Political Differences

It’s amazing to me how many people I know or encounter casually who think that politics don’t matter in their personal lives.  I marvel.  Now of course, we have the tea-partiers who have suddenly woken up to the fact that politics do matter, and that they have a right to speak out about things they disagree with.  No matter how stupid and uniformed they are.  They have the right to be stupid and uninformed and protest about the things they are stupid and uninformed about.  That’s actually quite fine with me.  I’m not fine at all with people carrying signs that say, “We came unarmed…this time.”

But I am really talking about the disconnect between people who are able to have relationships with others when their political and social views are completely opposed.  What does it matter?, they say.  It’s only politics.  I can’t even grasp that. 

Let’s just take for example my friend Brenda, who has recently become involved with a guy who is originally from New York state.  After a couple of months now, she’s discovered that he’s a racist.  Her solution was to say…don’t say things like that around me any more.  Problem solved, right?  As long as we don’t talk about your personal racism, we can’t have a conflict.  I cannot get that.  Even if you don’t talk about it, it’s still there. 

Now let’s take me for an example.  I’ve had a friendship with a guy for 6 months who initially described himself as a Conservative.  (Kiss of death in my book.)  The last time I saw him, he said he isn’t really a Conservative.  He’s more of a Libertarian.  He’s a Conservative with Libertarian leanings.  (Can you have a double kiss of death?)  And the time before that, he informed me that I’m not really a liberal.  I’m a Conservative with Liberal leanings.  This so amuses me.  You could practically see his mind whirring, trying to redefine me in such a way that he could accept me.  And remaking himself.  Perhaps he thought that Libertarian would be more acceptable to me.  Please!  Spare yourself! 

Maybe this is why I am so bereft of relationships.  You have to agree with me intellectually first.  Everybody else I know seems to be able to put that aside.  So I guess it’s just me, but it is for sure me.  We have to be there first, otherwise I’m totally uninterested in how handsome, sexy, and attentive you are.  Not that handsome, sexy, and attentive is much of a combination I encounter often.  I can usually get two out of three…but no more.

A Visit to Blogworld

Some days (or hours, or weeks, or months, or years), you just can’t get it together.  Currently, I’m busy rocketing at warp speed from one personal or work crisis to another, and don’t have a bloggable thought in my head.  Well, I did think it might be nice to talk about the newly discovered frog from Asia with fangs, that eats birds.  Maybe later. 

So at times like these, I try to catch up on what other people on my blogroll are writing about.  There aren’t many of them, which is a good thing.  If I add one more, I will become paralyzed by inaction (a primary symptom of crisis-hopping).

So today I will do shameless plugs for other people.  Not that long ago I did a plug for Davis W who is the funniest person you never met.  This link will refer you to his website review of GetMotivated.com.  This is a must-read for those of you who are rocketing from one crisis to the next.  In the small-world category, Davis used to live in Tallahassee, where I currently live, although I had no idea about that when I began reading his blog. 

Now I introduce you to masteroftheuniverse, aka, Jeff Watson.  Currently Jeff is in the middle of a sort of quest, which might be called spiritual in nature, although I hesitate to use that word because a) it may be presumptuous, and b) I don’t like to draw attention to myself in such matters, since I may be struck by lightning.  Jeff is probably the most interesting person you never met.  I can’t do justice to him by attempting to describe him…his own words are much better. 

I’m going to show you the photo that appears in the blog entry linked above.  I don’t feel TOO bad about this, he has after all put it out there on the Internet himself, but I think this is a photo he could sell.  It’s astonishing.  I know a smidgen about photography, and in large part it involves having a good camera and being there at the moment it happens, whatever “it” is.  (The so-called “F-8 and Be There” rule.)  But you can satisfy those requirements and still take a bad picture, because it takes an imagination.  First to see that the picture is possible, and second to snap it at the right moment, at the right angle.  You have to have an “eye”.  Happy viewing.

Women Are From Venus, Men Are….

…from some other planet, except I’m not sure it’s as close as Mars.  I never read that book, but life in general will teach you, if you’re paying attention, that men are a different species.  On rare occasions, you will suddenly and inexplicably be of one mind, then Poof!  That moment will suddenly and inexplicably disappear.  In my opinion, successful relationships depend on both parties understanding that you have formed an alliance with an alien being.  I mean, I can’t talk to my dog either, but I love him anyway. 

