Narrative – Mostly From Memory

Old Men

I want to be an old man one day. I want to drive a squeaky clean pickup truck to meet my friends for breakfast at Jack’s at 5:30 in the morning. I’ll eat a steak biscuit unless the bologna biscuits are on sale. We’ll sit at the round table and laugh about the good old days when gas was only .89¢ when we started driving. When a stranger walks in we’ll ask if anybody knows him. And if they don’t, we’ll get to know him. We’ll have nicknames for all the little kids because we might not remember their real names. That will endear them to us. After breakfast we will piddle in our gardens, or go horse trade old guitars and guns.

I met a man yesterday who was 98 years old. He drove himself to the Council on Aging. I’m not sure if he came to hear me sing, or if he just came out of habit because old men have routines. But he stayed and talked to me in the atmosphere that lingers after the songs are over but everyone remains quiet, intently listening. He was still sharp in his mind. That’s the kind of old man I want to be.

I met another old man that cycled 100 miles when he turned 90. A spry old sinewy man, tough as woodpecker lips-that is the kind of thing that old men say. I hope to be a fit old man. Not the kind that wears shorts so everyone has to look their old nasty bird legs. There are some things in life a man ought not have to look at.

I want to be an old man that can tell a good story. Can’t nobody tell a story like an old man. And I might start carrying around little candies to hand out at church for children in case my eyebrows scare them.

I just lost one of my favorite old men, Bro. Boney. I wasn’t expecting it, and I’m still not over it. He was one the kind of old men that shook everyone’s hand at the church. He did that with purpose. He had a way of making people feel like they belonged there. He’d been coming to Thanksgiving with my family for the past few years. He’d sing snatches of those old hymns and I’d accompany on the guitar in the corner until our wives would calm us down. One year the power went out, so we couldn’t be ignored. Everyone joined in and sang along. It was a good night.

One year he brought a BB Gun to the church while we cooked a bunch of turkey breasts for Thanksgiving. It was something that you would expect an 8 year old boy to do, but there he was, the oldest man present, plinking away at cans. I just thought that was hilarious. I kept this picture as his contact picture on my phone. I always have the hardest time deleting contacts of friends that have died.

The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness. Proverbs 16:31

Old men are a blessing, otherwise God would not have cursed the house of Eli by denying them old men.

Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house. And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give Israel: and there shall not be an old man in thine house for ever. And the man of thine, whom I shall not cut off from mine altar, shall be to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thine heart: and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age. I Samuel 2:30-33

I want to be the kind of old man that young men want to get next to in the prayer room before church. The kind of old man that makes children laugh. That gives good gifts. That speaks the truth in love. That cares. That loves the same woman for decades and raises godly children.

I guess the best way to be the kind of old man you want to be is to be the kind of young man you ought to be.

Is ‘at You Earl?

There was a time when Hardee’s had a marketing campaign for a Monster Burger, and it worked on Dad and me. So we drove down to Childersburg, Alabama to our nearest Hardees to have one. I can remember the booth we were sitting in was near the front which gave a commanding view of the entire restaurant. You could see the counter and the kitchen beyond, as well as the dining room all the way back to the bathroom. As we set there eating our big old cheeseburgers, and just generally enjoying our fine dining experience, the side door opened. A voice from the kitchen called out: “Is ‘at you Earl?”

It was Earl, a slovenly dark-haired young man reporting for duty. He confirmed this with a mumbled reply. Then braced himself as a volley of admonishments was hurled his way. It was a woman’s voice, clearly his manager. She was not berating as I recall, but smooth and comical. It seemed like she had been working on Earl for a while.

Where you been Earl? Tuck your shirt in Earl. Did you wash your hands Earl? Where is your Apron Earl? You didn’t comb your hair Earl? Go to the bathroom and get yourself together. Be somebody Earl.

Earl was having a rough day. Being audience to this scene brought an immense amount of joy to my Dad.

“Poor Earl just ain’t got it together does he?”

He recalled this episode for nearly the rest of his life. “Is ‘at you Earl?” became something that he would say to me from then on.

