Prose Poem: Ariel Cheung. by Tim Torkildson.

 

 

 

Ariel Cheung, a food columnist at the Chicago Tribune, did not find my faux profile of her funny. This is her huffy response to it: "Hey there, I’m uncomfortable with that google doc you just shared. I don’t appreciate my name being incorporated in a work of fiction without my consent."

If you missed it, here is the profile I wrote and emailed to her --

 

A new year demands a new profile. So I have provided one for you. At no charge. I hope you enjoy it.

You always know a journalist by the size of their feet.

That’s because they get larger the longer they’ve been schlepping about, hunting down sources and interviewing world-shakers and salt shakers.

You try wandering around all day searching for lukewarm coffee you can sip and make faces about, just to prove you’re a dyed-in-the-wool reporter, and see how big and flat your feet get!

But that’s not the case with journalist Ariel Chung. Despite many long years on the beat for newspapers such as The News-Register, The Dayton Daily News, USA Today, The Sun Times, and The Chicago Tribune, her feet remain petite.

That’s because she has been trying to get out of journalism ever since she first got into it. She actually wanted to be a saucier in some small Parisien bistro in Montmartre. Whipping up a pale bechamel or golden veloute for heure du dejeuner customers.

But her reporting skills have been so spot-on that editors resort to powerful blandishments such as gargantuan hiring bonuses and a lifetime supply of Bic pens to keep her coming back to the Fourth Estate.

An Avalanche of Accolades

Every time she writes a story it automatically wins some kind of prize. The Prix de Guerre, a Pulitzer, the Order of the Garter, or Victoria Cross. She’s had to rent a garage out in Kankakee just to store ‘em all in.

As a third grader she went undercover in the teacher’s lounge to discover that the impoverished educators were siphoning off rubber bands to sell on the black market just to make ends meet. Her story, published in the Chalkboard Chatterer, blew the lid off of the dirty politics of the local school board that kept teacher salaries below the level of sharecroppers. Six members of the board subsequently committed seppuku.

But Her Heart Connected Only With Cordon Bleu

A life of fame and fortune was hers to grasp. She needed merely to obtain a notepad and a pencil, and then begin to write. Newspaper publishers salivated at the mention of her name. But Ariel had other plans. She saw herself wielding a spatula, not a quill. Deftly turning out crepes suzette, not exposes. But a second cousin once removed suffers from a rare genetic disorder – Aquagenic Urticaria. Treatment is a long drawn out and expensive process, so Ariel agreed to pay the medical bills. Her dreams of a Michelin five-star place of her own were put on hold, and she now aggressively goes after malefactors of crummy cuisine for The Chicago Tribune.

The Scourge of Criminal Cuisine

Chefs who cut corners in the Chicagoland area tremble at the mention of her moniker.

Do they adulterate their saffron with turmeric? She’s on to their little game.

Perhaps they don’t scruple to substitute oleo margarine for Irish butter in a Dutch Baby. She falls on them like a ton of Swedes.

Her keen nose and discerning palate roots out canned soup casseroles masquerading as haute cuisine. No snob she, at church basement suppers she digs into a bowl of beanie weinie with all the gusto of a longshoreman. Her passion for deep dish pizza knows no bounds. She travels to the ends of the earth (or at least as far as Waukeegan) searching for the perfect farmhouse chicken and dumplings. Cruel in her denunciation of slipshod stewing, she is equally generous in her praise of simple straightforward American cooking.

In Her Spare Time . . .

She raises heritage reindeer lichen in an old rathskeller she is currently remodeling.

And . . . she’s always dreaming of that day when she can slip away from all the sturm und drang of journalistic renown to retire to that little white cottage in Maine. Where she’ll serve gluten-free apple fritters to wandering gypsies . . .