So consider the following scenario.  On Friday afternoon, I visited my friend Judith in the hospital, which was an exceptionally happy occasion since she was alive to be visited.  Also present was another friend of hers (female) and her two daughters, Gina and Jennifer.  Gina has for some time now, maybe a year or more, been living with Mr. Right.  Handsome.  Sensitive.  Devoted.  Smart.  Competent.  And he recently bought her an engagement ring, which she actually picked out herself.  (Her comment:  “He wanted to buy me one of those diamond solitaire things like everybody else has.  I wanted more color.  So I got one with diamonds and rubies.”)

So Gina’s sister at some point says, can we now start calling what’s his name your fiancee?

Gina:  No you may not! 

Jennifer:  Didn’t he buy you a ring?

Gina:  Yes. 

Jennifer:  So why aren’t you wearing it?

Gina:  Because he hasn’t actually proposed!  [Um, yes, Gina, he has, at least in his mind.] If I wear the ring, it would be like assuming he asked already!  I will not wear the ring until he asks me to marry him officially! 

At that point I was compelled to step in and I said, Uh, Gina does he know this?  (Giggling can be heard in the background.)  I said, you know, he may be the most sensitive man on earth, but he is still a man.  You probably are going to have to tell him what you want.  (Giggling in background turns into outright laughter.  Sister Jennifer is actually clapping her hands.  “Am I right?”, I asked.  Chorus says, you are right!)

Gina replies that that will take away from the whole experience if she has to ask him to ask her.  She wants him to puzzle it out on his own.  I get that…really I do.  It’s just that in my world we live in reality, where soap operas do not rule, and where men never puzzle anything out for themselves when it concerns women.  They can invent the wheel and the atom bomb, and they can analyze football games and the stock market to the tiniest degree, but after that…forget it.   So I said, maybe you don’t have to go that far.  But you have to give bigger hints.  Such as, I would wear this ring if you asked me to marry you.  THEN he would get it.  Maybe. 

I’m not saying I do any better job of it than Gina.  I just understand it better.  I’d still like for you to puzzle it out.  So get started.  By 2082, you might get it.

Rihanna

I’ve been brewing this blog for a month or so now.  I probably would not have been paying much attention, except Nick posted the photos of Rihanna Topless and Muzzled in Italian Vogue.  It is Vogue, after all, and it is way out there.  That’s what they do.  But it has a special poignancy and sort of aura of danger about it, based on her recent history of having the shit kicked out of her by loving boyfriend Chris Brown.  You get the feeling that by posing for these photos, she’s saying Take this, Chris. 

As for the photos, they are horrible.  The only topless one reveals breasts that are nothing more than silicone-filled bubbles with nipples on top.  If that were me, I would never reveal them except in the most imperative of circumstances, and then I would be embarassed.  I certainly wouldn’t have photos of them in a magazine.  But that is the last even remotely bad thing I will say about Rihanna.  Because the deal is, it is her choice.  And if she wants to use it to say, F*ck You Chris, that is her choice too.  Maybe a dangerous choice, but it is her choice. 

Now let’s move along to Chris Brown, who said in an interview that he is still in love with Rihanna, and that they are like Romeo and Juliet.  I was chilled.  We all know how that story turned out.  Let’s watch  his interview with Larry King.  While we’re at it, let’s pay close attention to the condition of Rihanna’s face after he beat her. 

Nick also posted a video of Chris Brown performing his community service, which incensed me because he is smiling and waving to the cameras as if it’s a fan club meeting.   It also did not surprise me to find that he is a little short creature.  Isn’t that always the way? 

I don’t care how short he is.  I don’t care how young he is.  I don’t care that his mother testified that his father abused her when Chris was growing up.  I expect you to get over that. 

There is no excuse.

Fried Green Tomatoes

By popular demand (or not), this food item deserves a blog of its own.  My friend Sue from Canada is to blame, since she commented on Facebook that she wishes she had a recipe for them, and I will herewith provide one, with commentary.   

First, as an aside.  Many, many years ago, while visiting Canada, I decided to make gumbo, but my plan was foiled because I could not find any…okra.  I spoke to every grocer I could find, and it was kind of like a game of Twenty Questions.  “Okra”, they would say.  “Is that an animal, a vegetable, or a mineral?”

Please don’t assume I’m making fun of Canada.  Canada would at least have an equal reason to make fun of me.  Not that long ago, I lived in Fort Lauderdale, and I used to buy gas at a station next to a small grocery which proudly advertised in all capital letters “GOAT AVAILABLE HERE!”  Now I vaguely knew that people ate goats, but I thought of it as something you did in secret on a farm somewhere.  It never dawned on me that you could buy it in a store, like it was a package of chicken breasts. 

