Friday, January 29, 2010

Phone Call from the Other Side of the World

I got a new cell phone a couple of months ago, and I confess that it wasn’t the one I really wanted. I coveted an iPhone. We stood there in the mall trying to find a family plan that would make all four of us happy. The kids wanted certain sleek models offered by Sprint. The annoying little guy who wears a red cape and sits on my left shoulder said, “Just pull rank and make them choose from the company you like. You work hard, you deserve a cool phone.” The nerdy little guy in white on my other shoulder nodded at the kids, who were grooving on the display models. They sure looked happy. Oh, all right. I’ll take one of these little Blackberry things with a keyboard the size of my thumb and the clunky Internet service and the mouse control that looks and feels like a life-size, realistic white plastic model of a pimple.

Almost right away, my Blackberry started getting phone calls from overseas, or so I figured since the caller’s number was several digits longer than good old U.S. numbers. Presumably this was a friend or family member of the last person who was assigned my new number. I ignored the calls, but they kept coming, so one day I finally picked up and said hello. The person on the other end spoke a completely mysterious language. I said, “You have the wrong number,” and pretty soon he hung up. But he’d call again every couple of days and we’d go through it all once more.  I had the impression that the fellow didn’t understand any English at all, and the words he spoke didn’t sound like any of the European or East Asian languages we Americans study in school or hear in the movies. The calls continued, but there was no communication going on. None.

Eventually I realized that I could look up the caller’s country code. His first digits were 233; in a moment Google told me that the calls were coming from Ghana. I checked out a map of Africa. There was Ghana, south of the Sahara on the continent’s big curving west coast, facing the Atlantic Ocean and looking south. And still the calls came, and when I said, “Do you speak English?” there would be more of that unfamiliar tongue. I looked it up – more than a dozen languages are commonly spoken in Ghana, with names I’d never heard before and didn’t know how to pronounce, like Asante, Ewe, Fante, and Dagarte.

So somebody in Ghana was missing somebody here in area code 574. Maybe some son or daughter had come to study at one of our area colleges? During the Christmas season, more calls – there had been no holiday trip back home to Africa. Somebody was lost here or didn’t want to be found.

I read a little about Ghana. Drug traffic, but too poor an economy for the international drug cartels to launder as much money as they might like. Average education, ninth grade. Lifespan 59 years for men and 60 for women. Home of Lake Volta, the largest man-made body of water in the world. Risk of malaria, rabies, typhoid, and some other diseases I’d never heard of before. I saw pictures of villages and countryside, I heard collections of beautiful rhythm-driven music.

An image of the country started to form in my mind, and I realized that the next time a call came from overseas on my cramped little phone, I could say, “Hello, Ghana.” But what good would that do? Someone was lost here, and half the world away a friend, a father, perhaps a husband, was calling and calling and never getting through.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on January 29, 2010 • WVPE's Audio Archive
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Friday, January 22, 2010

Heading Toward the Finish Line

As we near the time to waddle out of the major eating season of the year, I breathe a sigh of both thanks for the opportunity and relief that once again, it didn’t kill me. Starting with Thanksgiving and extending to Valentine’s Day, treats are the order of the day.

My creative assistant, Larry, has offered the helpful suggestion that, like any major competition, we need to train for the season. Note now, you need to prepare. You can’t just go into this cold turkey. Beginning in late October or early November, we should begin to overeat just a bit each day in order to stretch our stomachs, so that they can accommodate the coming onslaught. He has named this regimen “The Stomach Pack.” Not such a bad plan, since there almost certainly will be quite a feast coming soon to a table near you. As Oscar Wilde said in The Importance of Being Earnest, “I hate people who are not serious about their meals.” This is crucial business.

The marathon begins with the fourth Thursday of November. Face it, Thanksgiving is huge! Even those who don’t eat much of anything except sandwiches as a regular habit—and in some circles, that includes breakfast—are faced with fowl, meat, vegetables, assorted bread products and other grain-based starches, plus potatoes, relishes and desserts: most served separately, not stacked, and all at one meal. It’s quite a stretch. Even through the tryptophan-induced haze, those who haven’t trained risk facing severe pain.