waking up as a child

As a child I woke up to sunshine. Even when the weather was rainy and overcast. I woke up to sunshine inside myself. That is part of the magic of childhood. Of my childhood. I woke up with an attitude of boundless possibilities. Of bright prospects. Except the one summer in grade school, when, for some deranged reason, I took a summer school class. How to make wooden puppets. It was taught by the one truly witch-like teacher at Tuttle. Her name is gone from my mind. But the memory of her visage still makes me uneasy. The poor woman was homely and impatient with children. She should not have become an elementary school teacher. She was fitted for a life as a matron at a women's prison. But somewhere along the line someone she trusted must have told her she should be a teacher. So she spent a lifetime intimidating children instead of keeping felons in check. The first morning I woke up that summer, the summer I was supposed to take her class, I experienced a keen sense of dread and dismay. These were foreign emotions to me up until then. Up until then I had gone about doing as I pleased, whether good or bad, and never worrying about the consequences. Good things meant pleasant rewards, or, at least, being left alone. Bad things brought a tongue lashing from my mother, which I accepted as the normal course of events that just had to be waited out like a thunder shower. So that first morning I simply stayed in bed. I had to pee, but I stayed in bed with my eyes squeezed shut. Pretending to be asleep. And mom came up to wake me up. But I wouldn't respond. It lay in bed, stiff as a board. She knew I was faking it. But she wisely decided not to make an issue of it. As a result, I was allowed to oversleep and to miss breakfast. And to miss the puppet making class. And miss the witch teacher. That poor old woman. She was in charge of the Patrol at Tuttle. The kids who got to wear a bright orange vest and wave a bright red flag had the awesome power to stop speeding cars on Como Avenue so kids could cross the street to and from school. Because sixty years ago that job was given to kids – adults had nothing to do with stopping traffic. Kids were allowed to take care of many things by themselves back then. Or maybe just ignored. Adults didn’t think of kids as a valuable resource so much as a nuisance that had to be kept busy so they wouldn’t intrude themselves too much. So dress ‘em up in a vest and give ‘em a flag to wave at traffic. As far as i know no kid was ever mowed down by a Chevy. The witch in winter made us Patrol members hot chocolate. But it was disheartening stuff. Thin and unsweet, with a mucous membrane forming on top of the cup. We accepted the mugs she gave us, then waited for her back to be turned to dump it out in the sink. Strange to say, every classroom at Tuttle had its own sink back then. Why? I guess to wash our hands. And kids used to throw up a lot more at school than they do now. If a kid turned green and raised his or her hand, the teacher gave a nod and the kid ran to the sink and hurled. I did it myself several times that i remember. Afterwards we sat back down at our desk like nothing happened. We weren’t sent to the school nurse or sent home. Kids were always vomiting. Teachers accepted it as part of the job. My mom didn’t worry when i came home from school to tell her i had thrown up. Unless i had stained my shirt. Like i said, kids were expected to share in the hardness and pain of life much sooner back in those wild and wooly days. Or that was my impression. My memory. And memory is always suspect. Don’t forget that. You never remember the truth. You remember a feeling or an emotion. Only inconsequential remembered details are the absolute rock bottom truth. And will be verified when we can “see as we are seen” after the resurrection. When I woke up as a kid I would stare at my bedroom ceiling. At the crack in the ceiling. It looked like the coast of an island. To me. I took myself to that island, that sunny island. Where there were palm trees and coconuts on the shore. Monkeys loping about with their charlie chaplin walk. I floated in the warm salt water until I finally drifted away from land. Then had to run to the bathroom. In the winter i awoke to the insistent clanking of the furnace in the basement. As soon as the thermostat was raised from the overnight 65 degrees to the daytime 72 degrees that behemoth down below shook itself from its torpor. Roaring to life with blazing fuel oil so that all the air vents expanded with the noise of a tray of cheap dinnerware falling on a concrete floor. I listened to that clanking while lying in bed with the covers up to my chin. I wore a pair of my dad’s capacious white socks to bed in winter to keep my feet warm. As the furnace clanked i put myself on a train. Swaying and clanking. Then stopping with a jolt as i got off with a suitcase full of R.C. cola and bags of Old Dutch Onion & Garlic potato chips. Then i’d be hungry enough to come downstairs for breakfast. In summer it was corn flakes. In winter it was cream of wheat. On sundays mom always made waffles. If i couldn’t fill each little hollow square of my waffle with syrup, if mom said ‘that’s enough!’ before each square was full, i refused to eat my waffle. Complaining it was too dry. Sometime i got more syrup. Sometimes i didn’t. But i always drank two big glasses of milk at breakfast. Then it was heave-ho, outside you go! Either to school or to frolic with my friends during summer vacation at Van Cleve Park. So waking up as a kid always meant sunshine to me. Nowadays i wake up twice each night to use the bathroom. Then have to read myself back to sleep. And when i can no longer keep my eyes closed i remember i have six pills to take. Supposed to be on an empty stomach. And don’t forget the vitamin d so your bones don’t get all brittle and start to break when you sneeze. That’s what the doctor said – ‘you’re losing too much calcium.’ he didn’t say my bones would break if i sneezed but he said i should take care not to fall down. He said take vitamin d. Lots of it. Amy buys me gummy vitamin d. Fruit flavored. So i guess i still wake up to sunshine. Because i wake up to her.

