Reflections...

Reflections ripple across the lake in a watercolor swirl of black, white, and pink as a procession of Wood storks fly low and lazy over the water, punctuated by the occasional Roseate Spoonbill in their midst. A clear, perfect Fall morning. First sun angles sharply through a canopy of leaves quivering with excitement, sunspots dancing random patterns on the grass below.

Simple things are the most rewarding.

If there were nothing else, this would be more than enough.

No Lions or Tigers, but Bears? Oh My!

Bruce and I were two of the four housemates who lived together in a four story townhouse on a large lake in a bedroom community of Washington, D.C. All of us were bachelors, each guy having their own floor and private balcony. Delightfully chaotic insanity hung ten atop a four-year tsunami of music, girls, beer and ganja... a bachelor paradise.

It was with that kind of mentality that Bruce and I decided it would be a good idea for us to go camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about an hour from our place. Although both of us were in our mid-twenties, we had zero camping experience between us, but we knew the Blue Ridge mountains were reputed to be quite tame. No big deal. Real mountains, like the Rockies, were a different story. And after all, ours was to be little more than an excuse for an overnight drink-a-thon out in the woods. At least that was the plan.

Bruce worked at The United States Geological Survey, giving him access to wonderful topographic maps many years before the internet provided such things with a few clicks of a mouse. So with the best maps available anywhere, we plotted out a route from a parking space in the woods, just off of the Blue Ridge Parkway, to what looked like a perfect clearing next to a stream only a few miles away…as the crow flies.

I bought a new backpack, tent, and sleeping bag. Bruce already had those things.

The night before we left, I made Chicken Cordon Bleu, carefully pounding breasts out flat while drinking wine, rolling them up to stuff into backpacks with the other supplies. We had gourmet cheeses, home-made trail mix, beer, and two one-gallon bottles of Gallo Hearty Burgundy. For some reason, my Grandfather’s passion for Burgundy had gotten me on a wine kick that summer. Oh, and I also rolled twenty joints for the road.

Early the next morning, maps and supplies packed efficiently into our backpacks, we took off for the Blue Ridge. It was a beautiful, breezy day, perfect for a short, refreshing hike.

We started walking with the map in hand, disgusted with the little people who weren’t smart enough to get their hands on such maps and plot their course. Superior beings, savvy and resourceful…for at least ten minutes anyway. That’s when both of us realized that people hike on marked, cleared trails for a reason. We had drawn a straight line on our map, with no consideration for steep hillsides, almost impenetrable valley undergrowth or impassible drop-offs. We hit them all. Two absolute idiots, blindly following a line on a map that made zero sense. Crawling up one steep incline, skinning hands and knees, then skidding almost out of control down the other side. Another rocket scientist move on my part: lugging two gallons of Gallo Hearty Burgundy in glass bottles and a 12 pack of beer. Every time exhaustion forced us to pause, we lightened the load of those bottles of Burgundy, by transferring wine from the bottle to stomachs. Naturally we needed a smoke with that too.

Had we taken the recommended trail, the hike would have been about a half hour walk. Instead, we fought through an up and down nightmare of tangled thorns and brush for more than three hours before we got to our campsite, bloodied, and stumbling.

But even as tired and hungry as we were, at least we were finally there. The ordeal was over. Quickly setting up our two tents, opening to opening, we started in on the beer while we shared a joint, delighted to not have to walk another step. The wine and smoke made hiking through that jungle hell twice as difficult as it should have been.

Sundown afforded us just enough light to carefully lay out the chicken, salad ingredients, several ripe avocados, a small plastic bottle of dressing, and a bunch of brownies I had made. Yes, that kind of brownies. I knew we would sleep well that night.

Bruce took all the other food, including eggs, a fat cylinder of Taylor's Pork Roll, coffee, and sticky buns for breakfast, and put them in a canvas bag along with half of our Tootsie Roll Pops for the hike back. Then he strung the bag up high in a tree where bears and varmints couldn’t get to any of it.

Done! Let’s party!

Both of us were only wearing shorts and shoes, letting the sweat from our hike dry off in the welcome breeze. Passing the last of our joint back and forth, we heard a loud grunt immediately behind us.

There he was, a huge black bear, waddling in like he owned the place. Fearless. We stumbled backward and retreated about 30 feet as he casually strolled over to the chicken, salad, and two open beers, and started eating. He just sat back on his fat ass and went through one item after another, oblivious to us as we jumped and yelled from the sidelines.

He thought we were dinner cheerleaders.

Bruce and I assured each other that he was a semi-tame park bear, used to raiding campsites. We told ourselves that he would be easy to run off.