But I digress as usual.  My list of items I’ve been on the hunt for perfect examples of in my life includes not only fried green tomatoes, but gumbo, bread pudding, and popovers.  All these items have one thing in common.  They are very simple dishes, which seem impossible to screw up, and yet, it isn’t only possible, it’s probable. 

Let’s start with the recipe.  Now I’ll tell you how you can screw it up.  It’s if you don’t pay close attention to this particular recipe, starting with the tomato.  It must be perfectly green.  Green tomatoes without red spots are very hard and tart.  Slice them very thinly.  Notice the picture of the fried ones at the bottom of the picture…they are totally covered in batter.  That is indeed the first “secret”.  The batter must be thick enough to adhere to the tomato.  Next, the oil must be very hot, but not too hot.  That’s the hard part, and requires more or less knowing how to cook.  You have to have judgement.  If the oil is too hot, it will immediately burn the outside, and leave the inside hard.  If the oil isn’t hot enough, the batter will sort of melt off for the most part and your tomato will be mushy.  What you want is the tomato to soften and the batter to brown quickly but not too quickly.  It’s a difference of seconds, not minutes. 

Good luck experimenting!  If you fail, take a time out and watch the movie.

More Southern Dining: Florida Version

Let’s face it, eating is one of life’s greatest pleasures.  It’s something you can keep doing long after certain other of life’s greatest pleasures have somewhat…diminished, if not in quality then in quantity. 

Everybody has peculiarities either in the way they eat or in their likes and dislikes, and I find these fascinating.  For instance, in my previous blog on quintessential Southern dining, I mentioned my lunch companion Mrs. H., who included a grilled pork chop on her platter of food.  Upon finding the restuarant had forgotten to order steak knives, and finding that her dinner knife was inadequate, she proceeded to tear the meat off with her fingers.  She said she hoped I didn’t think she was being rude, but she was from the country.  (Translation:  I really don’t care if you think it’s rude or not.)  I was charmed!  I was right there with her!  Go for it! 

One of my quirks is that I’ve always, at least since I left home and could get away with it, eaten only when I’m hungry.  I have never adhered to any schedule.  I believe that eating when it’s ”time” is a contributing factor to obesity, since it encourages people to eat when they aren’t hungry.  Of course, the case can be made that by adhering to a schedule, you’ve trained your body to be “hungry” when it’s “time”.  In any case, my method surely saved me from becoming a complete blimp as opposed to a mini-blimp (a subject covered in my blog “How Much Do You Weigh?”) 

However, in the last three years, my method turned out to have a downside.  My appetite went to hell in a handbasket, which forced me to eat because I had to, and that, my friends, is no fun whatsoever.  I used to wander forlornly through the aisles of the grocery store, hoping to spy something that would spark my interest.  I’m not quite that bad any more, but I am to some degree.  Therefore, when I have a food craving of some sort out of the blue, I satisfy it immediately.  After satisfying my craving for fried green tomatoes earlier in the week, I found that I had a craving for oysters, which brings me to lunch at Barnacle Bill’s. 

Barnacle Bill’s is an institution in Tallahassee–it’s been around 30 or 40 years.  It lies on the main drag (Monroe Street), sandwiched between a Wendy’s (ugh!) and an “international” food grocery (translation:  Hispanic).  BB’s manages to replicate quite nicely the kind of seafood houses you might find on the coast, say in Appalachicola.  It has a huge raw bar in the center of the room, surrounded by booths.  The restroom doors read “Maine” and “Womaine”.  There are grains of rice in the salt shaker, to counteract the humidity.  There is a basket of crackers on the table, and they are all saltines.  No variations allowed.  If a sissy thing like some multi-grain cracker were to invade the basket, it would be stomped to death by its saltine neighbors.

I started with a dozen on the half-shell.  (Note re: oyster etiquette.  One does not order a dozen oysters on the half-shell.  One orders “a dozen on the half-shell” or “a dozen raw”.  The word “oyster” is redundant.)  While you wait for them to be fresh-shucked, your server brings you the de rigeur condiments:  ketchup, cocktail sauce, and hot sauce (in this case, Crystal hot sauce, which I totally reject in favor of Tabasco).