My Dad wanted us to have the experience of working with the general public. Principally, so we would know how to treat people. And to know how to behave when you have been mistreated. Maybe that manager was the first person that ever took time to try to help Earl.

I always think about Earl when I see a Hardee’s. I think about a high school teenager getting their first experience in the workforce. Maybe for the first time in their life they are having do things that were never taught at home. Like tucking their shirt. And being somebody.

Photos of The Week: September 27th, 2025

These are the photographs I took this week.

I get to travel a lot for my job. So I take my camera along for drive-by photography. It seems to me that the economy in Louisiana moves East and West along I-20 and I-10. And I live in Central Louisiana. One of the recurring themes in these photographs is decaying buildings. I don’t go out of the way to find them, I have to go out of my why to find new construction. One of the things I like to imagine is what these buildings were like in their prime, with people bustling in an out of them. What kind of clothes did they wear? How did they talk? What did they eat for lunch?

I imagine this was once a thriving little grocery store. The painting makes the pain worse for me: It is fake.

I thought this man was interesting. He was shuffling material from one medical building to another across the street.

The crack in my windshield somehow makes this picture better. The kind of obscure photograph that you imagine a special agent gets on those old detective radio shows.

“These cars always reminded me of fighter planes.” That’s what the man driving one told me once at a gas station 20 years ago. His was green though.

I wonder what kind of art is produced here. I like that old chair.

Something about the colors on this building speaks to me.

It was exhilarating being this close to a train.

This is probably my favorite picture from this week. I love this time of the morning. I imagine this is a scene from a book that you can’t put down.

I love these little lizards. Anything that eats bugs can hang around my house.

Name the title of the book that this could be the dust jacket for. That’s the kind of thing I think about when I am composing a shot.

Another good cover for a book about a haunted house.

Are You A Photographer? And Other Existential Questions

I don’t really want to be defined simply by what I like to do.

Strange things have been happening to me in Louisiana. I’ll introduce myself to people and then they’ll start speaking to me in French.

“Zane Wells.”

“Jean-Claude Villeramerette.”

People that speak French talk in italics.

Aside from that, I also get point blank existential questions like when the lady at the tamale stand in Zwolle glanced at my camera and asked if I was a photographer.

I said, “Well kind of, but I’m more of a writer.”

When she found out I was a writer the whole kitchen wanted me to take their picture with their blue ribbon. I obliged. I think it was a good enough picture. But I’m not sure I am a photographer. After all, I forgot to take off the lens cap twice while I was talking to these people. That’s not the kind of thing that photographer does.

I don’t really want to be defined simply by what I like to do.

I do like like taking photographs, but I’m not sure that makes me a photographer. And I haven’t made any money taking pictures, but does making money really have a bearing on your identity? I’ve done a lot of things for money that I did not enjoy. Maybe most of the things I have done for money I did not enjoy. Then there are some things I do whether I get paid or not.

A few years ago Sarah asked Miriam what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said, “A lady with pets.”

On occasion I forget my camera as I rush out the door and it bothers me nearly all day. Those are the days that I see the most interesting compositions. Like the man demolishing a water tower with an acetylene torch in Hodge, LA. It was one of those water towers with only one central column holding the whole thing up. The kind with clean flowing lines and no sharp edges, like one of those old enameled door knobs in an ancient house. The tank was halfway gone and a shower of sparks was raining down from the lift from which the man with the torch blazed away at the thick rusty metal. I would’ve liked to have had that picture. Another time recently I saw a freshly cut hayfield and about a thousand of those pure white cattle egrets swarming around the tractor which was still laying the hay down in a neat hearing-bone pattern. Oh it was glorious! I wish you could’ve seen it. The most recent composition that I missed was also in a pasture: A longhorn bull, a donkey, and a cattle egret in congress around an ancient live oak. I imagine that these were elected officials who had met together to discuss grazing rights and what to do about the interloping deer. But I missed it and I’m not sure a thousand words could let you see it.

What I really like is story telling. And photography allows you to tell a story without any words. I only really feel like a photographer when I don’t have my camera, but I feel like a writer all of the time.

