Where’s the F—ing Chicken?!!!

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Coeur d’alene, Idaho isn’t an easy geographical region to spell.  Googling it or describing its location when using a GPS system or a local phone book may drive one crazy.  One day, in this unfair city, no one required a map or GPS to locate my sister, Mary.  She made it loud and clear where she could be spotted, not only in the State of Idaho, but, additionally, the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t “Where’s Waldo?” It was, rather, “We know exactly where Mary is.”

I truly believe she made the F word almost Biblical one sunny afternoon.  (I don’t really remember, but I hope it was a Sunday after we had just completed our weekly term of duty…Catholic Mass.)

My mother made a hell of a fried chicken, and some of our family members, including me, were vacationing forty five minutes away to have a picnic in a city in Idaho I’m tired of spelling.  Seven months pregnant with her third child, my sister, Mary, was aboard the station wagon.  She was also hungry, or as I’ve learned with my urban dictionary wisdom, hangry.

With mom’s potato salad on ice, and an angry, pregnant mother (Mary) looking as if she was a shark with chum in the cab, we found a parking space ten minutes away from a picnic table.  Knowing she was settled in a proper space and spying the table, everyone, including Mary, felt at ease.  That’s a terrific feeling when you are afraid of your sister.

Upon sitting on the picnic table stools, Mary recognized Mom forgot the chicken, and all Hell broke Mary loose.  She began calmly.  “F–K!” Embarrassing our mother as the brothers decided to take a dip in the lake, we heard Mary scream,  from a little less than a mile away, and to everyones’ terror, “Where’s the F—ing Chicken?!! Even the ants scattered.

I’ve never been pregnant, and I don’t wish to be.  Men are blessed by God in certain ways. There were times when Mary should have been blessed in the same way.

The memory didn’t scar me.  It merely etched, or branded a memory I won’t forget.  When we returned from the beach at a safe time, we were blessed with some grocery store fried chicken along with mom’s potato salad.  We were additionally blessed with a sister returning from fried chicken hell to Fried Chicken bliss.

God Bless her.

 

Tools and T-Ball

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On God’s Seventh Inning Stretch, he created T-Ball.  It was one of his many mistakes. Actually, that’s not entirely true. He probably was just messing with us when he gave us the gift of the Tee, but, as usual, we abused it.

Never having played in the rough and tumble, hard knocks world of T-ball, I still know a thing or two about it.  Watching it was penance for many of the sins I’ve committed.

A tee was meant to be used as a training tool, increasing the chances that an inexperienced batter could hit a line drive.  This is when God said, “Hey, baseball ain’t that easy.  Don’t hit the tee, my son, hit the ball.”

This created controversy amongst the players’ mothers and fathers when their children weren’t successful.  Some of the mothers and fathers were logical.  “It’s sitting right on top of the tee.  Just hit it.”  Others made certain their child would never be competitive again. “Great Job.  You didn’t hit the ball or the three foot tall tee, but you did hit air, so run…..run…..run… (to a base you didn’t earn)!”

Trying to create an organized, or engaging event out of T-Ball is simply a crime for those who are in attendance and fantastically ridiculous if you think your five year old will learn something about the true form of baseball from this “S–t” show.

This is when parents began sacredly believing this gift was delivered by Him so youngsters could be humiliated in front of their mothers and fathers wishing they could actually hit a ball off of that tee.   If you know anything about baseball, or the Bible, the tee is punished along with the child, yet the ball is set free, dropping majestically into the dirt in front of the batter’s 400 dollar nike cleats.

As Tom Hanks stated in “A League of Their Own”, there is no crying in baseball, but, according to God, I guess there is crying in T-Ball.

These Aren’t Gold?

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At the ages between five and 18, when you win wrestling tournaments, you receive a medal.  It may look like gold, but isn’t genuine gold. As a youngster, around nine or ten years of age, I won a few myself, but they weren’t even worth a copper penny.  They weren’t worth zinc.  Then, I began taking second and third place, thus receiving silver and bronze medals.  Those medals were made of aluminum foil and caramel apples.  The gold ran out for me just like it did for those after the rush.

In Alaska, they refer to those gold medals as fool’s gold.  Evidently, nobody can fool one of my great nephews.  His name is Rocco, and with that name, you better live up to that name.  As a wrestler, so far, he has.  He additionally is trying to maintain a sense of reality. With the help of his father, after winning a few of these “gold” medals himself, his father, Pat, had to break the news to his young son.  “Rocco, you know those aren’t made out of genuine gold, right?”

“These aren’t really made of Gold?”

“No.”

Wildly disappointed, and with maniacal curiosity, Rocco asked, “How do I get REAL gold?”

Pat made an attempt to explain to his son what real gold was, then proceeded to tell him how he could obtain this precious medal.  “You mine for it in California, or Alaska or win it in the Olympics.”

This didn’t sit well with Rocco at all.  Quite sure his goal is not to be a miner when he grows up, I guess we’ll see how much sweat, blood and tears he have will to suffer through to obtain gold at the Olympics.

Honestly, I think a smaller, yet worthy and more obtainable goal, would be striving for becoming, I don’t know, a doctor or an astronaut.