From there we move, admittedly now a bit more slowly, into the Christmas party season. Starting early in December, we gather at festive tables that are laden with tempting hors d’oeuvres and desserts, sometimes even with full dinners. Then, there are the incidental feedings: gifts of candies, cookies, cakes and breads and tastings of things that we ourselves are preparing. It’s a season that would try the eating stamina of a Hobbit. The December heats culminate with the main event: Christmas dinner. This often is only a slight variation on the Thanksgiving competition. There are many of the same dishes as were served at Thanksgiving, but with a bonus round.  More desserts appear:  now it’s not just pies, but also cakes, cookies, custards and plum and figgy puddings topped with the not-to-missed hard sauce.  Not just the imagination is stretched under the weight of this groaning board. Another example of why it would have been good to train starting months ago.

Just a week later, we come to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. There’s that long party while waiting for the midnight hour. What to do to pass the time? I know! Let’s belly up to the buffet! Surviving that, we move to the eating requirements of January 1st. My mother always said that you had to eat some cabbage for good luck. A quick look at the internet to see other food traditions for the day yielded: grapes, greens, fish, pork, legumes, and cakes—quite a lot of necessities there to avoid the bogeyman of bad luck. The one bit of good news for New Year’s is that there is an amusing list of foods not to consume. Best to avoid: lobster, for instance, because they move backwards and could lead to setbacks. Chicken also is discouraged because the bird scratches backwards, which could cause regret or dwelling on the past. Another theory warns against eating any winged fowl because good luck could fly away.  Finally, a bit of restraint is encouraged.

Those of us with January birthdays or anniversaries face yet another lap in the marathon. Unless exceedingly well-trained, best to avoid venues that offer excellent service. Recently, at the LaSalle Grill, I glanced at the menu and noted the absence of the asparagus side dish. Hearing my lament, José checked and came back to let me know that there was one order of it in the kitchen and that it could be mine. To refuse his thoughtful offer would have been churlish.

Heading toward the last lap, Valentine’s Day, I am grateful for the bounty, but embrace the thought of pushing back from the training table and greeting the arrival of abstemious Lent. Bon appetite! For Michiana Chronicles this is . . . 

Broadcast by Jeanette Saddler Taylor on January 22, 2010 • WVPE's Audio Archive
Community • Customs & Rituals • Family & Friends • Food • Health • Permalink • Printer Friendly

Friday, January 15, 2010

Christmas Eve, 1971

On Christmas Eve morning, 1971, at 5 a.m. in South Bend, with ten inches of unplowed snow on the ground, we were due to start for my folks in Atlanta, hoping to make it by midnight. We were young, married hippies with our 1963 Volkswagen bus. She was exuberantly pregnant with our only child, whom we named Ethan Siddhartha three months later; we had fifty dollars to our name. Enough, we hoped, to get there.

I was working at a center for mentally handicapped adults. My dad kept us on his Plutonium Blue Cross plan, but Ethan was upside down (he’s still upside down) and that cost money. Dad was a physician whose successful practice had begun to suffer from his long residence in the vale of booze. (Why do I keep bringing that up in these essays?) Dutiful son and loving wife were coming home to Atlanta for Christmas, fingers crossed for some Christmas money, both to get us back and to ease the next few months. First grandchild and all . . . I loaded up the car. It wouldn’t start; the battery was dead.

Ever push-started a mini-bus in ten inches of snow with a non-mechanically-inclined pregnant wife behind the wheel? I did that morning, and I’m little. The gasoline fired heater—the one luxury on those old shoeboxes—was cooking merrily away, so we were warm. The snow was getting heavier as we rattled down US 31 south.

Three hours later we were nearing Indianapolis, the heater stopped working; we had to rely on the engine flap heater until I could find a sheltered place to work on it. Next, at a stoplight I stalled the car in the snow and it wouldn’t start; the battery was not charging. I could push start it and it would go, but what about when it got dark. Would the headlights work that Christmas Eve?

I ran in for some coffee at a McDonalds, and asked the lady if there was a VW dealership in Indianapolis. She pointed me only a few blocks down, by the bypass construction. We chugged over and turned in; the service bay was open—our first piece of luck.

Out comes this short, round, greasy, cross-looking mechanic; working, on Christmas Eve. I explained our predicament; he glanced at her, in the full throes of dazed, dreamy pregnancy, and growled, “Pull it on in.” Dead battery; he and I had to push it on in. She and I moved to the waiting room. I sat and thought, how am I going to pay for this? It was Friday, they would deposit the check that evening and on Monday it would bounce and there was nothing I could do. Fifteen bucks in the bank; me in Atlanta. Overdraft protection was years away.

