EAST OR WEST

I-90 - Eastern Montana - 1994
A great load of hay - that was a lucky sign.
Our trip there was wonderful.

"Just a long, flat highway with nothing at stake between us"

“East or West, home is best.” I’ve remembered that line since I was child. It is one of the maxims the nuns in school would bestow on us every once in a while. I came upon this wonderful poem in June at The Writer’s Almanac. The poem spoke to me of two places I love but have never lived in. I’ve been to Vermont, close to my upstate New York home, more times that I could ever count. I’ve been to Montana, home of one of my very special people, only once. Both the green, treed Vermont and the golden brown, vast Big Sky openness of Montana speak to me of home – I could happily live in either place. Maybe in my next life…

I titled this one "Vermont Cow"

"spring's sky-blue gown"

Habitats

by Marylen Grigas

You can take Vermont,
the edge of the woods in tears
even with spring’s sky-blue gown

as you prowl through those trees
bird whistle on a lanyard and compass
tucked in your camouflage pants.

I want Montana for myself,
some little-known hot spring,
glimpse of wild horses running,

notebooks, novels, no plans
as the sky rolls out its
dazzling welcome mat.

Just a long flat highway with nothing
at stake between us.

Someday we’ll signal one another—
you with the call of a partridge,
me with the song of a meadowlark.

CLYDESDALES

This week's post is one I wrote as a sidebar to a magazine article. I think that the big draft horses are beautiful. I cherish the memories of seeing several teams of them on their way to a farm show up in Vermont, and also when the big team from Reminisce magazine, on a country-wide tour, came by on U.S. Rt. 20, just a mile away from our house in New York.  We couldn't not be there.

Summertime - and I remember the only times I ever enjoyed a cold beer was at a beach house I shared out on Long Island’s north shore with a large group of great people. Exhilarated, exhausted, and really sweaty after a great game of beach volleyball, there was nothing like a cold beer from the keg of Bud that one of the guys had brought in.

Think of beer on draft, think of work and horsepower, think of horses, think of powerful draft horses, and you’ll always think of the iconic Budweiser team of Clydesdales, the “Ambassadors of Excellence.” The Bud ads that featured them were always a hit. They are truly magnificent animals. (Budweiser must have switched ad agencies, because their current ads are screamin’ terrible.)

Throughout Europe, where breeds of draft, or draught or dray, horses became individualized from earliest times, there was a need for strong work and farm animals. The largest of the draft horses, Shire horses are from England. Percherons, descendants of war horses, are from France. The eponymous Belgians, and several breeds from other countries, are joined by the Clydesdales from Scotland.

Raised on a farm near St. Louis, and based there and in New Hampshire and Colorado, several teams of Clydesdales are on the move across the country, promoting Budweiser for most of the year. Ten gelded, matched, bay-colored horses make up a team, and eight at a time are hitched to the big, red beer wagon. The sight of the wagon and horses coming down the pike, or even in a television ad, is enough to stir the soul of any animal lover or beer lover, and bring on a great smile.

P.S. Did you know that a Dalmatian often accompanies the Budweiser Clydesdales? Their heritage is as guard dogs, and they were used by draymen and firemen to protect the valuable horses from theft.

I went looking in Google Images for Budweiser Dalmatian pictures.  

It was really hard to pick just one or two. 

THE MIDNIGHT MOCKINGBIRD

You know, of course, that I didn't take this picture.
 (What would I do without Google Images for most of my illustrations?)
I was happy to find a picture of this bird in mid-song.

Good grief, I am going to throw a boot (never a book!) at that bird! Does he think he is a nightingale? He’s a mockingbird, and one who should be doing his mocking thing in the daylight, not in the dark.

For several nights now I’ve awakened to the sound of a mockingbird perched somewhere in the nearby trees or on the fence. I often wake a time or two at night, usually for a bathroom call. These last few nights that bird has been singing his heart out in the darkness. Loud too. 

I remember one of our neighbors, long ago on Long Island. Charlie swore he was going to kill that mockingbird. Me? I never ever heard it. At that time I was young and slept through the night, come what may. Older now, of course, older by over thirty years, irregular sounds wake me right up. 

This morning, I found it was as loud as it was because the window has been open for days behind the closed drapes. Who closed those drapes? I did. I never remembered or noticed the open window, and the air conditioning has been on in the house. Ah, well. I hope that tonight the bird has given up and gone to sleep like all good birds. His ‘song’ is definitely not melodious. 

THE MAPS IN OUR HEADS

Again, this is an article I wrote for our community magazine. It was published in the July issue, and I have had a few compliments on it. It was a bit of a challenge to write - to remember all the places I passed in my city neighborhood in Richmond Hill, New York, and to find the words to describe the sounds and smells. I did leave out the ice cream parlor - Adele's. Adele's was the closest store to where I lived, and though I have fond memories, especially of their creating a chocolate-covered ice pop in whatever three flavors struck my fancy that day, I completely forgot to put it on my tour. Shows you how the senior mind works - or doesn't work, as the case may be.

