The Big Shot

I never ate at a Chinese restaurant as a child. While dad liked to inhabit any establishment that had a bar, which included most Chinese restaurants in Minneapolis, my mother was of a culinarily suspicious nature when it came to foreign food.

“No telling what those people put in their food” she told me many a time. “Probably loaded with creeping charlie weeds and such.”

So when I finally shook off the dust of my feet at the age of 17 to go work for Ringling Brothers as a clown down in Florida, one of my first forays out to eat was to the Golden Buddha in Sarasota. I was entranced with sweet and sour pork; intoxicated by Peking duck; and immediately addicted to the steaming piles of egg foo young that came with a mountain of steamed white rice. This, I told myself as I tucked in, is what the Celestial Kingdom will be like. I blew through a whole week’s food budget in one meal.

Like all the other First of Mays I was on half pay during rehearsals, and had to subsist on pbj sandwiches, bananas, and canned tuna with crackers. Nasty, nasty, stuff.

But then out of the blue my mother, who could only predict dire consequences for me as a circus clown, sent me a check for a hundred dollars, hoping I would use it to keep myself well fed and for godsake to buy some new underwear.

Strutting about center ring during a lull in rehearsals like old man Rockefeller dispensing his dimes, I let it be known I had come into a small fortune and would shortly be treating the clown illuminati to a fine meal at the Golden Buddha.

Suddenly I had more friends than I could shake a stick at.

Whereas before my ship came in I was treated pretty much like the slow-witted kid down the block who needed help to blow his own nose, now I was treated like a big shot. At least by the First of Mays, who I knew were desperate for a free meal where they could stuff themselves. I let myself be petted and cozened, complimented and fawned upon. Like Bob Hope in a Road Picture with Bing Crosby, I could lap up the flattery with a brazen conceit while still doubting that it was really genuine.

The next Friday night, after I’d cashed my windfall, I and a dozen other clowns commandeered a fleet of taxis to take us from the backwaters of Venice to the bright lights and soy sauce of the Golden Buddha in Sarasota. All on me, of course.

There was Bear, and Chico, and Rufus T. Goofus, and the Little Guy, and Anchor Face, and Rubber Neck, and Sparky, and Sandy, and the Tasmanian Devil (a dwarf -- Taz, for short), and Colavecchio, and the Dorfman.

Swaggering into the main dining area, I commandeered an obsequious waiter, instructing him to locate us at the largest groaning board available. Sensing a bonanza from such a yokel, he hurried us into a side banquet room and began suggesting appetizers. Bring ‘em all, I commanded. Nothing is too good for my friends.

A round of ravenous applause followed my extravagant pronunciamento, immediately followed, however, by groans and catcalls when I produced a pint of milk from a brown paper bag I had brought with me. I wasn’t about to pay a dollar for one measly glass of milk! I drank at least three glasses of milk with every meal -- otherwise I felt starved. I had done that ever since I was weaned. My mother never stinted on the moo juice for us kids -- she kept the milkman hopping for twenty years.

Don’t embarrass us, the ingrates shouted at me. Ditch the milk and get a beer like a real man they hollered.

“Just a cotton-pickin’ minute!” I shouted back at ‘em. “I’m drinking my milk whether you greaseballs like it or not! And another thing -- I ain’t paying for no beer! You can have soda pop or water. That’s all!” I sat down amidst more hisses than you’d hear in a radiator factory, but I held my ground. The only one not to give me the fish eye was Bear -- he and I were the only Mormons in the entire circus that season. But good cheer was quickly restored with the arrival of the appetizers -- spring rolls and egg rolls and crispy noodles with calamari and rice balls rolled in sesame seeds, and deep fried wontons filled with pork sausage.

Gad, did we dig in and eat!  

Rufus T. Goofus could not resist juggling the rice balls -- sending them flying around the room like fragrant meteorites.