200: A Milestone in Writing

This is my 200th article for what began in 2016 as Mostly From Memory, a blog where I started sharing short essays on my memories from growing up in a small town in Alabama. Since the statute of limitations has not run out on a few events, I am kind of out of material for the childhood stuff unless I want to run the risk of getting sued. Or I could start making stuff up. Which is how I think that some authors get into fiction. You take a piece of story that really happened, but you change the names of the people and move the location to somewhere far off like Pell City, Alabama, and describe some of the characters as prettier or uglier than they really were and add some extra details like an embezzling scheme, a murder, and some romance or dragons to spice up the plot a little bit. You know, just like cooking. You begin with a chicken breast—that’s the part that really happened—but it could really hurt someone if you serve it raw. The fiction part comes in with how you decide to present it: grilled, fried, boiled, fricasseed… And a good cook can make just about anything palatable, if not spectacular.

I haven’t gotten into fiction yet, but I have branched out and written about a lot of topics like grief, obituaries, music, biographical sketches, and social and cultural constructs, and how to overcome them. It is this sort of material that I am drawn to write about.

This makes me ask the question, has my writing style changed? I think it has changed in the same way that a person ages. If a man is still talking and behaving like a 20 year old at 40 then I think you would agree that something is off. And when a 40 year old takes measures to alter their physical features to appear 20, whether people pretend along with them or not, we all know that it is fake. I feel that my writing has aged with me.

And maybe my readers have come and gone just like friends in different in different stages of life. I may have lost some of my readers when my material shifted, and that is understandable. Just like when you take the last bicycle ride with your neighbor who is getting his driver’s license the next week. You’re still friends, but he is going places you can’t go now. And you spend less time together. Then when you get your license, you’ll probably go to different places than he went. And you meet new people who are less interested in your past than they are your future.

I did a lot of looking back when I first started writing. I felt the need to put some of those oral stories into writing. I am glad I did because I didn’t realize how quickly my sources would move on without warning to a place that I can’t go yet, taking their oral stories with them. I have been looking inward a lot of my recent material. But I am trying to practice looking out.

I think I am beginning to understand why older people say less.

If you have been with me since the beginning, thank you. You may not have noticed the shift because you’ve grown with me. But if you are an occasional reader, you may have noticed changes just like your great-aunt noticed when she only saw you twice a year at Easter and Christmas. And I guess that is what I want to talk about today: I really just want to write articles that make people want to think about things that matter.

I think people matter. I think how you treat people matters. I think motives and attitude matters. I think education matters. I think that morals matter. I think that mental health matters. I think that physical health matters.

Above all, I think truth matters.

Dementia

“Mr. Zane, that little old lady back there doesn’t even know her name. All she does is mumble, but she just sang I Saw The Light along with you.”

I have been blessed with a unique opportunity to sing at the nursing home as a part of my job. I have lost count of how many nursing homes I have visited. One of the most interesting and moving experiences I have had so far is singing in the memory care units. The memory care units I have visited have been in assisted living centers, not nursing homes, and are for residents who are dealing with memory loss due to Alzheimers or dementia. These units are usually locked down so the residents won’t wonder off and get lost. As I am being escorted through the halls, the workers always try to mentally prepare me for what I might expect as they punch in secret codes that take us deep into heart of the building. They don’t realize that that kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. I’ve probably been to more nursing homes than they have, and even preached at the Methodist church. I always keep my eyes closed while I’m singing anyway.

I’m not a licensed music therapist, but I have seen the power of music first hand. When the director of the unit walks up bawling after a concert and says things like, I’ve never seen that man talk before after the man just talked to me for three minutes. Or There is a little old lady back there that doesn’t even know her name. All she does is mumble, but she just sang I Saw The Light along with you. This kind of thing happens often. I cannot tell you what these people are diagnosed with, but I can tell you that there is a moment when the light comes on in their eyes. And it is a moving experience.

I often leave from these brief concerts thinking about those people, locked up in a wing of some multimillion dollar facility. Each person represents a heart wrenching story of children coming to grips with a parent whose mental state has deteriorated to an unrecognizable point. When did the children notice? Did their parent, who once possessed a sharp intellect and a profound pool of wisdom become foggy in their memory and erratic in judgment? Was there a sudden change in personality from a caring and compassionate nurturer to a mean and selfish miser, or was the change gradual? At what point did a brother call a sister and say, I think something is going on with Dad? And I wonder about perhaps the hardest conversation of all, Dad, we’re concerned about you, I think we need to get you some help.

