A True Man

The Greasy Skillet hit the road this past weekend and visited the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. I learned much about Mr. Truman, and I'm learning more. For now all, you need to know about Mr. Truman are the following details I read in David McCullough's Truman:

First:

"At threshing time, when neighboring farmers came to help the Trumans, as part of the season's usual exchange of labor, Harry would work through the morning, but then, just before the big midday meal, while the other men were relaxing, he would clean up quickly and go to kitchen to help his mother and sister."

Second, when courting his wife Bess, Mr. Truman relied on the written word:

"But it was in letter after letter -- hundreds of letters as time passed -- that he poured himself out to her, saying what he found he never could in her presence, writing more than he ever had in his life and discovering how much satisfaction there was in writing. He also longed desperately for her to writing him, which, as he told her, was the main reason he wrote so often and at such length. Phone calls on a party line were out of the question, with the neighbors listening. He didn't like the telephone under any circumstances. 'I'm always rattled and can never say what I want to,' he explained to her. "

Now I'm contemplating what it means to be a true man, and I'm considering developing a set of courtship rituals for my daughter. I will require her suitors to write letters to her for a year before they embark on dating.

the buck stops here,

muddywaters

Little Saigon Cafe

The combination nail salon/restaurant deterred me from trying the Little Saigon Cafe. The neon Pho sign in the window of the nail salon didn't exactly inspire me to slurp noodles.

However, after a few Lawrence chefs recommended the restaurant, I decide to visit Little Saigon Cafe this week. I enjoyed my first experience so much that I returned later in the week. I can't recall the last time I visited a restaurant twice in one week.

I still have a lot to learn about Vietnamese cuisine, but this restaurant is a good place to learn. The staff was extremely helpful and friendly, and I'm eager to return so I can sample the entire menu.

So far I've sampled two soups:

Jjam Bong, which is a Spicy Seafood

and pho

Both soups were amazing. There was tremendous depth of flavor. At this point I would say the pho was my favorite. Its aroma cleared my head and was the perfect aromatheraphy for a stressful day. There were layers and layers of flavor in this soup: salty, citrusy, beefy, minty, and earthy flavors mingled to make a perfect bowl of soup. At the time I had a sore throat, and this soup cured it. Coincidence? Or is this a miracle soup?

Eating soup always changes my state of mind. For me everything slows down when I eat soup, and I find myself living more in the moment. This might sound like New Age mumbo jumbo, but for me it's true. I know I come across as a loon, but I'd have it no other way.

My visit to the Little Saigon Cafe reminded me that this is a big ol' world with a lot to experience. I walked out the doors of the restaurant with a lust for life, which is what good food should inspire.

dancing with thunder,

muddywaters

PS. . . What foods have the power to change your state of mind?

Love

You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If one carries many such memories into life, one is safe to the end of one's days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may be the means of saving us.

***From The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

I recently fell in love with singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell's book Chinaberry Sidewalks. I knew I was under the book's sway when I found myself reading passages aloud, so that could hear the music of his words. I rationed the last 50 pages of the book, so I could milk the affair. Alas it came to an end, but I plan on revisiting it one a regular basis.



The book is a memoir of Mr. Crowell's experiences growing up in Houston. Much of the book explores the turbulent relationship of his parents. At times it's a heartbreaking book, but it's told with love and grace. The following passage is one such example of the beauty that can be found inside this book:

As a boy my favorite place in the world was my grandmother's apron-covered lap. Her favorite place in the world was the tiny bedroom where she kept her Bible, a wicker rocking chair, and an old tube radio tuned to the hundred-thousand-watt radio station KXEG in Del Rio, Texas. Lost in the scent of her leather-covered Bible and the overheated transformers, we went places, met people, and saw things that would shape the remainder of our lives. Rocking on her lap and listening to a live Carter Family performance, I remember knowing for the first time that I was loved. In time I came to understand the nature of her love as being part of an even greater love, one that loved my grandmother for loving me.

One day I asked if she had anything to do with this God I'd been hearing about. Without pause or condescension she answered, "Why, yes, child, I do, but no more than you or your momma or a rank stranger on the street. Some say God's sittin' up in heaven mad as a hornet 'bout how we actin' down here, but I don't think he's mad at all. Ain't nobody mad coulda ever made somebody half as special as you." She was the enlightened enchantress of my childhood. I was, and still am, very much in love with Grandma Katie.

All these years later, the smell of burning leaves often transports me to the tiny front yard on Avenue P, where on an autumn day in 1954 my grandmother buried me up to the neck in freshly fallen post-oak leaves. Like every great adult playmate, she knew the value of repetition and, for my please alone, spent the entire afternoon re-raking leaves in an attempt to create the perfect pile. More than just that, she created the perfect day. Then, when the daylight and my interest in being buried alive began to wane, she raked the pile high one last time. "Why, I do believe a fine young man like you should do the honors," she said, ceremoniously handing me a lit kitchen match.


From the blaze, sparks sprang like newborn shooting stars in reverse, defying gravity and rising far above our heads. A hoot owl on the telephone pole harrumphed his approval. Trees leaned in for a closer look. house kept a respectful distance. But the wind couldn't resist the urge to see what it could do, hence more sparks. The pyromaniac in me today can be traced to the moment Grandma Katie passed me that match.

Before long, our roaring fire gave way to a smoldering glow, and eventually, the pitch-black darkness of another star-studded witching hour. It was, after all, Halloween season, when the blurred edges of blue shadows, the coolness of day's end, and my encroaching bedtime normally put me in mind of ghosts and their attendant hobgoblins. Not on this evening. Backed by my grandmother's fierce innocence, the chains of my four-year-old imagination refused to be rattled. To be well loved is to be free of the evil lurking around the next darkened corner. Every child should know that feeling.

Later on, after I'd played in the bathtub until my fingers and toes were nearly purple as prunes, she read my favorite Unclue Remus story - the one where Br'er Rabbit gets in a jam with the Tar Baby. I was fast asleep before B'rer Fox could outline, for the hapless Br'er Bear, his plan to snare Br'er Rabbbit. My life since has been ongoing search for the stillness that marked the end of that one perfect day.

This passage reaffirms my belief that love never dies. Even after a loved one passes, the love they created lives in memories and stories. Their love lives in us, and we have an obligation to perpetuate that love by passing our stories on.

dreaming under moonbeams,
muddywaters