I’ll write the conclusion to this blog in about twenty years.

 

Culinary Brackets

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A good friend texted me the other day regarding our College Basketball brackets.  Because he is an educated man, or just wildly lucky, he maintains three out of the four teams in the Final Four.  Quite impressive.  He also questioned my Final Four, and even though my bracket was busted, I am using unorthodox analytics to complete my bracket, just for fun.

My Final Four picks are mostly based on food I had eaten in some of their Regions.  I would root for South Carolina because of the She Crab Soup, but they are playing Gonzaga, home of the best Stromboli I’ve ever eaten.  Not a fan of Oregon, I’ve ordered duck several times, and the best was served in Washington. North Carolina provided the most delicious Fried Green Tomatoes I’ve ever discovered, outside of Louisville.

Go Stromboli.

 

Awake

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As with every morning, I awake to feed our dogs, cats, squirrels, and my wife.  Today, I didn’t have time to feed myself because of gambling and the month of March.  It’s that time of year when some may succumb to the evils I once left resting, snoring, or throwing up on a blackjack table.

I may lose twenty bucks during this March Madness, but I will forget the twenty dollars and relish in the fact I can feed the dogs, cats, squirrels, and, once in a while, my wife.

 

 

March

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It’s time for  March Madness, and more importantly, gambling.

My wife wants my advice regarding the NCAA tournament brackets.  She believes I know more about gambling than the professionals in Las Vegas making a living off of people like me.  I am currently paying off some of their mortgages.

It should be simple, but it is also fun and unpredictable.  The weather in Seattle or the East Coast is far more predictable.

Secular Advantages

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As a Catholic, the most difficult thing for me growing up with Mormons for neighbors wasn’t the religious separation, but was spelling, “Mormon” correctly when sending them a greeting card.  It tended to depreciate the level of care we genuinely maintained for our neighbors.  “Congratulations to you and yours.  You’ve been such a friendly and loving group of Mormans.”   If they could have only responded to our family as being a bunch of fun, loving “Catholicks”, it would have eased some of my Catholic guilt.

Mormons come in groups, and Catholics come in bunches.  I won’t try to convince you which one is better, but it’s easy to recognize, without a doubt, which one has a slight edge when it comes to having fun.  The only thing separating us was Sundays.  Before the age of sixteen, when drinking becomes legal in the Catholic religion, you, instead, relied on anyone who could fill your outdoor team, whether it be baseball, football, basketball, or even snowmobiling.  Our neighbors would be willing to play with us on any day but Sunday.  Very similar to my belief that Catholic Priests should be allowed to marry, Mormons should be allowed to play Whiffle Ball on a Sunday without having to burn their pajamas after playing.  They certainly deserve it.  We’d toss in an hour of church on Sunday and be playing ball within moments of leaving, with the ball kept in my jacket during mass.  Those poor Mormons suffered through four hours of church and weren’t allowed to hang out with their neighbors in the backyard.  Other than Sundays, and some attitudes, our neighbors were just fine with me.   If they were willing to swing a bat or throw a ball, whether we needed them or not, why would I give a crap what Bible they bounced off one another.

At that time, we had a basketball hoop in front of our garage.  When anyone would dribble a ball, Old Man Mormon (our friend’s father, and a really nice guy) would race out of his house and join in on the game.  It was terrific. Since basketball can be a contact sport, especially playing with us, his three sons would only be spectators, but he loved to play because he was twice the size of any of us.  He was also pretty good.  Old Man Mormon also knew we had a wrestling background and challenged one my brothers to a match in our front yard.  Old Man Mormon was twice my brother’s size, but there wasn’t an ounce of grass Old Man Mormon’s back didn’t hit that day.  My brother wasn’t challenged again, but Old Man Mormon went to watch every match my brother competed in that year.

During one winter month, overlapping other seasons in Spokane, one of my older brothers acquired a snowmobile, (presumably, as a result of winning a bet) and that season couldn’t have been more fun.  Much like dribbling a basketball in our driveway, when we’d fire the snowmobile up, the Mormons would come over to share in the amusement.  Having an exceptionally large backyard, we didn’t need a mountain or off road tracks to keep us entertained.  We tied a rope to the back of the snowmobile and sometimes the rope would to be attached to a tire. The goal wasn’t to see how long you could hang on to the tire or rope, but it was to climb the rope, reach the driver and throw him off the snowmobile and then become the driver.  Those Mormons thought we were a bunch of fruitloops.  Although apprehensive to participate, they would laugh and say oddball things such as, “Look at them.  Those boys are like the Duke Boys!” (From Hazard County…..Dukes of Hazard Days.)  I remember turning to one of my brothers after they made this comment, and I stated, “They let them watch T.V. over there?  That’s pretty cool.”

Ultimately, we weren’t just Catholics, Mormons or neighbors.  There was never an attempt to convert on either end.  Religion didn’t define us.  We were friends, and although we grew up with very dissimilar religious backgrounds, we were collectively weird in our own ways, and we accepted it. We enjoyed it.  We will always remember it…….fondly.