Everyone, including me, ordered at least two entrees, and soon the table was loaded with steaming platters of everything from chicken feet to skewers of pork liver. The bean sprouts flowed like wine. We used up more soy sauce than the troops during Mao Zedong’s Long March back in 1934. Stacks of thin Mandarin pancakes came and went like flapjacks at a lumberjack camp.

The feeding frenzy lasted a good hour, after which everyone leaned back and groaned ingreasy, MSG-induced ecstasy. Our belches would have made Fu Manchu homesick.

The bill came to 95 dollars. So I left the remaining five dollars as a tip. On our way out our waiter fixed me with a murderous eye, no doubt casting an obscene oriental curse on me and my progeny until the end of time.

I didn’t have dime one to get us back to Venice, but I was so stuffed with good food that I really didn’t care if we had to walk the 23 miles. Luckily everyone was still in a jolly mood and everyone pitched in to pay the fleet of taxis the Golden Buddha staff had summoned for us.

Back in rehearsals the next Monday, it was back to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with a green unripe banana for dessert and lukewarm tap water to wash it all down with. But to me it had been worth it. I was a big shot, for a little while, with my First of May buddies. Once they found out my wealth was as ephemeral as the Edsel they reverted to addressing me as “Pinhead” and never leaving space for me on the ring curb to sit while we waited for the circus director, Richard Barstow, to stop yelling at the Hungarians and get on with things. I had been very foolish with my money, like the Prodigal son, but somehow the husks I was forced to nosh on were not the least bit disgusting. I figured the next time I got a hold of a hundred bucks I’d go to a used book store and buy me a library.

Ledes & Limericks. Saturday March 3 2018

Marriott Employee Roy Jones Hit ‘Like.’

Then China Got Mad from the Wall Street Journal

The Chinese have such a thin skin

They always set up quite a din

When foreigners hint

There might be a tint

Of something that’s rotten within.

The tiny alpine principality, sandwiched between Switzerland

and Austria, is one of a handful of European countries

that dominate the niche business of producing roller

coasters.  From the Wall Street Journal

Lichtenstein builds roller coasters; artisans there know

How to make a chassis that will give you vertigo.

America has lost its lead in this niche industry;

We depend on foreigners to give us syncope!

Raise the tariff on these fiends, who have usurped the craft

Of making children soil themselves upon a mere crankshaft.

Bans on Plastic Straws in Restaurants

Expand to More Cities

When visiting Malibu Beach

Make sure that you never do reach

For white plastic straws

Or you’ll feel how claws

From high-minded bureaucrats’ reach.

Éducation sexuelle vs éducation financière

L'auguste Église d'Angleterre, chef de la foi anglicane autour du monde, a publié une déclaration sous le nom de l'évêque de Canterbury en disant que les gens devraient apprendre davantage sur la finance que d'apprendre sur l'éducation sexuelle. Dans un livre blanc adressé au Parlement de Grande-Bretagne, l'Église d'Angleterre prévient que la connaissance de la finance devrait avoir préséance sur la diffusion du savoir charnel, en particulier dans les écoles. Justin Welby, l'archevêque de Canterbury, a publié une déclaration plus tôt dans la semaine sous le titre d'Initiative d'éducation financière, coparrainée par le Comité de justice financière, exprimant sa préoccupation que l'accent continu sur l'éducation sexuelle et relationnelle dans les écoles britanniques à «haut risque» de négliger les aspects les plus pratiques d'une bonne vie - à savoir, la planification financière et la responsabilité - pour les aspects plus glamour et fascinants des relations sexuelles. L'archevêque ajoute que beaucoup de parents trouvent plus difficile de discuter des principes financiers avec leurs enfants que de discuter des faits de base de la sexualité. Il a également déclaré que les enfants de l'école primaire doivent apprendre à un âge précoce les inconvénients de s'endetter pour des articles superflus tels que des vêtements à la mode, des voitures et de longues vacances payées par carte de crédit et qui ne sont même pas considérées comme de la dette. les jeunes. La planification financière, a déclaré l'archevêque, conduit à l'indépendance financière, qui est essentielle pour créer et maintenir des relations viables et élever la prochaine génération d'enfants.