I imagine a lot of that depends on the state of the relationship between children and parents. Disfunction, strained relationships, and estrangement is the sad reality for many families, and would make an already extremely difficult situation nearly impossible to navigate.

I have talked to quite a few people who have had this experience with a parent. They tell me that looking back they could remember odd changes in behavior from years before that now made sense. They talk about the parent leaving long before the body expired. And the sense of relief after their parents’ death, accompanied by a slight sense of guilt for being relieved. They also speak of the relief of knowing that the unkind words spoken to them were the disease and not the parent.

These are all the things I think about when I tune up my guitar in a memory care unit. I look for that light to come on. I try to sing a wide variety of hymns and gospel songs in hopes that one of them will resonate with a lingering memory behind a set of blank eyes. I also am painfully aware that I may not be able to reach someone if they have no memories of any of these spiritual songs. Or maybe the music has already died and there is no recalling them.

I sing anyway. I never know who is listening.

Fiddlesticks

It was my grandmother’s most often used expletive. She only used it in frustration. Like when you’re pouring oil out of a frying pan into a glass jar through a strainer to use later and you spill the oil everywhere; that’s a proper time to say fiddlesticks! There was always a tinge of resignation in her voice when she said it, as if it was declaration of surrender to the task that had just outmaneuvered her.

Inevitably there would be someone standing by who saw the humor in the situation, and they would laugh. Gram would laugh too. No sense in staying upset all day over something silly.

Mom’s favorite wooden cuss-word was “Cat Hair!”

Apparently, people have been using fiddlesticks in this way since the 18th century. Whenever she said it I would imagine someone knocking over a bucket of violin bows. Have you ever priced a violin bow? Or I would visualize a couple of bows crossed above Gram’s head like some musical coat of arms. Or perhaps a barrage of fiddlesticks raining down on her. It is funny what you think as a child.

I had always assumed that a fiddlestick was the bow of the violin, and that is the original definition. But fiddlesticks is also what you call a pair of sticks that a second person plays on the strings of a violin to add percussion to a fiddle tune. It is quite common in Cajun fiddle tunes. But I didn’t grow up listening to Cajun folk music, much less seeing people play it. I was reminded of this word-and Gram- today because I saw someone playing the fiddlesticks in this video.

Diabetes: A Health Topic

“November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Maybe you could a talk on Diabetes for us.”

I was asked to speak at the Senior Center about Diabetes because November was Diabetes Awareness Month and that would be a good “Health Topic.” When the lady said that over the phone I had a flashback to the fifth grade when I was assigned a body system to do a research report on. I don’t remember what my assignment was, most likely because my Mother probably got carried away “Helping” me, but I do remember Amanda Giovanni’s* topic. She was assigned the respiratory system. There came a day when we were to present our projects orally and with visual aides before the entire combined classroom of 4th and 5th graders and more importantly before Mrs. McManus and Mrs. Battle. I’m sure I did adequately on the oral portion, and my Mom’s artistic hand on the visual side either landed me some extra points or counted against me depending on whether or not my teacher’s were fooled into thinking that I had mastered the art of hatching and cross-hatching at the ripe old age of ten.

I wish Amanda would’ve had a little help from anyone. The poor girl was unprepared. When it was her turn to stand and deliver, she held up a crumpled piece of wide ruled paper with a pencil drawing of a pair of quickly drawn lungs. I can remember her anxious posture while standing before her peers. I have transcribed-from memory-the entirety of her presentation.

“My report is on the Respiratory System. Our lungs help us breathe. Without our lungs, what would we do?”

Utter silence fell over the room. I think we all learned a lesson far more valuable than any fifth grade research could tell us about the respiratory system. It was Mrs. McManus who broke the silence. She was disappointed that the child was unprepared, but there was also an element of understanding of what the girl may have been experiencing at home. Not everyone had a Mom who would drive to the BP gas station right after church to get a piece of poster board and then come home and free hand the circulatory system with H Encyclopedia Brittanica opened to Human Body while you were tucked in bed.