The Old Funeral Home. Chapter 6. Part One.

 

The Old Funeral Home  Chapter 6 Part One

We have taken a hiatus from the writing of this novel slash memoir. We started in the giddy springtime. (of our first year being remarried) then at the end of a full ripe summer we stopped. (ran out of ideas and triggers) Amy’s ears were getting worse. (it seemed like to him because he was tired of having to enunciate every word) My voice and imagination were growing ragged.

Now it is the new year. The first day of the new year. 2023. And we start again. 

But where do we start? I have to speak much louder and be more articulate for Amy to take my dictation. It wears me out rather quickly. (sorry, my hearing is as it has been since getting back together with Tim, I just make sure I hear and ask questions if I don’t. So to avoid the questions and the tedious conversations about what I thought I heard he tries to speak more clearly and slowly. And so it makes sense that he gets worn out.) I am tempted to just spout a series of haiku, and let the reader tear away the veil of obscurity. But that would be cheating. ( hahaha. Our memories are vague enough that it seems like cheating to write what we do since to rely on memory for what used to be or what happened is a work in obscurity already!!)

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One reason I loved that place is because it was crammed with books. The old funeral home in Tioga, ND, had books in the sewing room, in the back bedroom (library – bedroom) and the basement seemed to be walled with paperbacks (it wasn’t because we had flooding every year in the basement so all the books had been brought upstairs to the library that was the spare bedroom when one was needed. There were five bedrooms in the basement that used to be rooms for prepared bodies to rest while fitting them to their casket. Mom had done a remodel of the basement and put up covered sheetrock to make the rooms more appealing to the kids who slept there. It was pretty creepy to think about the kind of business that had to happen in that place. Especially if you were a teenager with a vivid imagination anyway!)

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I never asked Amy when we were courting why there were so many books around; where they all came from. But I’m asking her now. So “Amy, what’s the deal with all those books?”

“Well, Tim, those books are a representation of my mother’s love of reading. Her passionate unrequited love for learning in a formal institution. Her desire to instill in her children the value of reading and to fulfill her insatiable appetite for reading. She had several collections of great works. Earl Stanley Gardner’s 70 books. Louis L'aMour's 120 books. Zane Grey’s 40 books. National Geographic magazines from 1955 forward, same with Readers Digest magazines and Church magazines from 1966. We kept macaroni boxes, the three pound size, to store the magazines on the shelves. It was effective though not the prettiest look. 

Moving to a new home didn't happen often because we had lots of kids and stuff ( clothes and a few things for each person) but lots of books too. When we moved from Williston to the bar in Ross, ND in 1964, I don’t recall the unpacking of so many books but I remember several bookcases that my dad had made. They got ruined in the basement of the old funeral home because of the flooding. Mom had purchased a metal DIY bookshelf kit to line the walls of the bar first. Then the trailer house of the farm in 1972 because the tiny two bedroom house on the site would not hold our 11 children family. The day we moved into the old funeral home July 31,1977, child number 12 came to reside with us. We began our library in the basement until we discovered the flooding was annual, in the spring. I helped move the library upstairs when I came home from college one summer. When I graduated and came back to Tioga to teach I moved to the “Mother-in-law’s house” out behind the house. It was a three room place with a nook for a bathroom that I don’t count as a room. Moving to that place made sense because the spare bedroom had become a Teenager’s room as the little girls were growing and needing their own space. The metal bookcase was moved upstairs to the library in TOFH until one day it tipped and Dad –  being retired – put up fitted wooden bookshelves to hold the books and photo albums. The sewing room held the video collection of old video cassette tapes. There were some audio cassettes as well. Mom was big on recording everything. She had one of the first home movie cameras on “super 8” film. She graduated to a camera that filmed directly to a cassette tape as soon as that was available. My little sister has transferred much of that to DVD’s and we have a 5 disc set of all the footage.”