The oysters themselves come with an oyster fork, a slice of lemon, and a tiny cup of horseradish, along with a slightly larger cup so that you can mix the horseradish with the house cocktail sauce in case theirs isn’t horseradishy enough for you. 

After that, I had the two item combo and chose catfish and oysters (again).  Those come with French fries, corn fritters (actually little hushpuppy sized balls of creamed corn, dipped in batter and fried) and your choice of cole slaw or cheese grits.  Against my better judgement, I picked the cole slaw.  Which brings me to my rant about cole slaw. 

I am in despair that I will ever find cole slaw in the South which doesn’t have sugar in it.  A proper cole slaw has only five ingredients:  cabbage, mayonnaise, vinegar, and salt and pepper.  However, if they have to put sugar in it, it’s at least better than putting mustard in it.  I consider this to be the unforgiveable sin, right up there with putting ketchup on eggs. 

In this case, they used a combination of green and red cabbage.  I have nothing against red cabbage, but in cole slaw, it turns the mayonnaise pink, which completely spoils the aesthetics.  It took us 50 years to understand that tea can be served without sugar in it, so perhaps in another 50 we will get cole slaw without sugar. 

Despite these minor flaws, the attraction of Barnacle Bill’s is this:  You can trust them.  I don’t know who their suppliers are, but they have some sort of direct pipeline to the coast, 25 miles away.  They know how to handle seafood and freshwater fish as well.  (It isn’t a real big secret, the answer is…lots of ice.  But where other restaurants are casual about it, there is real quality control at BB’s.)  Year-round, they have the best and largest oysters.  You can eat them and know that you will not get sick.  That takes some genius, and it explains why they’ve been in business 30 or 40 years.  My only advice is, if you go–and you should–order the cheese grits.

Quintessential Southern Dining

This past week, friend Steve (aka “Anarchist”) and Mrs. Anarchist tried out a new-to-Tallahassee restuarant called Seminole Wind.  I felt compelled to visit myself, since Steve mentioned that one of the items on their buffet is fried green tomatoes.  I am ever on a quest for the perfect fried green tomato–as I have in the past been on a quest for the perfect bread pudding, the perfect gumbo, and the perfect popover.  I have the answer to those last three questions, by the way.  If you too desire to know, please send $10 and a SASO to “Perfect Contest”, P.O. Box 0100100, Tallahassee, Florida 32301. 

So, first of all, I went on Wednesday at lunchtime, and I had a bit of a clue what I might be facing when I got the only open parking space left in the vast parking lot.  Inside, it was a zoo.  And I’m guessing 75% of the patrons were senior citizens.  There was no shortage of walkers, canes, and white hair.  Which causes me to ask the following question:  What is it about buffet style dining that draws senior citizens like a magnet? 

Here is my theory:  many of these people remember the Great Depression, when you ate what you could today because there might not be anything tomorrow.  But it’s more than that.  It’s a perception of value.  It’s my observation that the average senior citizen eats like the proverbial bird.  He or she could go to any restuarant, order an appetizer and a glass of sweet tea (we are still talking about the South here), pay the same amount, and go home happy.  But the concept is that if they WANTED to (and could choke it down), they COULD eat as much as they wanted.  Interesting idea.  Maybe there is a project in this for someone interested in the social psychology of buffet-style restaurant eating. 

While I’ve said this is quintessential, it had a few extra added features you don’t normally see in these establishments.  Such as the giant, possibly life-sized,  painting of Jesus on one wall in the waiting area.  Perhaps to remind you that patience is a virtue.  Or to give you someone to pray to for a table.  On a another wall is a framed American flag, with Bible phrases embroidered on satin, appliqued to it.  Quite artistic actually, but none too subtle in either its political or religious implications.  In this waiting area you’re facing the cashier station where you pay as you leave, and also, a rack containing those little palm-sized Christian booklets where a truth is told in cartoon form.  On my way out, I selected one called “Who Is Allah?”

I had a twenty minute wait, which would have been longer, since I was alone, if I hadn’t agreed to share a table with a Mrs. Harris or a Mrs. Harry, I couldn’t quite hear above the din of the crowd.  Drat!  I said.  No reading for Fakename during lunch today.  A lunch table is not an airplane.  You just can’t do it.  But it was either that or wait for Jesus to break out the loaves and fishes. 