“You’ve had weeks to prepare for this project. You could’ve asked me for help.”

I want to say we had a whole month to procrastinate on this project. I haven’t changed all that much since 1996. I still wait til the last minute on a lot of things because I work better under pressure.

Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

-Parkinson’s Principle

So here I am in the prime of middle-age, writing a quick article instead of researching Diabetes. I’ll get around to it-I’ve still got plenty of time. But I did think about just drawing a picture of some cookies covered by a general prohibition sign and saying something like, Diabetes is bad. 0/10 would not recommend and just hoping for the best. I might not get asked back, but I would almost guarantee that someone in that room will probably still remember that speech vividly in 30 years.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Radio Kid

I’m not out to defend parents who allow the iPad or the Television to “babysit” their children. I’m here to talk to you about the radio.

You hear the term iPad kids these days. Or children who learned how to operate iPads before they learned to speak. Consequently, they develop an addiction to this device. It doesn’t seem to be a term of endearment, but rather a derogatory term. These iPad kids don’t have a clue about how the real word is. I remember hearing the same kind of language when I was a kid but attached to Television. All these kids know how to do is watch TV. When I was a kid we were out riding bikes and throwing rocks at trains. I suppose every generation in many ways thinks that the following generation doesn’t have sense enough to “pour pee out of a boot” as my Dad used to say. And out of convenience perhaps we humans site the most recently adopted technology as the cause for a child’s …well a child’s natural childish behavior. I’m not out to defend parents who allow the iPad or the Television to “babysit” their children. I’m here to talk to you about the radio.

I was a radio kid amongst a bunch of television kids. We didn’t have a TV in our home. In the 90s this was unique. I’m not even sure if TV is still a relevant medium for entertainment, so it may no longer be strange to not have a TV today. But we did have a radio, and I liked to listen to it.

The AM/FM receiver, turn-table, and tape deck were all one and the same for me. The noise came out of the same source: The Radio.

Records

I think my earliest memory of recorded music was from the record player. We had a record of The Drifters singing Charlie Brown. I remember listening to that a lot. And dancing in the living room. We also had a Justin Wilson record I guarantee. Gram had a lot more records than we did. My favorite was the Disney Robin Hood record. It skipped on Friar Tuck saying No, but there’s somebody who will be very disappointed if you don’t come, don’t come, don’t come, don’t come… Gram would have to come and fix the needle so we could get on with the story.

I don’t remember many more records in particular that I had such a strong attachment to-excepting that there was a lot of country music. The old stuff like Hank Williams and Jim Reeves. I remember the audible artifacts of that old vinyl. The pleasant white noise and the occasional crackle and pop of the needle bouncing over debris. It is still a pleasant noise to me.

Tapes

Someone always had to load a record for me, but I was able to figure out the tape deck by myself. I listened to a lot of preaching tapes on the radio. One of my favorites was a Bro. Mahuron preaching at Alabama Camp Meeting. I kind of feel like that lightning bug that got caught in the ceiling fan. I am delighted to be here. He also told a story about playing baseball with Fred Blosser. He was a big ole boy, he had to hit a home run to get a base hit. I would request this preaching tape-especially on car rides-not for the theological substance of the sermon, but for these humorous preliminary remarks and sermon illustrations. Then I would settle in for a pleasant nap.

I got a Johnny Horton tape for Christmas when I was about seven years old. They probably bought it just for The Battle of New Orleans, but I ended up liking Whispering Pines, Comanche, and Sink The Bismarck just as much. It really took me a long time to realize that there were other genres of music besides country. I am slowly coming to terms with how much of my musical foundation is this early post-war country music. I still appreciate the storytelling aspect of real country music. And maybe that is why the guitar has always had a stronger pull on me than the piano.

Mom bought me a Merle Haggard tape at Food World one time. This is what I hear when someone plays a Telecaster. This was electric country. With electric bass that faked an airplane on Fighting Side of Me. Hearing these musicians create sound effects with their instruments made a lasting impression on me and shaped the way I interpret music.