So we puffed ourselves up, got all manly, and approached him menacingly, yelling profanities about his mother, his family, and his obvious lack of character. I picked up a rock and threw it at him. No reaction as it fell short. I picked up another baseball-sized piece of granite, smooth from the stream-bed, and wound up with a pitcher’s stance, hitting that bear squarely between the eyes. That ought to do it!

He was instantly startled, forced to pay attention to us, probably hurting a bit, and mad as hell to have his dinner interrupted. He did that thing I had seen on the Davy Crockett show where the bear stands on his hind legs and growls with an open mouth just to show off his denture work. You know, right before he charges, pins you to the ground, and mauls you.

I thought he was way too fat to be able to run with any speed, but I was very wrong. Seven feet tall, 400 pounds, and he could run like Jesse Owens. Bruce and I levitated backward, turning toward the stream and flying across it on adrenaline fueled wings. We scrambled up onto a boulder on the other side of the water and the bear stopped on the camp side. He immediately lost interest in us. Turning back toward the camp, he knew there was a lot more picnicking to be done.

In our rush to exit the campsite, Bruce had managed to grab one of the gallon bottles of wine and I had a couple of joints in my pocket. So at least there was that. The later and darker it got though, the colder it became. We both started to shiver uncontrollably. Shirtless, exhausted, and now half freezing to death, we could see the bear in the flickering light of our Coleman lantern sitting next to our dinner as the he slowly ate everything we had sitting out. Our light provided the perfect ambiance for his dining pleasure.

Buy 2AM, the wine was gone, teeth chattering, we decided that we had to risk a tip-toe back into camp with a plan to slip unobserved into our tents and the warmth of our sleeping bags. If the bear saw what we were doing, he didn’t care. He had found the Tootsie Roll Pops and was delicately eating each one while making a neat little pile of the sticks and wrappers to one side. He knew his way around a Tootsie Roll Pop.

I didn’t care anymore. The warmth of my sleeping bag was everything and I immediately fell into a coma sometime around 2:30.

In my dream, someone was trying to wake me up with a ripping sound. It was the back wall of my new tent, torn open with a huge black bear head coming through the tear. He was looking for more food, his nose twitching like a pig’s snout, hovering over my knees. I yelled to Bruce as I shot out the front and ran. Bruce did to. Back to our rock on the other side of the stream. Cold, shivering.

The bear occupation lasted for another hour.

Then, without fanfare, he wandered off unceremoniously, just as the sun started to light the sky.

Cold and tired, Bruce and I went back into camp and quickly found shirts and jackets to slip into. Hungry as hell, we thought the big breakfast we had planned would be our life saver.

No such luck. The bear had climbed our supplies tree, retrieved the bag from the bear-proof place we had strung it up, and eaten or destroyed everything in it. Eggs, Taylor ham, sticky buns, coffee…he was a non-discriminatory eater. The few things that he didn’t eat, he tasted. The avocados were dripping with bear slobber and puncture marks. Even our water was gone, stored in plastic canteens, the bear had punctured them. What water hadn’t drained out was frothy with bear saliva.

No food, no water, my new tent destroyed… there was nothing to do but leave.

So we packed everything up and put it all in what was left of the bear-proof bag. While we were packing, three adult deer wandered into our campsite. We just stood and looked at each other. It was as if they had heard there was food to be had and some incredibly stupid campers to take it from. I was incredulous that they were fearless, ten feet away, as my concerns grew that they were some undiscovered breed of killer deer.

We did not want to go back to our rock.

We got the hell out of there. Jogging down the well-marked path, back to our car.

Driving home, neither of us had any cash in those pre-credit card days, so we couldn’t even stop at the diner we had passed on the way in. Shit!

All of this was made worse in the weeks to follow when the one picture that Bruce took of our bear didn’t turn out. It seems Bruce had snapped a quick shot when we had gone back into camp to get some sleep. No one believed our bear story or how damn big that guy was. “Black bears don’t get very big.” They said. “They’re basically harmless.” They told us. Everyone thought brown bears were cuddly and friendly and that Bruce and I were pussy's. We were, but that wasn't the point.

It had been too dark for Bruce’s camera to capture the shot we needed to back up our story.

But Bruce’s USGS connection pulled through. Apparently they had a special lab that could work miracles with film and Bruce had a buddy with access.

I was home in our kitchen about a week later when Bruce came home from work smiling like the Cheshire Cat. “Guess what I’ve got?” he asked as he opened a large manila envelope.

That’s when Bruce pulled out a crystal clear 8X10 photograph of a huge black bear, standing upright and grinning with menacing delight at two fools who had served him a very memorable dinner.

Two fools who never, ever, went camping again.