It turned out that Mrs. H. was, as we like to say in the South, a pistol.  She told me that at first she refused to share a table because she was afraid she would get stuck with some man.  (I know, right?  The horror!)  I swear she didn’t look much older than me, but she’s a great-grandmother already, which maybe has something to do with the fact that she got married at 14, and my guess is her children and their children followed in her footsteps.  She gave me the entire history of the restaurant from its beginnings in Cairo, Georgia.  (That’s pronounced “Kay-ro”, like the syrup, not like that place in Egypt.)  A year and a half ago she broke her right arm due to a very unfortunate encounter with a rolling trash container.  She was my spirit guide to the buffet table.  When I told her I was there for the fried green tomatoes, she told me they didn’t have them every day, and I said, Oh no!  My trip will have been in vain!  She knew the owner and most of the servers, and it’s my firm belief that she would have made them go out and buy some if they didn’t have any that day.  But they did, and I can’t say they were perfect, but they were pretty close.  And I would have lunch with Mrs. H. any day.  I’m just not sure I want to have lunch with Jesus…even for near-perfect fried green tomatoes. 

In closing, let me enlighten you about who Allah is.  Summarizing, he’s a pagan moon god that Mohammed conscripted because he (Mohammed, not Allah) wanted to start his own religion and be a false prophet.  In the booklet, a Christian man and his son convince a Muslim they have caught praying to convert to Christianity, thereby saving him from the fires of everlasting hell.  He is very grateful.  Happy ending.  For a sample assortment and price list of similar publications, send $12.95 (shipping included) to:  Chick Publications, P.O. Box 3500, Ontario, California 91761-1019.  Or you can visit them at www.chick.com  or you can call them at (909) 987-0771.  Or you can go have lunch at Seminole Wind for free samples.

I Can’t Get Comfortable

Did you ever hurt yourself in such a way that no matter what position you got into, it didn’t help?  You can’t stand up, you can’t sit down, and you can’t lie down.  It still hurts.  I once did that to myself by trying to move a king-sized bed from one place to another in my then-apartment.  By myself.  What was I thinking?  To answer that question, I was thinking I was invincible. 

That’s how I am today, except it is mental rather than physical.  I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t watch TV, I can’t read, I can’t think.  I am mentally tossing and turning. 

I’m trying to force myself to go through the Five Stages of Grief in a single day.  So far, it hasn’t worked.  Wish I had started earlier.  I was fairly stuck in the Denial phase.  Which is very sucessful, until reality slams into you like the proverbial freight train. 

I hurt.  And I can’t quit.

Bad News…The Worst News, In Fact

It seems trivial to be posting a blog today about this subject, but the truth is, I can’t think of another way to handle the pain. 

On September 2nd, I posted a blog about my incredibly brave friend Judith, who that day had had hip replacement surgery.  I was terribly scared for her, but I thought that if she survived the surgery, all would be well.  For a while anyway.  It appears that I was wrong. 

Last night her sister Jill called me to say that Judith had taken a turn for the worse last Wednesday, a week to the day after the surgery.  She developed pneumonia and on Wednesday, became delerious.  They transferred her out of the rehab hospital back to the regular hospital, where she is in the Coronary Care Unit.  They have induced coma, since apparently there is no other way to control her pain.  Then Jill said Saturday, the doctors told the family that Judith’s chances of survival are nil.  Nil is a pretty strong word.  Even then it didn’t really sink in for me, until Jill said, I have to hang up–our brother has just arrived from Colorado.  That’s when denial didn’t work for me any more.  They are at the calling-in-the-family stage. 

The first person I called after talking to Jill is my beloved sister, and I said, we always knew this day was coming–I just don’t want it to be today.  And she said, No, you wanted it to be never–there is never a good day. 

My plan this morning was to go to work, and then go to the hospital.  But I found I could do neither.  I cried throughout the night, then I cried all morning on the phone with first one, then another of our mutual friends. 

In order to go, you would have to be a lot stronger emotionally than I am.  But I have nothing to regret.  I saw her last just days before the surgery, and as so often seemed to happen with her, it turned into a sort of impromptu party.  Her sister was there, her best friend Marguerite was there, her ex-husband was there, putting in a new door to her private bathroom off the master bedroom.  The old one was too narrow for her to get into it with her walker without turning sideways, and I think that hurt.  A lot.

I have been her friend.  In fact I insisted on it, even while she was going through the angry and bitter stage.  (The “Why me?” stage.)  I managed by apologizing whether I needed to or not.  I was determined.  In the last several months, I did what I do best.  I brought her books.

Now here at the end, it seems my determination has faltered.  Before, my plan was to see this thing through, regardless of how uncomfortable it was to see her gradually decline.  Yet still, I have no regrets.  I was there when it was hard.  It isn’t hard any more. 