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Now I may be wrong. And if I am, Amy will be sure to correct the record. But I remember stealing my first kiss from her against one of the bookcases in the basement in the old funeral home in Tioga.

I have always considered the physical contact of the lips to be the most sensual and exciting moments in a physical relationship. I just tested this out now, by getting out of my recliner, and bending over Amy's in her recliner. And kissing her long and passionately. I feel sorry for those who have no one they can kiss. I know what it is like to kiss, to be kissed, and not to have anyone to kiss. I would prefer to kiss Amy on the lips to an anchovy Pizza or even my name on the New York Times Best Seller List. (now that’s saying something!!!)

I have finished for now. (every sentence but one in the previous paragraph has begun with the word “I”. Knowing that it is a writing red flag for professional writing, I work at varying each initial word. Tim doesn’t really care. That’s ok with me. And I get a sense of comfort knowing that he can decide to be who he is and not care what someone else thinks. Of course, when we work with the AI tools and must meet certain standards, I have the work of changing the things he has written if the beginning of sentences are more than two that start the same.)

 

I forgot to mention how involved my dad was in the collections of books. Mom and Dad used to read to each other before the days of TV. Dad liked to read for a while before he went to sleep, when he was retired. Mom joined a book of the month club early in their marriage. She’d get a deal if she ordered a series. I think she got three books at a time. They liked the Perry Mason mysteries and the jokes in the Reader’s Digest. The westerns of Zane Grey and Louis L’aMour. I forgot to mention Edgar Rice Burroughs. And the three sets of Encyclopedias.I didn’t ever read any of those books until I was in bed for months, pregnant and bleeding. Convalescing at my parent’s home in Tioga. In a room with no TV, with children and nothing to do but watch someone else care for them.) 

a new year letter to my kids.

 

4:27 a.m. Sunday January 1  2023

Amy and i are now binge watching Grey’s Anatomy.  All 18 seasons of it. We watched it from 5 p.m. until nearly 11 p.m. yesterday. We ate shrimp and drank sparkling white grape juice. I fell asleep before midnight but woke up for the fireworks and then couldn’t go back to sleep cuz of heavy night sweats and hot flashes(symptomatic of something or other – i get them all the time – but not worth going to the doctor about.) amy got up at 4 this morning, and i soon followed. So now she’s in the kitchen in her white pajamas cutting patterns with parchment paper for baking and i’m in my recliner writing this – whatever it is – hoping i’ll get sleepy enough again to steal a few more hours of slumber. We don’t need to be up early anymore on sundays – church doesn’t start until 1 p.m.

I’m going to put cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions, and diced salt pork in the slow cooker sometime today to serve for dinner. But right now i’m not obsessed with it, so maybe it won’t even happen until tomorrow. After all, a cabbage lasts a long time in the fridge. 

I figured i’d be up early today, so i spent time racking my brains last night trying to recall a story or incident from my fabled past to share this morning, but everything that came to mind i’ve already written about. So instead i’ll dive into a deep and tedious analysis of my poetry from this past week. I may discover something about myself that i didn’t know before. You will probably fall into a deep coma if you are foolhardy enough to continue reading this dreck.

Stay with the wife whom thou lovest;

the grass ain't no greener elsewhere.

Cherish her faults and her graces;

brickbats and pouting her spare.

Start the new year with a promise

to understand more of her heart.

Joy will be yours if you try it

(and you will grow deaf when she's tart.)

I wrote this item two days ago, after reading Ecclesiastes 9:9 –

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

This is a prime example of a poem getting away from me. I wanted it to be about the profound joy in marriage, to celebrate the richness and enduring comfort of it. But instead the rhymes led me to create a flippant new year’s resolution. Not what i wanted to say at all – but i couldn’t resist the gag ending once i wrote it down.  I recall a long time ago the advice of a professor friend of mine, John McCabe, who wrote the first biography of Laurel & Hardy. He said “don’t be afraid to kill your babies.” meaning don’t be afraid to edit and rewrite your work. I should have done that with the above piece – but . . . but . . . i’m also a big believer in what Allen Ginsburg said: “first thought, best thought.”  i usually go with the first draft of what i write, because most if not all of what i write is ephemera anyway – here today and gone tomorrow. About as worth remembering as a hallmark card.