Chopping Garlic @ 1:40 AM

It absolutely delights me to be chopping garlic at 1:40 AM. 

Cowboy Junkies and John Prine on Pandora.

Honey Garlic Heritage pork chops coming up.

What Are Heritage Breeds?

Heritage breeds are traditional livestock breeds that were raised by our forefathers. These are the breeds of a bygone era, before industrial agriculture became a mainstream practice. These breeds were carefully selected and bred over time to develop traits that made them well-adapted to the local environment and they thrived under farming practices and cultural conditions that are very different from those found in modern agriculture.

I hear: (No steroids, no antibiotics, none of that.)

Traditional, historic breeds retain essential attributes for survival and self-sufficiency – fertility, foraging ability, longevity, maternal instincts, ability to mate naturally, and resistance to diseases and parasites.

I hear: (They aren’t tortured before being harvested. They live natural lives.)

Heritage animals once roamed the pastures of America’s pastoral landscape, but today these breeds are in danger of extinction. Modern agriculture has changed, causing many of these breeds to fall out of favor. Heritage breeds store a wealth of genetic resources that are important for our future and the future of our agricultural food system.

I hear: (Be leery of genetic manipulation.)

Yes, they’re delicious. Finishing them under the broiler caramelizes and crisps the edges.

Carla is in the other room, feet up, comforter encased, on the new adjustable couch, typing away lost in one crusade or another.

Alison Krauss enters the kitchen, a welcome angel.

Thanksgiving Guests

Three of our dinner guests arrived yesterday afternoon and spent the night. They insisted on sleeping in a waxed box under a cold wet towel. Seems weird to me but who am I to judge?

I peeked in on them this morning, all three still sleeping soundly,

It’s good of these guys to travel such a long way to help us celebrate a Haller Thanksgiving tradition. We’re stoked that Hannah is in town this year too, but we’ll miss Ruth.

I remember Hannah squatting up on top of the dining room table itself when she was only two, holding one of these guests by the hand. It was so sweet.

Last night when one of the guests asked: “What’s for dinner tomorrow?” I handed them a mirror to share.

They thought I was being a good host, letting them primp and clean up after their travels, and I was.

Six of us will sit at the table, but I understand only three plan to leave. It reminds me of what Ben said to Poor Richard: “Fish and visitors stink after three days.”

We’re just talking about this afternoon though, so I don’t expect that to be a problem.

Thanks Donald!

We all know the deal. If you can’t say something nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all.

But I pride myself on finding the good in all people. Nobody is all bad, right?

So I thought about the Great Orange One in the white House.

Always up for a tough challenge, I thought and thought. He had pretty much covered all bases though, when a reporter asked him last week: “Mr. President, what are YOU most thankful for this Thanksgiving?”

“Me” was his immediate answer. Trump is thankful for himself because he has made such a tremendous difference in this country and around the world.

Not a single reporter asked: “A good difference or bad?” and Trump didn’t elaborate. He was too busy ignoring the ex-stripper and current baby momma sitting next to him.

So he kind of stole my thunder, but I knew that if I thought long and hard enough I could come up with something nice to say.

And there it was, sitting on the table right in front of me: Chocolate/banana pancakes with real Maple syrup and a side of crispy corned beef. Very black Colombian coffee. All of it made in my kitchen, today, during the Trump administration!

Thank you Donald Trump!

The Savage Bitch and Her Attorney…

A dappled dachshund lives across the street from the model home where I work. She’s a little sweetheart, pulling and jumping on her leash whenever she sees me outside, she knows that I carry dog biscuits in my pocket. She’s eager to play the “guess which hand” game with me, pushing her wet nose into each rounded fist, snooting for treasure. She’s a good girl.

But that’s not enough to erase the memories of the Tasmanian Devils I grew up with. Although billed as dachshunds, I’m still unconvinced. Our first one, “Weenie” was always the smartest mammal in the room. She taught me how to fetch, rolling her ball under the couch or dropping it into the toilet. Stepping back, delighted with herself and wagging furiously, waiting for me to reach in and retrieve her smelly wet, tennis ball. “Fool” she was thinking. I mistakenly thought she was my bitch but every day she proved it was the other way around.

“This guy is MY bitch!” she wagged with glee.

I guess I was. But at least I was family. Weenie was friendly and protective with family. It was just every other human and all dogs on the planet that she took issue with. A Kamikaze dachshund, there was no fence, glass door or leash that could prevent her eventual escape and attack. She was a problem.

Weenie died under the double wheels of the garbage man’s truck, running backward, biting and attacking in retreat. Not fast enough, a bravado fueled miscalculation, with one quick misstep, she was two inches thick and three feet wide. Poor Weenie.