networks hide nature

networks hide nature

and the beauty is upstaged

behind a black grid

divine yearnings

There are vague stirrings

and divine yearnings beyond

the eye of dawning

A Clown Show for Grandma Daisy

As my mother lay dying of congestive heart failure in her ninety-third year, she started talking to her own mother, who had passed away long ago. Her mother would come to visit as the sun began to set, and they would talk about old troubles and sorrows. I was my mother’s caregiver for those last few months of her life. Of course, I only heard my mother’s side of these conversations. One late afternoon as the last rays of the sun slanted through the venetian blinds of her bedroom, mom perked up and said “Oh mother, I’m glad you came today. Remember when Timmy came to visit you out at the home in New Brighton? Remember he did a show, just for you!”

I couldn’t stay in her bedroom any longer -- for I, too, remembered that performance. It was the last time I saw my grandma Daisy alive.  

It was back in 1973. Finished with the season at Ringling Brothers Circus as a clown, I was staying with my parents in Minneapolis, making final preparations for my two year proselytizing LDS mission in Thailand. There was my passport and visas to get processed; dental work to be done (all LDS missionaries at the time were required to have every one of their wisdom teeth extracted prior to arriving in Salt Lake for indoctrination); banking details to work out at the Farmers & Mechanics Bank; and sober white shirts, dark slack pants, and plain black ties to purchase -- along with a pair of Red Wing mailman shoes, guaranteed to last a minimum of five years (they only lasted me six months in Thailand, and then turned green with mold and disintegrated.)

Poor grandma Daisy was already in the nursing home by then. She was unable to walk up the single flight of stairs to her attic apartment and had gone to live with Aunt Ruby in Edina. They had a very big house. But once there she kept turning on the stove to make tea and then forgetting about it, or wandering out into the street in her bathrobe looking for the vegetable pushcart or fish vendor of seventy years before. Aunt Ruby had no choice but to take her to the nursing home in New Brighton, where she cried herself to sleep every night until her mind mercifully dried up. She became immobile and unsmiling, and my mother took the bus to see her every other day and hand fed her, since she refused to feed herself.

I went to see her with mom a few times, this lovely little lady who used to eat Old Dutch Onion & Garlic Potato chips with me when no one else in the family would touch them with a ten foot pole. Her hugs smelled like lavender and Lipton tea bags. She had a big wobbly smile; her dentures were never too securely anchored. Her false teeth had flown out of her mouth into the punch bowl while laughing at a joke at my brother Bill’s first wedding.

I wanted to reach through that veil to let her know I still cared for her and needed her love in return. It was very hard being the only LDS member in the family; not to mention being a baggy pants buffoon for a living. There was little approval -- but I knew grandma Daisy would have not only approved but given me steady encouragement in that soft, Kentish accent of hers. She was born in Swanscombe, Kent, and sounded for all the world like Stan Laurel.

So I decided to visit her nursing home to do a clown show. I’d done plenty of hospital shows with Ringling. There was an outdoor patio where I set up my props and ran my music -- I used a cassette tape called “E. Power Biggs Plays Scott Joplin Rags on the Pedal Harpsichord.”

That day grandma Daisy lost her glasses -- mom said they were stolen and sold for their silver frames by one of the nursing staff. No one had combed her hair that day. And she was getting a goiter. She and a dozen others were wheeled out onto the patio, where I started into my schtick.

I worked like a Trojan for thirty minutes; juggling, doing pratfalls and a dozen other standard slapstick gambits. The old people sat in their wheelchairs, mummering and grim. One lady kept whimpering “I want to go home -- please take me home -- they’ll be hungry -- I have to go home -- please take me home . . . “

I was covered in flop sweat -- a terrible feeling of drowning when you don’t connect to the audience.

