A Long Time Ago, In a Land Far, Far Away

My fifteen minutes? I hope not.

I must have dropped an animal cracker.

The 2008 Bob Miller Memorial Super Bowl Eat-O Festival

The Super Bowl - the first major food holiday on the calendar after New Years Day - has arrived, and, with it, a Chicago tradition I'll miss the most.

The first time I really paid close attention to the Super Bowl was the Bears victory in 1986. I remember that I got out of bed about a half hour before kick-off, just in time for a breakfast of frozen pizza, Totino's I believe, which was, in those days, the greatest treat imaginable. Since then, I have taken part in a number of what were intended to be annual Super Bowl traditions. First was watching the game at a sister's house. That lasted two years. Then it was with a group from Des Plaines Bible Church - one year. Then a co-worker's house - one year, but it would have been two were it not for a last-minute trip to Houston from which I came home feeling a little groggy.

Finally, one of our traditions stuck - watching the game, and eating way too much, at my brother-in-law Bob's house in Fox Lake. Every Super Bowl Sunday since 2001, when the Ravens beat the Giants, I made the long, usually cold, trek up Illinois 59 to watch the big game, and eat, with Bob and my sister Rene, who also lives up in the far reaches of Lake County. Although I'm not a big eater, it just isn't the Super Bowl if you don't have a food injury by half time. And Bob is the best host for that kind of party, providing a wide array of snacks, including crackers, cheese and sausage, fruit, nuts, shrimp, and, of course, every kind of eat-o you can think of - Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos, etc. Oh, and don't forget the Diet Pepsi!

Sadly, the tradition comes to an end tomorrow. Although I won't be spending this Super Bowl Sunday at Bob's, I am prepared! Bob and Rene will be foremost in my mind as the Patriots and Giants square off in Arizona.  So, in memory of the great Bob Miller Super Bowl Eat-O Festival, keep the Mylanta and the Pepto near at hand, and go Bears!

Philately is Phun!

I finally figured out how to use the scanner part of our printer. That is, I finally read the directions.

My first scan is this picture from the Milwaukee Sentinel. My dad framed it and gave it to me as a Christmas gift five or six years ago. It's yours truly, age 6, being a big help, I'm sure, at Milcopex '78. This is one of three times I can remember appearing in the newspaper as a result of being at the stamp shows. I don't have copies of the other two, but I know one was a Milwaukee paper and the other Rockford. I must have been the cutest thing going at the stamp shows. Or maybe I was so popular with the photographers because I was the only non-smoker under the age of 50 who weighed less than 250 pounds. Stamp collecting is not a hobby that's good for your waist-line, especially if it's also how you make your living.

The best thing about the stamp shows was that there was usually free donuts. I also got to travel to exotic places like Whitewater, Janesville, Fort Atkinson, Rockford, and Rolling Meadows. Stamps were also good for learning geography, history, and even vocabulary - before I hit the age of ten, I could amaze my friends by telling them I'd spent the weekend at a bourse, hanging out with philatelists and numismatists.

The Tom Selleck-Thanksgiving Connection

Now that it's Christmas Eve, I'm finally posting my thoughts about Thanksgiving. Like another of my recent posts, it took washing dishes to stir up those auld lang syne memories.

My Carp friends may have recognized through my comments about the "Over the River..." poem that I was a bit apprehensive of Thanksgiving this year. It was my first to not be celebrated in the home in which I grew up; my sister Jean and her husband Elias hosted the mob this year. I hadn't thought this relatively unimportant change would make me think so much. As it turns out, this was, possibly, the best Thanksgiving ever. And all because I picked a chair from which I couldn't escape without passing the kitchen sink and pitching in with the dish washing. I wound up rinsing the remains of mashed potatoes and uneaten turkey and gravy from the plates, pans, and other assorted utensils, which I passed along to my sister Donna to be washed. This is where the memories and the joy of the day came to me.

Donna is about ten years older than me; I can remember that because she graduate from Maine West High School in 1980 and I graduated in 1990. For some reason graduation dates stick in my head. Anyway...

At some point in growing up, I was the last in my house to go to Monday night Awana (Pals & Chums) and Donna was the only one who wasn't in Thursday night Awana (Pioneers & Guards) or at a job somewhere. So the two of us were home alone on Thursday night. I'm sure it was probably only for one year, but it seems like the two of us shared those Thursday nights for a long time. Being the only two home, it was our job to get the dishes done, after which we watched Magnum, PI and Simon and Simon. Unless the Cubs were on, that is. Donna was a big fan of Jody Davis (can't you hear Harry singing, "Jody, Jody Davis" to that Davy Crockett tune?). I remember once running out to the kitchen from the back room we called "the edition," probably when I should have been helping with the dishes, to tell her Jody had just hit a huge home run against the Pirates. I was so excited and she thought I was kidding.

I haven't thought of a good way to wrap up this post, so I'll finish it by saying I can recall those Thursday nights, and that long home run sailing over the left field wall at Three Rivers Stadium, so well, probably because Donna was (is) the type of sister you like to get stuck doing dishes with. On the Nice and Good scale, I can't think of anyone with a higher score.

Washing dishes is good for the soul.

The Blue Ball

Tiffany and I have an agreement about the dinner chores in our home - when one cooks, the other washes dishes. I'm not a bad cook. In fact, I do fairly well in the kitchen. The problem is I can only focus on one thing at a time, so if I were to make dinner, we'd have to eat each course as it was cooked or else it would all be cold. Or burnt. So, our arrangement has always been Tiff cooks and I do dishes.

Anyway...All that just to say, I realized a few days ago that a night washing dishes never passes that I don't think of my dad. I knew I was thinking of him, but I never realized that I did it every night. Actually, it's when I'm done washing the dishes and it's time to wring the water out of the rag.

My family had a cottage in Townshend, WI. For the most part, that's where our vacations were spent. The nearest beach was Bass Lake, located somewhere in the middle of the triangle formed by the towns of Lakewood, White Lake, and Mountain. We had an old squishy blue foam ball, kind of like a nerf ball but without the coated shell, that we took to the beach. The ball, so light because it was just foam, couldn't really be used for much. We played with it anyway. It soaked up so much that when you threw it it was like throwing a handful of water. If it was dry, it went nowhere. If it was wet, you just sprayed water when you threw it.

My dad was a carpenter until about the time I was born. His hands were strong. When we would go swimming at Bass Lake, he used to tell me to wring all the water out of the blue ball. I would twist the ball until I thought my fingers would snap. Proud of myself, I'd hand the ball to him. Somehow, though, he always managed to twist a few drops out of the ball that I had not been strong enough to extract. It never failed. I never could wring the blue ball dry.

Now, every night, when I finish washing dishes, I twist the dishrag 'til it just won't let out another drop. I'm sure, though, that my dad could squeeze out a bit more.

It's funny. After all these years, I finally realized why I do it.