AM Radio

Dad listened to a lot of AM radio in the truck. Mainly Sports Radio 690 WJOX-Birmingham! Skip Carey would call the Braves broadcast on this channel. It’s a high pop-fly foul into the stands, and a fan from Del Rio, Texas makes the catch! We’d listen to those games while we were in the hayfield with the truck windows down and the radio up. That’s when The Braves were going to the World Series in the 90s. There was also a radio show with two former basketball coaches-one from Auburn, one from Alabama-called Sonny and Wimp. Wimp and Sonny, one thinks he’s smart, one thinks he’s funny, They used to be coaches they used to have clout, do they really know what they’re talking about? And another show with a man named Herb Winches that Dad listened to pretty regular. It was all sports so I really wasn’t paying attention. I did get a kick out of the commercials though. The original Budweiser frogs and lizards were funny to me. The Real Men of Genius Bud Light commercials were also funny. It made alcohol seem like something you can laugh about. What a dangerous idea.

Dad used to say, “Boy you know that must have had some fun making this commercial!” One of his favorites was the Southern LINC cellular telephone commercials. Earl, a fictitious Southern LINC customer, told how Southern LINC had allowed him to expanded his business.

Thanks to you I’m branching out…Just the thought of it makes me shivery, Earl’s Septic Tank Repair, and Flower Delivery.

There was also a jewelry store somewhere in Birmingham that had a commercial where lovesick men would call in and ask for advice from a motherly character named Deadre. Talk to Deadre Darlin’. I still laugh about that. It was so funny that my cousin Kim named her dog Deadre. Gram run over that dog while backing out of the driveway. She heard it yell, then accidentally run over it again as she pulled back into the driveway. Poor Deadre.

Talk Radio was the forefather to PodCasts. The appeal of Talk Radio, at least for me, was that it was live. And they would take callers. Just ordinary people could call in and talk on the radio. This is the kind of entertainment that cannot be scripted. Even if you don’t like sports, you’d probably appreciate the drunk people who called in on the radio. Herb Winches took a drunk caller once who started out talking about some relevant sports topic and he got overwhelmed and just started saying You know, you good at what you do Herb. Dad laughed about this for months.

AM Radio had a distinct sound to me, and because of this I found it hard to listen to music on AM Radio. I now realize that there is less information coming through on AM than FM, so some frequencies are missing in the music. This is probably why audiophiles are willing to spend $50,000 on hi-fi stereo systems to listen to their record collections. So I never experimented much with AM Radio outside of listening to it with Dad.

FM Radio

I did experiment with FM Radio a lot. One of the first radio stations I remember hearing was Oldies 106.9. At that time they were playing everything from Elvis and Roy Orbison, to Motown and British Invasion. I remember hearing Love Me Do by The Beatles and being mesmerized by the harmonica sound. Dad told me the story of Delbert McClinton teaching John Lennon to play the harmonica. I didn’t realize that this was the music of rebellion in the 1960s. To me it was just like they were marketing it on the radio Feel Good Music.

We also listened to the Christian station out of Birmingham, 93.7 WDJC. Specifically The Dixie Gospel Caravan. Which was the evening Southern Gospel program. I used to love the song, I’ve Got a Feeling Everything’s Gonna Be Alright. This program was mainly Southern Gospel quartet music. And I imagined the bass singer as a face in the wall singing. That can’t be a real person. I also imagined the high tenor as tall and thin. I had a hard time telling the different quartet groups apart because the sound was so similar to me. And that is one of the reasons that I still don’t relish quartet music. Maybe I reached my quota of quartet music by the age of 9. Who knows?

I must confess, aside from The Dixie Gospel Caravan, I listened to the Oldies and Classic Country stations a lot more than I did the daytime contemporary offerings from WDJC. So there is a large gap in my Christian music canon. This is sometimes embarrassing to me when someone-usually a minister-wants me to remember-or even worse play-a Christian song from the 1980s which I have never heard. Or they ask me about a particular Southern Gospel Quartet. Did you used to listen to The Anointed Spoonbill Singers? No, Brother. I listened to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, and Marvin Gaye though. I ain’t saying it’s right, I’m just saying it’s the truth.