Before her untimely exit from the stage though, Weenie had a litter of pups and we kept the smallest girl to replace her. Lucy ramped it up like a rabid Doberman on steroids, one with very stumpy legs. Great with family, a nightmare streak of black fur and shark teeth to everyone else.

Lucy specialized in protecting our front door. Simply ringing it once set her off like a cherry bomb under her pillow on the overstuffed chair she believed she owned. That chair sat on the far end of our living room where she could keep an eye on the floor to ceiling picture window looking out to the mailbox. It was built with single panes of glass, 6 across, 6 high. In front of it on the inside was a pathway of tile that led from the front door to the kitchen.

If anyone made the foolish mistake of coming up our stairs to the front door, Lucy exploded from her chair, flying up into the air above like the Roadrunner after Coyote planted TNT under her. Landing hard on the wall-to-wall, feet a blur, she sped down the rug toward the picture window, ready to throw herself onto any interloper. Especially if the interloper was the mailman. She knew in her heart that he was up to no good. Her mother had taught her about mailmen and garbage men. Not so much about their trucks though.

It was on a particularly idyllic day in the neighborhood, around noon or so, when a temporary mailman who didn’t know that it was best to tiptoe up our stairs and make no sound, came whistling cheerfully up to our mailbox. Lucy was sleeping hard in her chair; he was channeling Mr. Rogers in his sweater and striped mailman pants.

Startled awake by his whistling call to battle, Lucy awakened as if he had thrown cold water on her. She levitated, landed, got traction on the rug, and sped straight at Mr. Rogers as he stuffed our mailbox with what must have been explosives and death threats.

Lucy knew that shit had to stop. If that mailman was left alone, he would probably want to mark his territory and pee all over our front door.

Speeding out of control, Lucy hit the tile path in front of the picture window, put on the breaks too late, smashed completely through the glass window, and bit the mailman on one foot, then the other.

Fortunately, the hip Mr. Rogers wore tough Chukka Boots that effectively prevented multiple ankle wounds. He was OK, Mom apologized and we never saw him again.

Lucy didn’t have a scratch. We kept the picture window curtains closed from then on.

None of it involved attorneys.

Dad was an attorney but I never really knew what that meant other than a daily train ride into New York City and back. Mom took me to visit him in his law firm one time. I saw a nice picture of him on the wall and his cherished, law library stuffed with fat books with leather bindings. The whole place was scary quiet and even more boring than the public library down by Mindowaskin Park. After we left, I still had no idea what attorneys do. I assumed they play a lot of solitaire, smoke Kent cigarettes, drink Cokes, and eat cheddar cheese on Wonder Bread, just like Dad did at home.

It wasn’t until the night that the wall-paneling salesman came to speak with Mom and Dad about Mom’s plans for the basement, that I began to understand. Dad wanted estimates, the cost to put brown paneling on all the walls down there. He could care less about brown wood paneling, but he very much knew it was in his best interest to please Mom. That paneling was the epitome of home fashion back in the day. Add a couple of tinny pole lamps and a semi-circular sectional sofa and Boom! Movin on up!

But all Dad wanted was to please Mom by looking like he cared, and to get an estimate. An estimate that would be the first of many.

The sales guy showed up after dinner, black sample case in hand. Lucy was picked-up, restrained, whispered to, cautiously introduced, and put back down while the adults talked. No problem.

Everyone was making nice while Lucy and I listened on one side. Mr. Salesman made his pitch and bragged about the many colors and styles of basement paneling available.

“Let me show you a few.” He offered.

He didn’t see Lucy doing her best Ninja imitation to blend in with that black sample suitcase on the rug. Waiting in ambush as he reached down, she jumped up like a black barracuda all teeth and crazy eyes. Kill that devil hand!

Chaos, blood and excitement ensued. It was great. Lucy was proud that she could finally prove her real worth but went into my bedroom and hid under my bed just in case Mom and Dad didn’t agree. Under the guise of “Let’s go into the kitchen and patch you up” Mom quickly ushered the bleeding salesman into the kitchen to prevent him from bleeding on her wall-to-wall in the living room.

A two minor puncture wounds that needed a rinse and some Bactine Spray. Mom knew that it was the “Maximum strength antiseptic that kills 99% of germs”. It wouldn’t do squat for dog saliva contamination or rabies, but it was handy. I watched the salesman’s blood circle the drain in our kitchen sink as he cried and whimpered.

“I faint at the sight of blood!” he said as his knees started to give away. Mom and I ushered him over into a kitchen chair as he examined the two puncture wounds in his right hand. It had looked worse than it was and he whined as if we had forcibly shoved his hand down the disposal.