John McCabe – now there’s a name i haven’t thought about in a long time. He was the very first ‘pen pal’ i ever had. So here’s a memory to share that i don’t think youse guys know about.

My first season with Ringling back in 1972 i wrote a fan letter to john mccabe via his publisher Random House, for his book mr. laurel and mr. hardy. In the letter i told him that his wonderful book was directly responsible for inspiring me to go to clown college. I wrote the letter on ringling stationary, with the ringling logo on it, and put it in a ringling envelope, with the gaudy ringling logo on it. It must have impressed him, for Lo & behold, he got my letter and responded by complimenting my writing and encouraging me to continue to write about being a circus clown – and that he would help me write something that a magazine might publish.  Heady stuff for an 18 year old kid, i can tell you that.

So we kept corresponding. He taught shakespeare at lake superior state university in sault ste marie, michigan. 

When i went to mexico in 73 with steve smith to study pantomime with maestro sigfrido aguilar our correspondence really picked up. Several letters back and forth each week. I had finally settled on writing a piece about  playing the musical saw and mccabe was helping me smooth out the rough spots.

I bought my musical saw from the Mussehl & Westphal company my first year with ringling, and by the time i was in mexico i was pretty good at it. I carried it around in an old trombone case, but before going to mexico i worked with my childhood friend wayne matsuura to make a new carrying case for it. We used two heavy wooden slabs. Gouged them out and put hinges on them for the saw and violin bow. Then attached a sturdy leather handle. That thing weighed a ton, but i lugged it all over mexico and then with the circus again when steve smith and i were the advance clowns for the blue unit of ringling.

I submitted my musical saw article to reader’s digest but never heard back from them. I kept corresponding with john mccabe over the years and finally got to meet him when i went to the clown college reunion in 1985 down in venice florida. By then he was retired from teaching, his wife was gravely ill, and his own health was bad. He was there as the guest speaker for the reunion. At first he didn’t remember me at all when i introduced myself to him, and then seemed to resent having me around. So i made myself scarce. It was quite a let down for me, and i never wrote him again after that.  Still, i recall the thrill of writing to a real bona fide university professor and having him respond – that really meant something to me as a young college-bereft kid. I still get a kick being around university professors. And others who are educated and well-spoken.

Whew . . . i’m glad i unloaded that memory. Now i’ll never have to deal with it again.

ev'ryone's an expert

about the healthy gut.

they've got a probiotic

to stop it going shut.

I'm weary of their input;

why can't they just stay mute?

my bowels are very private

(although they like to toot.)

This one practically wrote itself last friday after i deleted yet another probiotic cookie from the website i use to check the local weather.  An army may travel on its stomach, but apparently seniors depend on their bowel movements to get around. Amy has me eating lots of yogurt and i take 2 tablespoons of Metamucil a day, so my innards are just fine, thank you, if a little gassy. 

I wonder if i wrote any haiku last week? I’ll have to check . . . 

Yeah, i wrote this one last tuesday —

Why is it a glass

Of lemonade is all that

I can think of tonight?

This one i wrote last sunday  —-

It is peaceful on

The cold freeways this morning

With jaded Santas.

I remember at the time of writing these they impressed me as deep and portentous. Now on rereading, they don’t impress me at all. Please don’t include them in my posthumous anthology of great works. 

(it is now 5:37 a.m. and amy has gone back to bed. I wish i could, but i’m not a bit sleepy. So i’ll keep writing – worse luck for you!)

One final poem. This one is from last saturday —

The Grinch used cancel culture on Xmas eve this year. He got a lot of bigots to boycott Xmas cheer. No eggnog in the punch bowl. No Santa and his sleigh. The elves were sent to gulags. And kids ate kale all day. 

I’ve been trying to understand just exactly what cancel culture is. I have a lot of twitter followers who are journalists, and they use that term all the time. It seems to be a highly charged hot button phrase – with conservatives condemning it and liberals defending it. As far as i can dope it out, it means ostracizing people and organizations that hold views you don’t like or agree with. Boycotting a company, for instance, because their CEO backs Trump's reelection or unfollowing somebody on social media like elon musk because he comes across as such a jerk and has fired a lot of employees at his companies.  If that is what cancel culture really is then getting upset about it is just a tempest in a teapot. People are always boycotting things in the United States, which i think they have a perfect right to do.  So anyway i made fun of the whole thing with the above poem. Very topical, don’t you think? And as enduring as a soap bubble. 