When I started learning guitar I would sit by the radio and try to play along with the Classic Rock station. For hours. The radio taught me how to play guitar. I still prefer to try to work out a song guitar in hand while I listen before I resort to the sheet music.

Public Radio

At some point during my teenage years I was introduced to Public Radio. It fueled my curiosity about classical music and introduced me to opera. For years I listened to NPR’s World of Opera while I was cutting the church grass every Saturday. Public radio also had some cool shows on Saturday’s too. Car Talk, What a classic show. I still shift my manual transmission truck into reverse when I park because of Car Talk. I also enjoyed A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. Which was a variety show sort in the style of Jack Benny or Phil Harris. Keillor’s show served up a healthy dose of Americana music. Which is to say a thick soup of gospel, bluegrass, country, blues, and swing. And it was live.

One of the strangest shows I remember was Hearts of Space, an electronic-new-age-ambient-music program. It featured artists like Klaus Schulze and focused heavily on synthesizers. My Mom didn’t like that show. Even though I didn’t fully understand it, I liked it. I didn’t know how those sounds were being created and I just accepted that it was with computers. I have learned a lot about synthesizers since first hearing Hearts of Space.

When I lived in Virginia I discovered The Big Broadcast with Ed Walker. This was my introduction to the golden age of radio shows from the 1930s-1950s. Ed was blind, and he made me wonder how much those old radio shows must have meant to someone who couldn’t see. I listened to that show until he died. I still listen to vintage radio shows on the Old Time Radio app with Wesley, but it isn’t the same without Ed introducing them.

Today

I suppose that you could find everything today on an iPad that I found on the radio, if you look in the right place. That’s just the thing though: the iPad is a very visual medium. While kids may still be listening, they are doing a lot of looking. And who can say what they are looking at? Radio and Television were pretty rigid in their programming. There was a time when you had to be good to be on the Radio. You may have just had to be good looking to be on Television. But now, anyone with a pulse can start a YouTube channel. And they don’t have to worry about getting dropped by a sponsor or advertisers because many people don’t make one red cent on YouTube but still churn out mindless videos of just about anything you can imagine. I think about this sort of thing when I see a child glued to an iPad. Time will tell how these children will turn out. I think they’ll be a lot like the Television kids. Which I don’t know if I have done a great job communicating with for most of my life.

I can’t remember the last time I turned on FM radio. I grew weary of the commercials long ago. And many of my favorite show hosts are now passed on. The Radio changed on me. But I still listen to something every day. In that sense I will always be a Radio Kid.

How to Acquire Taste

Have you ever wondered what it takes to acquire a taste? People are always eating weird stuff and telling you how good it is and then you work up the nerve and taste it and it tastes exactly how you thought it would taste: nasty. I tried Goat Head Soup once and it was as bad as it sounds but better than it smelled. My friends-who had grown up eating it- were just wearing it out, laughing at me. They had acquired a taste for this through early introduction. When you’ve grown up eating something weird all of your life you don’t know it is weird.

Its good if you like it.
Bo

Fried chick livers and gizzards was the first acquired taste for an odd food by early introduction for me. I don’t remember not liking them, or even realizing that most people don’t like them. I still wonder why a lot of people don’t like them. I just remember having them from time to time and Dad being real excited. If you put enough ketchup on anything fried you can make it taste good. But now I genuinely enjoy eating chicken livers, even though I know it is like eating the oil filter out of a car. And part of that is nostalgia. I eat chicken livers and I am transported back to the old kitchen and I can hear the sizzling iron skillet and the happy voices interrupted by bursts of laughter.

Sometimes nostalgia will make you acquire a taste for a dish that was always around but you never ate as a child. This happed to me with sauerkraut. I never really bothered with sauerkraut as a kid and my parents never tried to force it on me. But it was around quite a bit. I just ate the ribs, pork-chops, or weenies that were usually cooked in sauerkraut. I rarely if ever, just went in for a big bite of nothing but kraut. I think I was out of high school when I first helped Nonna make some sauerkraut in the churn. Uncle Freddy used to help her. I remember him sitting on the hearth and packing the cabbage into the churn with the wooden dasher that Nonna would get on to us grandkids for playing with. He was recently gone. I think that is why I wanted to help her. Here was a recipe and ritual that I felt like I need to learn. It turned out to be fairly simple. I don’t know how y’all’s family made sauerkraut but Nonna just used cabbage, salt, and water. You grate the cabbage as fine as you like and then layer it in the churn, packing it down with that wooden thing and salting each layer. Then you cover the top layer with a few whole cabbage leaves and make sure it is covered with water. Then you set it in the well-house to rot for a few weeks. After it is sufficiently fermented you can it. Then you eat it. If you have a taste for it.