Then I took my musical saw out of its trombone case and began playing. Suddenly the old folks sat up a little and began to smile and nod. Here was something at last that was getting through to them, although in a rather high-pitched and quavery tone. I played “Toyland” by Victor Herbert. Then “Aloha ‘Oe.” I ended with “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” Now even the staff, who had hitherto been busy smoking and gossiping in the corner, were nodding and smiling their heads.

And grandma Daisy . . .

I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. Was that a smile just for me? Could she, would she, say something to me, just to me? I put my saw down and ran over to her, kneeling by her wheelchair.

“Grandma” I whispered, breaking character completely. “Grandma, it’s me -- Timmy. Can you hear me? Tell me you liked the show, grandma. Please . . . “     

But the glimmer was gone, if it had ever been there. Her mouth hung open. Her dentures hadn’t been cleaned in a long time; they were yellow and grimy. She stared out into a gray nothingness -- feeling nothing, thinking nothing, being nothing.

I took one last pratfall before bowing and loping away to a smattering of applause from the staff. Then everyone was wheeled back inside. I used the public restroom in the lobby to take off my costume and makeup. I couldn’t bear to go see grandma Daisy again, so I got the bus and went home, where my Letter from Salt Lake had finally come, telling me to be at the Mission Home by next Monday. Dad drove me to the airport, shook my hand, and told me I was a fool for going.

And while I was knocking on doors in the Kingdom of Thailand, Daisy Ellen Bedelle finally took flight back to that welcoming Home that awaits us all.

Europe was colder than the Arctic this week

It got so cold in Venice that the gondolas all fused

Into a massive iceberg that left tourists quite bemused.

In Paris icicles did grow upon the Eiffel Tower;

Parisiens put on ice skates during afternoon rush hour.

And snow was falling thick and fast in places like Madrid;

Flamenco dancers killed themselves when into walls they slid!

Meanwhile in the Arctic it was balmy as could be;

The polar bears used sunscreen as if way down in Capri.

This topsy turvy weather comes when polar vortex walls

Tumble like at Jericho, producing lusty squalls

That swoop down upon Europe, giving residents chilblains,

And trace post modern doodles with rime frost on window panes.

So next time you’re in Europe, just forget sunglasses, chum,

And bring a fleecy blanket to keep warm your frozen bum.   

Reporters making minimum wage

“The problem is that the money generated by news

audiences is flowing primarily to Google and Facebook,

and not to the reporters and publishers who produce

excellent journalism,” said Chavern.  From Forbes.

With Google and Facebook combined,

Reporters on their daily grind

Will mostly engage

For minimum wage,

While to trending stories confined.

Uncle Jim and the Rat in the Beer Bottle

One of dad’s older brothers, James Lee Torkildson, grew up to be a butcher who worked at the Red Owl Supermarket in New Brighton, Minnesota, for over thirty years. And he was a happy butcher. In fact, I’d say he was, without doubt, the happiest butcher in Minnesota. And here’s why:

One mellow spring day Uncle Jim and my dad, whom he called Barney for reasons now lost in the mists of time and beer, drove over to the Grain Belt Brewery near the Hennepin Avenue Bridge leading into downtown Minneapolis. Their purpose was simple -- their wives each wanted a gallon of the sweet spring water the Brewery had on tap for the public, free of charge, running out of a spigot on the south wall of the building. My mother said it made for the best coffee in the world. And, of course, dad and Uncle Jim would also each pick up a wooden carton with a dozen brown Grain Belt Beer bottles in it. No sane man would drive several miles just for WATER, for gosh sakes!

They filled their water jugs and bought their beer. And then they decided to take advantage of the park-like grounds that surrounded the brewery, complete with large shade trees and picnic tables, to relax and hoist a few lukewarm bottles. It was when Uncle Jim was ready to uncap the second bottle from his carton that he noticed something unusual through the amber glass.