Well, this document is now over 1500 words long. So i better rein it in and end your suffering, my poor reader. It’s now 6 a.m., and the sun won’t be up for another hour and a half. I’ll do some reading and try to fall back asleep like amy.  I’m reading a book called Shakespearean by a newspaper editor named Robert McCrum. I think i may have already shared with you that i want to dig deeper into shakespeare, since it costs nothing to read his work and comments about him and his work. It fascinates me — as much as anything fascinates me nowadays.  I find that i get intensely interested in a subject for all of ten or twenty minutes and then either nod off or get distracted with thoughts of what new recipe can i discover using anchovies and tofu.

Adieu, mon amis.  Heinie Manush. 

how a ham dinner became torture for noah and katrina

 wednesday.  dec. 27.  2022.

The old year is ready to totter offstage, and i, for one, say ‘about time.’

I expect the new year will bring more love more money more laughs and less stress sadness empty calories and chicken feet.

Amy has just chopped me up a bowl of romaine lettuce so i can make myself a caesar salad later today. I’m obsessing about caesar salads this week. The romaine the croutons the parmesan and especially the dressing all combine to give my mouth and tummy something it has lacked for many a long year. So i’m hoping to eat a caesar salad every day in 2023. 

But why would you be interested in any of the above? Truly, i must try your patience (as Groucho said: “Thanks, you must try mine some time!”) with all this aimless tittle tattle about food food food.

So i’ll change the subject – to more food.

Last sunday, xmas day, amy and I fed over 30 people in our building and in the neighborhood by going door to door with a cart and knocking on doors. 

It all started with a ham. A single solitary ham that son adam bought for us to serve shut-ins. He and his family would come over to help us do this on xmas day. (by the way, did you know Joseph Fielding Smith was dead set against using ‘Xmas’ for ‘Christmas?’ He thought it was extremely disrespectful.) 

Where was i? Oh yes, so amy and i started talking over what to offer with the ham. And we went a little nuts. We made 4 quarts of spiced applesauce. Two pans of pecan bars. Peaches & cream jello. Green bean casserole. Corn pudding. Green Bean marinated salad. Then i didn’t think we had enough ham to serve everyone, so i made 2 meatloaves. And a big bowl of chicken pasta salad for those who don’t eat ham. And then rochelle benny’s wife gave us another ham. Amy wanted to print up tracts to tape on all the valley villa doors about the free dinner. So we made up 150 of ‘em. We put ‘em under windshield wipers as well as on all the doors and in the elevators and in the laundry rooms. 

And we invited a single mother and her two boys over for xmas dinner. They didn’t go around with the cart. Amy and adam’s family did that. I stayed with nicole and her boys and we visited amiably while amy did all the hard work. Did you know that when you knock on an old person’s door it takes an average of just over one minute for them to answer? And that it takes another 30 seconds for them to comprehend that you are bringing them a free meal. And about another minute for them to rummage through their kitchen to find a clean plate or bowl for the food? Adam’s kids noah and katrina were dying of boredom by the time they got to the second floor. And then old people don’t like being given a lot of options. Do you want the ham or chicken salad? Or the meatloaf? Do you want corn pudding or greenbean casserole? Do you want some jello? 

It took them 2 and a half hours to serve everyone in the building. Everyone was exhausted afterwards. Adam’s kids now think of coming over to see grandma and grandpa torkildson as xmas punishment & torture, not as a jolly holiday tradition.

So i talked things over with adam. He insists his kids have to do this feed the shut ins thing every xmas. They can’t get out of it – not as long as they live at home.  Adam and i decided that next xmas we’ll do lasagna. It’s easy to make ahead of time and everyone likes it. We’ll have a salad. Rolls, and jello. And that’s it. People can take it or leave it. Plus we’ll dish up the lasagna on paper plates ahead of time. And knock on several doors at a time. So when the old people answer they are handed a plate and told ‘merry xmas’ and that’s all she wrote. All three floors of our building should be served in less than an hour. Hopefully this will engender a cheerful xmas spirit without giving anyone a conniption fit. 

Other than that, there is little to report here at Casa Torkildson. 