There is no accounting for taste.

After helping make the sauerkraut, I really wanted to like it just out of nostalgia. So I tried it again with an open mind. I don’t remember if I liked it right away but I pretended that I did until I didn’t have to pretend any more. Sauerkraut is the gateway dish to acquiring strong taste. Or is it coleslaw? If you can learn to like coleslaw, then you can learn to like kraut. If you learn to like kraut you can learn to like kimchi. If you can like kimchi, you can like just about anything.

I’m not sure if this is what the Koreans intended, but I like kimchi on my hot dogs.

If you want to acquire a taste for sauerkraut, I suggest that you try ribs and kraut. Which was one of Nonna’s frequent dishes. Braise some ribs in a large skillet-make sure you season them however you like. Then once you have the ribs seared on each side you pour a whole jar of kraut in the skillet and then rinse the jar and add that water as well, you don’t want waste any of that kraut essence. Then you cover and let those ribs simmer in that kraut until they are done. Then you eat everything. And honey them is some of the best ribs you’ll ever have. That’s what Nonna-who had also been present at all of the family barbecues where dozens of hogs gave their life for our holiday weekends and I once made myself sick eating barbecued ribs-told me when I asked her about the recipe for ribs and kraut. This is one of my favorite dishes. And I may not like it more than barbecue ribs, but I like it as much.

Ribs and Kraut. I could eat some right now.

You can also acquire a taste for something just because you are feeling adventurous. If you want to like bleu cheese try it on a Ritz cracker with a little drizzle of honey. This is the kind of thing that rich people serve at Christmas parties. Or people like me just eat at their office desk.

You can logically and accidentally acquire a taste. Sardines are a good example of this. If you want to like sardines, you have to first get serious about eating healthy and exercising. Then you’ll start doing a lot of research about foods that are good for you and all that nonsense and you’ll soon discover how healthy sardines are for you. And you’ll get a can of sardines just to try not because of how they may taste, but because you know that they are good for you. And you’ll close your eyes to eat them, and realize that they aren’t half as bad as you thought they would be. Then you keep eating them because you’re on a diet, and the next thing you know you have acquired a taste.

O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalm 34:8

Some things cannot be described or explained, they just have to be experienced to be understood.

I have lost culinary credibility due to my many acquired tastes and now some of my closest friends no longer trust my food recommendations. This is simply the high price of have a refined palette. It isn’t easy be cultured among a bunch of friends with the taste preferences of prepubescent cave men. I used to be just as picky as them though. Until one day I was hungry. I was visiting my brother at college and for dinner they served chicken fettuccine alfredo with mushrooms. And there were a lot more mushrooms that chicken. But because I was genuinely stomach growling hungry I just ate those mushrooms like I had been eating them professionally for years. And I liked them. And I still like them. Even so, if they’d have been serving pork brains and eggs I’d’ve probably acquired a taste for them that day.

My mom used to tell us this story when we said we were hungry and then refused whatever she offered. “You aren’t really hungry” she would say. Then we’d hear it again.

When I was a little girl I was at Fat Momma’s house-or was it Aunt Dale’s? I wish Mom was here to tell it again.

“I’m hungry.”

“I’ll make you a tomato sandwich.”

“I don’t like tomatoes.”

…real hunger doesn’t take a break…

“I’m hungry.”

“Baby all I have is a tomato sandwich.”

“…Ok. I’ll try one.”

Then Mom would tell us how good that tomato sandwich was and how she still loved tomato sandwiches.

The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. Proverbs 27:7

Thanks for reading! I’m fixing to go make an egg salad and anchovy sandwich.