Googled "ice cream parlor" and found this picture that reminds me of Adele's,
though for some reason I remember it being darker.

The map of Sun City Carolina Lakes is a curvy one. Many of us raised in the rectangular grids of the cities of the north find ourselves mystified as to the compass direction of our friends’ homes: “Well, they live over there somewhere.”

Louise Penny, in her latest novel, A Great Reckoning, writes about a cartographer who made exceptionally beautiful maps, especially local ones, and “recognized the connection people have to where they live. That it isn’t just the land: our history, our cuisine, our stories and our songs spring from where we live.”    

Searching for an illustration of some kind to show a beautiful map, I came upon this.
That's what the maps in our heads do - they come to life.

Most of us maintain a connection to where we’ve lived, especially during our school days, and in our memories we have maps that we take with us for life. They don’t necessarily match those of MapQuest or Google Earth. We keep our own maps of the route to school, the playing fields and parks, to a friend’s house, to the shops and train station, or to Grandma’s house. We can walk there in our memories and smell the aromas, stop off for a brief look-see, and hear the sounds along the way. The sound of a lawn mower and the perfume of lilacs or honeysuckle in a neighbor’s suburban yard are sweet memories. We walk past the Italian restaurant with sauce simmering and dishes clinking, past the bakery with the fresh-baked bread, on to savor the smell from the grills at the burger or bar-b-q place and the sound of the juke box. A sniff as we pass the open door of the hardware store gives us the tang of construction nails and the stink of garden fertilizer. Our memories smell the nose-crinkling, boozy breath of the liquor and beer soaked into the carpet at the corner bar. We hear the clang of metal on metal at the local garage, and hear the screech of breaks on wheels as we pass the train station. The smell of cloth and the hiss of steam at the cleaners, and the clove and Vitamin B-aroma of the pharmacy are immediately recognizable.

This looks a lot nicer than what I remember of the
corner bar in our neighborhood.

The beautiful thing about on-line maps today is that not only can we get directions and plot a route, we can also get a bird’s eye view of almost anywhere. We can take armchair visits to places we wish we’d have visited – Venice anyone? – and we can hover over the neighborhoods where we grew up or where we raised our families. We can see the changes. We can even get familiar with the streets in our own SCCL community.

You are where?

But you don’t need to go on line to visit the maps in your head. Take a break, get comfortable. Close your eyes and think about all the different things that happened there. Where are you? Let your mind roam outward from your daily self and think of the things – mundane or marvelous, but only the good things – that happened there. Keep the neighborhood around you for the rest of the day.

TANGY THREE BEAN SALAD

Though it has been summer for quite a while here in the Carolinas, the Fourth of July holiday really brings out the summer recipes. Yesterday I got into the spirit of things and made potato salad, from the old standard recipe on the Hellmann’s mayonnaise jar, and a great three bean salad. I’ve no idea where I got the three bean recipe, but I’ve been using it for so long that I no longer need to refer to the printed version. I was going to make the wonderful summer succotash recipe from Marian Morash of the old Victory Garden show, but it’s just the two of us for this holiday. If I’d made all those salads, I think we’d have been fed up in no time flat.

I wanted to share this recipe on my blog, so I took a few pictures as I made it. It's really an easy recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1 can each - chick peas, dark red kidney beans, and cut green beans 

2 small onions, diced

1 large carrot – peeled and sliced thin

1 Cup vinegar

1 Cup vegetable oil

½ Cup sugar

2 Tbsp. sweet paprika

2 tsp. salt

METHOD:

Drain and rinse the chick peas and kidney beans.  Drain and reserve the liquid from the string beans.

Prepare the onions and carrots. Put them in a pot with the vinegar, oil, sugar, paprika, and salt. Bring this all to a boil, let it cook for a minute, and then turn it off.

Pour the hot liquid and veggies over the beans. Add any of the reserved green bean liquid to completely cover the veggies and beans. Let this cool and then refrigerate it.  Makes 8 to 9 cups.  Keeps for a long time.

NOTES:

Avoid the use of olive oil because it will solidify in the fridge. If you do use it you’ll have to let the salad sit a while out of the fridge before serving.

Use more carrots if you like. Just make sure they ‘cook’ a bit so that they are not too crunchy.

You can reduce the oil by replacing all or some of it with water. Less calories that way.

You can use fresh green beans, just cut them up and add them to the vinegar/oil liquid to cook off some of the crunch.

Try a teaspoon of celery seed added in to the salad.