It’s been snowing off and on all day today. We went to the rec center early this morning, around 630 a.m. amy walks a mile around the track then lifts weights and does some more miles on the machines. I do ten minutes on a strider, then walk 2 times around the track, then 10 more minutes on the machine, then around the track twice again, and then get on what i call the knife grinder, some kind of arm exerciser, for ten minutes, and then walk 2 more times around the track, and then we came home, had breakfast, and  were fast asleep in our recliners by 9 a.m. we’ll be going to the Temple tomorrow, thank goodness, to mix things up a little.

And a big thanx to virginia & andy for their care package. Pasta and spices and salsa. And to madelaine for the gumball machine. And for bath soaps and creams and solvents and turpentine and gum arabic from son adam’s family. And we still have three chocolate oranges left over – i forget which grandkids are supposed to get them. Sarah, is it your kids? Huh, if they don’t come over soon, i’ll eat ‘em meself. 

May all your days be circus days,   heinie manush. 

Poem to Amy

 When it's time to kiss goodnight

I wish I could be dynamite.

To sweep you up in my strong arms

and give you loving warm alarms.

But, alas, the time is past

when my stamina was vast.

Please accept instead the prize

of all the love that's in my eyes.

Sonnet for Amy. #2

 This is all I have to offer;

a few lines cribbed from richer times.

But when in the presence of your glowing face,

the whole of antiquity will be plundered.

 

 

How can there be an audit of your virtues?

 

As well survey the stars with a glance. 

Moving through my mind's eye,

your lithe figure sweeps me up.

Sweeps me up into realms 

I thought never to visit again.

Where you and I reign past the troubles

of young love and old pain.

This cold winter night our hands touch.

And that is all I can write about love.

Sonnet for Amy #1

 

I am not handsome, except in your eyes.

Tattered as I am with age and interruptions,

you hold up a kindly mirror in your eyes

to dress me in a youthful livery long ago forfeited.

When asked how you find my ripe charm

in such a disarrayed pattern as I am,

the response is not as important or lovely

as your willingness to reply at all.

Your abundance makes of my famine a phantom.

Your green refreshing waters no mere ornament,

they rush over me like a spring shower

that is warm and exciting.

And when I lie down tonight in weary thought

your cool hand lifts my head and spirits.

 

A Child's Christmas in Minneapolis. Sunday. December 18. 2022.

 

CHILDHOOD CHRISTMAS.

I begin with smoke. Lots of smoke. During the winter holidays our house on 19th avenue southeast in Minneapolis was filled with gregarious relatives and friends. My parents kept open house during much of December. And almost every adult smoked. The only adult I ever remember who didn’t smoke was my grandma Daisy. Everyone else puffed away like a chimney. Even after the surgeon general’s report in 1964.  December in Minnesota is decidedly cold, so windows stayed shut. The pall of cigarette smoke on some days could almost be felt. My mother believed that burning a single bayberry candle on the coffee table in the living room would ‘eat up’ the smoke, clearing the atmosphere. She was wrong. My brother Bill, me, and my sisters Sue Ellen and Linda have always had weak lungs as a result of all that second hand smoke. Every winter when we were kids we came down with croup and bronchitis. Sore throats were the norm; coming home from grade school, just a block away, and rushing to one of the hot air registers to gulp down drafts of hot air to soothe my raw aching throat.

My mother was a dab hand with spritz cookies. And she kept a rack full of toppings just for these beauties. Chocolate sprinkles. Cinnamon drops. Glazed walnuts. Candied citrus peel. Chopped dates. Silver dragees (tiny balls of sugar coated with silver food coloring – i thought they were real metal and warned my gullible younger cousins not to bite into one lest they crack a tooth.) jordan almonds. Nonpareils. Dabs of fig jam. New England jimmies. Toasted coconut. Marshmallow cream.  

And on the coffee table, next to the ineffectual bayberry candle there was always a cut glass dish filled with ribbon hard candy. Very colorful. But a pretty lame sweet. I don’t think anyone ever touched them, and they gathered enough indoor grit by New Years that my mother would have to dust them off before putting them back in their wax paper bag for next Xmas.

As little nippers dad took us to see santa at the bartenders union hall. St nick smelled like a distillery and gave out chintzy colored popcorn balls. One bite and they fell to pieces like pie crust. 