As Mom tried to talk him off the ledge, I wondered where Dad had gone. He was always the first one to take control in any sketchy situation. He could handle any emergency.

As the salesman continued to whimper like a baby with a skinned knee and make increasingly hostile sounds, Dad walked into the room. He was holding a lined sheet of paper torn, from the three-ring binder that I used in school. Picking up the hand in question from the clean kitchen towel where it sat on display while the Bactine dried, Dad examined the offending raised dots on the man’s palm and said: “No real damage here, I only see two small spots. You’ll be fine. I’ve decided to buy your basement paneling though without getting any additional estimates. Just sign and date this document.”

And it was done.

The salesman got a sweet order for paneling, and Dad got a signed & dated legal document stating that the salesman gave up “all potential legal proceedings against (a person or institution), typically for redress”. AKA, he couldn’t sue Dad, even if his wound turned gangrenous and he lost the entire right half of his body. 

The bottom line? Mom got her paneling, the salesman got a sweet commission, Dad couldn’t be sued, and Lucy was largely overlooked, falling into a deep sleep under my bed, knowing in her heart that she had saved the entire family from some kind of murderous death.

What did I get out of it? When Mom smiled and said: “Aren’t you glad that Daddy’s a lawyer?”

I had, by then, gotten a pretty good idea of what lawyers do.

Feed Me! (Or Not)

Three cheese grilled tomato, garlic beans, crispy Yukon potatoes, fresh grouper cheeks.

Carla is working 6:30 to 11 and I need to keep busy. May as well cook something good. She wouldn’t eat this anyway, happier with a half-gallon of Blue Bell vanilla chocolate chip ice cream and a bowl of my clam chowder with super-green Rotini noodles.

I know her addictions, she knows mine.

If I’m awake, I’ll fix the food for her, if not, I’ll get up. My favorite thing is to feed her the food she wants.

I play my music, she stays out of the kitchen, that’s the deal. I serve her, look for approval, and clean up efficiently afterward.

All of this stuff pleases me way more than it does her.

If I wasn’t home or didn’t get up, she would eat cheese sticks and be done with it.

The Last S̶u̶p̶p̶e̶r̶ Lunch

Pablo left for the airport this afternoon, flying back to Austin to see his Mom for a bit. We all wanted one last meal together before he left though. The man likes to eat, that’s for sure, but growing up in Texas left him with an adult seafood deficit that he’s been doing his best to fill ever since he and Hannah got together.

There are many things I’m proud of with my two daughters but none less than their ability to field strip a crab, oyster, clam, or lobster in record time. Blindfolded.

So Hannah has been teaching Pablo about the transcendent epiphany that can accompany very fresh, local, seafood, when properly cooked. He’s become something of a seafood snob. Not what you expect from a guy who only wears shoes when he has to and looks a bit like he may live under a bridge.

“It’s Pablo’s last lunch here, where should we go?” we asked each other.

He remembered hearing Carla brag about Osteen’s famous shrimp and their excellent down-home sides. Real sweet tea and hush-puppies that crack on the outside and steam on the inside. Perfect. I always agree the food there is delicious, but point out that Carla had to pull me in the first time. That was some 30 years ago after I heard there were no booths or beer. Pablo doesn’t drink though and the only person who thinks he needs a booth, is me. I have to have my back to a wall just in case Ninjas come at me with sharp blades. I need to be ready.

But knowing the assassins would have to go through Pablo, Hannah and Carla first, I was good with it.

The oysters, flounder, and shrimp were all fried perfectly with a very light coating that is more like tempura than traditional batter. They must change the oil in the fryer all the time. It’s never bitter. That’s a big red flag for me if a place gets too cheap to change the oil. Osteen’s never has. Sides of green beans cooked forever with some fatback or ham, yellow squash, sweet and tangy pickled cucumber or pickled beets, and yes, real sweet tea made with real sugar. No syrups allowed.

It’s that kind of attention to detail, and pride in serving a simple, delicious meal, that has made Osteen’s one of the most popular, perhaps the most popular, restaurant in St Augustine, for more than 50 years.

Ask anyone: “Where should we go for shrimp?” Locals and tourists alike will all answer the same way: Osteen’s!

Pablo, the seafood snob, agreed. He never noticed there were no booths. He just kept making appreciative sounds as he ate.

Immediately after lunch, he had to leave for the airport. He was holding the remainder of his fried shrimp close, like a newborn baby wrapped in Styrofoam, and wearing the silly grin that some of us get after we’ve encountered food perfection.

I understand. Now, Carla and I have to go back very soon.

Ninjas be damned.