I guess I do have one regret–she isn’t going to get that chance to walk around Lake Ella one more time.  One day, I will do it for her.

Reading With Fakename: E.B. White

“Brian”, construction guru and possible flirt, breezed into town last week and loaned or possibly gave me another book.  I say that he may have given it to me, because when I tried to return the last two books he loaned me, he insisted I keep them.  This is a guy who reads as much as, if not more than, Fakename and spends his spare time hanging around used bookstores.  He informed me that there are two really good establishments of that ilk right here in Tallahassee, and proceeded to give me directions to both.  While I listened politely, I informed him at the end that I didn’t need to know, since I get all my books from the library.  Whereupon he pronounced that I am even cheaper than he is.  Aw shucks, Brian.  No need to get all flowery with the compliments. 

The new (used) book is Essays of E.B. White.  I can’t say I was exactly thrilled.  I hate short stories, and an essay to me sounds like a short story, only worse.  But again, I politely accepted and began to read it, since I feel I owe it to the loaner/giver to at least give it my best shot.  Prior to beginning the book, here is everything I knew about E.B. White:  he  wrote Charlotte’s Web.  Which I didn’t even read.  I did see the 2006 movie remake which was excellent beyond words and starred the ubiquitous Dakota Fanning, who is fabulous and deserves every bit of the overexposure she gets. 

(Side note:  “Brian” argues that Stuart Little, which E.B. White also wrote is a far better book and that it made a great movie.  He refuses, on principle, to see the movie of Charlotte’s Web, since he claims there is no way to do the book justice in a movie.  Au contraire, Brian.  As soon as our relationship progresses to that level, I plan to tie you up, force your eyelids open with toothpicks, and make you watch the movie. )

Where was I?  Oh yes, a book.  So since my only familiarity with E.B. White was seeing the movie, I had no idea that he was an absolute literary giant of his time.  He wrote his first article for The New Yorker in 1925 and became an editor and contributor, apparently until his death in 1985.  Source:  the ever dubious Wikipedia. 

So I began to read the book, and I was hooked from the first paragraph of his Foreward, which I hereby reproduce without permission:  “The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest….Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.”  In the second paragraph, he continues: “A writer who has his sights trained on the Nobel Prize or other earthly triumphs had best write a novel, a poem, or a play, and leave the essayist to ramble about, content with living a free life and enjoying the satisfactions of a somewhat undisciplined existence.”  Why did this grab me so?  Substitute “blog” for “essay”  and “blogger” for “essayists”.  See what I mean?  We are all “essayists” now; the only difference between us and E.B. White is that few of us, if any, possess White’s insight, gentle humor, and skill with language.  Reading him you realize he’s a guy you wish you had had the opportunity to meet in person.  Alas, we are 24 years too late. 

The book is divided into essays by setting:  The Farm, The Planet, The City, Florida, Memories, Diversions and Obsessions, and finally Books, Men, And Writing.  All are essays he wrote between 1934 and 1977, when the book was published.  I’ve finished The Farm and am now on the last essay in The Planet.  In this essay, “Unity” he writes of being sick in bed with three Democrats and the ghost, more or less, of his cantankerous faux and long-dead Dachshund Fred.  One of the Democrats is Harry Truman, who despite winning re-election in 1948, whined about his ill-treatment by the “Republican-controlled press”.  Is that funny or what?  The more things change…

But my favorite so far is “The Geese”, the last entry in The Farm, written in 1971, when White himself was 71 years old.    To condense, White has an old gander who gets his ass kicked by a younger gander, and slinks off into the pasture to nurse his wounds so to speak.  White writes:  “When he reached the pasture bars, he hesitated, then painfully squatted and eased himself under the bottom bar and into the pasture, where he sat down on the cropped sward in the bright sun.  I felt very deeply his sorrow and his defeat.  As things go in the animal kingdom, he is about my age, and when he lowered himself to creep under the bar, I could feel in my own bones his pain at bending down so far.”  At the end, the old gander returns to the pen, where he watches through the gate as the young gander cavorts with the older gander’s (former) wife and the goslings he fathered.  White ends with, “I don’t know anything sadder than a summer’s day.”

The pleasure I feel when I read White’s words is almost physical.  He makes me smile, or laugh out loud in some cases, or else I’m brought to tears.  This is one of the only books I’ve ever read that I would re-read.  I hope I get to keep it.