain and distress. With each gruesome scene in the death chamber, we are witnessing the consequences of persisting with a broken method of execution, in real time.”

For the record: Are there condemned prisoners who don’t spend their final hours in agonizing pain and distress?

Although there’s no proof that the threat of death acts as a deterrence in the commitment of murder, it’s reasonable to think that a normal person would not harbor any thoughts of murder. This is impossible to prove because we can’t get into the felon’s head to search for answers.

Twenty-seven American states can engage in capital punishment. The others have by popular vote or court renderings chosen not to. Those states with the death penalty have few methods of murder available to them: electrocution, firing squad, hanging, lethal injection, and lethal gas, the latter of which might include nitrogen hypoxia.

It would seem that there are methods that have been overlooked, many of which, if employed, would pique the interests of those would be willing to part with cash to witness the event. Ingestion of cyanide might be played out as the recipient twists and turns as the drug takes effect. It’s been a couple of centuries since we burned anybody at the stake, always a crowd pleaser. And what about the guillotine, a once-popular way of securing the severed head in a basket for easy viewing?

Clearly, we need to employ people whose interests begin with torture and end with a dead body. We need alternatives, a sense of history and a sense of humor. There’s no better place to begin than at the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments in Prague, Czech Republic.

I visited the museum a few years ago with my son. Inside its four stories overlooking the river Charles, was red carpeting over floors that sagged in a few different directions. Despite our whispered black humor, the sphincter-tightening drabness on display made us glad we didn’t live in the 14th century.

There was no shortage of racks, water boarding equipment, cages and slow methods of torture, the latter of which featured giant cork screw that entered the body from the rear and slowly turned until it emerged from the skull. We wondered if the screw ever got that far. Personally, I would probably have lasted until somebody yelled, “we’re in.”

As fascinating as the instruments of torture were to see, I kept wondering about the people who designed them. What must have their childhoods been like? Did they lie awake at night imagining what pain the machines could deliver? Did they laugh at their inventions, or was it too serious a business to allow levity?

I’m unable to suggest any instruments of torture that would be suitable to create the pain and suffering of somebody to make them acquiesce to the demands of others. I do, however, have an idea for something more subtle but equally effective: Endless tape loops of the Lawrence Welk Show.

Photo illustration by Courtney A. Liska

Cucumbers in Sour Cream

This was my Bohemian grandmother’s idea of a salad. It’s delicious.

2 medium cucumbers, peeled and sliced thin
4 tablespoons sour cream
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 medium sweet onion, thinly sliced (Optional)
1 dash paprika, for color

Combine the cucumbers, garlic and salt in a colander.
Place the colander in the sink and let stand for 1/2 hour.
Squeeze out as much water as you can with your hands.
Then place in a bowl and add the sour cream, vinegar.
(You may also add thinly sliced onions at this point).
Mix well and sprinkle with paprika for color.