Up behind the parts desk steps a real live hippie. Now-a-days, today it’s hard to tell one alienation from another, but back then long guy hair was credentialing. Full throated Vietnam; President Nixon; flag decals on hard hats; you do the math. But there he was, and, for the Jameses, to think is to act, so I introduced myself—he also was a draft resister—and acquainted him with our plight. He said, “I’ll see what’s happening,” and eased back to the service bay.

He returned in short time. “He has the generator out, the gas heater’s out, parts all over the floor.” Oh boy, real money soon to be required.

A half an hour later the bus appeared on the tarmac outside, chugging away. I could see a new little exhaust pipe from the gas heater putting out visible waves. Someone called my name on the P.A. system. The mechanic slid the clipboard over the counter; the parts list included a new generator, an igniter and an exhaust pipe for the heater. Scrawled beneath the totals column was “Merry Christmas. No charge.”

My parents gave us a silver coffee service for Christmas that year. I borrowed some money from my sister to get us home. Two years later I brought the charge slip to that VW dealership and showed it to the owner when he asked why I had come all the way down there to buy a new van. A year after that my bride—ever the dreamer—left with our child to cohabit with two Notre Dame grad students. It didn’t matter that I also was incurably romantic.

Broadcast by David James on January 15, 2010 • WVPE's Audio Archive
Commerce • Community • Family & Friends • Peace & War • Travel • Women & Men • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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A random pick from more than 375 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:

April Lidinsky -- Skirting the Issue / Surviving Kids’ Birthday Parties / Demonstrating Spring / Pajama Parties, Not Political Parties / The Heck of Homespun Holidays / The Witching Hour / Listening to Summer / Digging Dirt / Girl Culture Shock / Wrong About Rodents / Measuring Up / More essays by April

Jeff Nixa -- Real Estate Physiology / A Flight Over Michiana / A Kid and a Rock / A Green Witch / Hunting Rhinoceros in Intensive Care / Chair Massage / Walking with Jameson / Making Up on the South Shore / Model Train / Action Heroes / The Last Customer / More essays by Jeff

Ken Smith -- Following the Ambulance Through the Night / Sledding Down the Big Hill / Doris Day’s Advice for the Long Winter Ahead / Big League Baseball / Modern Sex Education / A Trip to the Science Fair / At the Blood Bank / The Music Man Returns / A Dog’s Life / The Last Morning of Summer / The Local Food Scene / More essays by Ken

Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- True to Type / One Thing A Day / Order in the Court / Celebrating Magna Charta Day / Feelin’ Cranky, But Trying to Remain Civil / Location, Location, Location / Speaking Periodically / Chronicling Michiana / Dishes / Heading Toward the Finish Line / Pollyanna Grows Despondent / More essays by Jeanette

Heather Curlee Novak -- Humbled Handless / Celebration / Running Music / Feeding Willard / More essays by Heather

David James -- Christmas Eve, 1971 / The Family Dogs / More essays by David

Elizabeth Van Jacob -- Driving On / More essays by Elizabeth

Joe Chaney -- Swinging States / Learning to Speak at a Quaker Wedding / Happy Valentine’s Day / Living in the Digital World / Imagining a Different President / My New Year’s Ritual / The Curse of the Teenage Clone / Time Travel in Paris / Showing Your Goat / Virginia Tech / Against Retirement / More essays by Joe

Louise Collins -- Friends / Where Are You From? / A Visit to the Dentist / Humming Along with the Masters / Pledging My Support / Michiana Car Culture / On Safari / Polka Party in Benton Harbor / In Search of the American Cowboy / Visiting the Hospital / Considering South Dakota / More essays by Louise

Jonathan Nashel -- Notre Dame Welcomes the Queen of Cool / Loretta Lynn, Richard Nixon, and the Wonders of American Culture / My Lawn, My Nightmare / The Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name / Home for the Holidays / The World Trade Center and the Meaning of Patriotism / New York, 9/11, and Those Images / On the Joys of Flying / Baby, It’s Cold Inside / Bob Dylan, The Cove, and Me / What Is Perfection? / More essays by Jonathan