But of course the highlight of the season was the loot. The presents. Swag! 

Right after Thanksgiving the Sear Roebuck Catalogue arrived. Thicker than our phone book, this glossy prospectus fed my hunger for gewgaws and trinkets like a narcotic. I’d stare at it for hours, until my bulging eyeballs threatened to fall out of my head and roll away.

But I never got a single solitary toy out of that catalogue. ‘Too expensive – it costs 2 dollars just for shipping and handling!’ mom would say.

Boy oh boy, I really truly wanted the plastic gumball machine they had in there. Just imagine if you can . . . a real gumball machine with real gumballs in it . . . and every time one of my friends wanted a gumball they had to put a penny in it . . . and I GOT TO KEEP THE PENNIES!  Or else I could just rip open the bag of gumballs, never putting them in the machine, and chew on them until doomsday.  Sweet bliss.  But despite my transparent and frequent hints, i never got one.

Instead there would be a Whammo air-blaster. Shaped like a cross between a cannon and a pistol, you pulled back the lever and pulled the trigger and whammo! A blast of air would blow Christmas cards off the table or even scatter my glass marbles around like shrapnel. The air-blaster didn’t last long. I put the muzzle up against the back of my older brother Billys head and pulled the trigger. I thought there was a real possibility this might kill him, or at least put him in a coma. But alas all it did was tear the rubber diaphragm inside the airblaster, rendering it useless. 

In my stocking there were always Slinkys, Duncan yo-yos, Bonomo’s turkish taffy, Crayola crayons, a pack of old maid cards, and a coloring book from Grandma Daisy. 

Under the tree would be a hula hoop, an etch-a-sketch, and a Tonka truck. I’d get a board game – either operation or mousetrap. One year i remember getting a set of dominoes, which I promptly dropped, one by one, down the heat register.

 

*************************************

 

A response to the above from my daughter Madelaine:

 

Dear dad,

Since you were kind enough to share your Christmas memories I though I would send you some of mine. They are less smoky, and a little more bathed in discomfort. The Christmas I will never forget happened in Midway, UT the year I was 15. The previous year uncle ben had made grand promises to mom that he would fulfil our every Christmas wish. We spent weeks scouring catalogs picking out presents and making long detailed lists of everything from bicycles to underwear. Then the week before Christmas they got into a fight and he retracted the offer, so we were left gifting each other last year’s hand-me-down sweaters. Uncle Wylie came through on Christmas Day and gave us a case of spaghetti and several huge jars of Prego spaghetti sauce, which we ate every day for a month. That was a very gloomy year, but the next year we were picked for the ward “angel tree” and notified that our presents would be dropped of on Christmas Eve! Looking back on that night, I am still filled with awe at the generosity of those ward members. Granted, they were all living on pretty ritzy estates and probably had buckets full of cash lying around, but they unloaded no less than 23 construction sized trash bags of wrapped gifts, 3 whole bags for each of us. Almost 25 years later I still remember the smell of the bath & body works bath sets. We had so many bottles of lotion, perfume, sets of stationary, craft kits, socks, coats, dresses, toys, everything you could imagine. And the candy, oh man! mom only ever let us get candy with our own money (which was also our only means of getting new clothes or cool shoes), and we didn’t often get to go inside the store with her. I got a beautiful dress that year, I believe it was the only dress I’d had before that was brand new from the store, not made by or passed down from a family or ward member. It still had the tags and came with a gift receipt. When I finally grew out of it I was quite devastated, it was the first piece of clothing I felt beautiful in.

 

OK, I have to get back to work/ Most of the above is probably not true, in the Torkildson fashion I have inserted random details to take the place of my foggy memory, but who can say what is true all these years later anyway?

 

-Madel

 

Shakespeare's Sonnet #1, as run through Quillbot.com

 That beauty's rose may thus never fade from the fairest creatures, but as the riper should wither with time, his sensitive offspring must bear his memory:

However, you made yourself your enemy by feeding your own light's flame with self-substantial fuel and creating a famine where there is abundance. You were too brutal to your sweet self.

In thine own bud, you burst your content and, tender churl, make waste in niggarding. You are now the world's new ornament and the sole one to announce the garish spring.

If you don't feel sorry for the globe, this glutton will eat the planet's due by the grave and you.