“Hey Barney” he asked my dad, “what the hell does that look like to you?”

Dad, who felt obligated to drink three beers for every one beer that his older brother drank, sent a juicy belch into the spring air before gazing somewhat unsteadily into the depths of Uncle Jim’s bottle.

“Damned if I know” he grunted. “Could be a rat.”

“Holy Hannah, you’re right!” shouted Uncle Jim. “There’s a rotte or mus or something in there!”

The two men looked at each other a moment, completely nonplussed. Then with a shrug Uncle Jim started to uncap the bottle -- rotte or not, he was still thirsty. But my dad stopped him.

“Wait a minute, drittsekk. Don’t open that thing! Let’s take it up to the president of the company and see what he’ll give us to shut up about it.”

A few moments later they were ushered into a wood paneled office that smelled of beeswax and hops. An elderly gentleman, dressed in a salt and pepper suit with a tall batwing collar, bade them sit down and asked to examine the bottle in question. Dad said they never heard what the man’s name was, but since he had not one but two brass spittoons in his office he must have been awful important.  

The spiffy dresser did not take long to make up his mind. After finding out that the bottle was bought by Uncle Jim, not my dad, he offered Uncle Jim a lifetime’s supply of Grain Belt Beer -- as much as he wanted and delivered as often as he wanted right to his doorstep. If Uncle Jim would remain silent. He offered my dad nothing. This upset dad, but nobly thrusting aside any sibling resentment, he demanded the bottled rat back just as the awful important gentleman was easing it into a drawer in his mahogany desk. Reluctantly, he returned it to Uncle Jim.

As my dad never tired of repeating to me and my sisters (my mother never stood around long enough to hear this part -- once he started on this saga she shot her eyes to the heavens with a weary sigh and headed for the nearest exit) he figured that if Uncle Jim kept that thing in the bottle safe and sound the Brewery would never renege on their promise of free suds.

And so it came to pass that Uncle Jim never drank a glass of milk or cup of coffee or a sip of tap water. Ever again. He had beer for breakfast. He had beer for lunch. He had beer for dinner. And when he wanted a nightcap before bed, he had a cold Grain Belt waiting for him on his night stand.

By rights he should have been plastered every day by ten in the morning, but outside of a yeasty miasma that hung over him like swamp gas, he never showed any ill effects from all that beer. He never lost a finger at his job as a butcher. Was never in an auto accident. Never grew argumentative or maudlin with friends and family. I went ice fishing with him on White Bear Lake once and asked him straight out how he kept from becoming a sloppy drunk like my dad did when he hoisted a few too many. With a wink and a grin, he pulled out a package of Ry Krisp crackers and offered me one.

“I snack on this stuff all day long, Timmy. They soak up the alcohol like nobody’s bizness. Your Aunt Annette keeps these all over the house and in the garage and in the car and I got a big box of ‘em at work. I’ll get Barney a big box of his own -- maybe that’ll straighten him out.”

Before he died in 1994 Uncle Jim took me into his basement to show me the famous rat in the bottle. It had sat undisturbed amidst half opened wood putty cans and cankered hand tools for nearly three decades, and when I looked at it there was nothing to see but some indistinct shreds of matter that settled to the bottom after I gave the bottle a gentle shake. Whatever had originally been in that bottle had long ago dissolved. But -- and this is the fairy tale part -- the free beer just kept coming for Uncle Jim. When he finally kicked the bucket I doubt they had to put any formaldehyde in him -- he had been embalming himself for a good thirty years already!

It's Official: The 'news' on Facebook is gossip and hearsay

In doing so, the company becomes the latest

publisher to feel the effects of a decision announced

by Facebook in January to prioritize posts published

by users’ friends and family members and de-emphasize

those posted by news organizations and publishers.

From the Wall Street Journal

The only news people will read

Is gossip and hearsay indeed.

Reporters who write

With truthful insight

Their fam’lies can no longer feed.