Chuck Berry

Old musicians do not die, nor do they fade away.

Their vinyl records keep them resurrected day by day.

Although their private lives may be a messed up can of worms,

We keep them in our hearts and ears with most forgiving terms.

The melodies and lyrics that a troubadour contrives,

After he is silent, still transform our humdrum lives.  

Amy Meets a Clown

(continued from Sex and the Single Clown)

The Ringling clown alley formed my early Weltanschauung -- one I never really overcame, or wanted to. It consisted of the phrase “Anything for a Laugh,” blended with “Never trust a townie.” To this day I feel nothing but affection and respect for those goofy guys that strove so hard to wring a chuckle out of the distracted and sugar-maddened crowds. We had our disagreements, sure -- but I never felt anyone in clown alley was my enemy. Not even Michu, the World’s Smallest Man, whom I once locked inside his own wardrobe trunk.

But at KGCX Radio in Williston I had a true enemy. For the first time in my life a nemesis stalked me -- intent on my destruction. She was Faye Halvorson, the station owner’s wife. She disliked everything about me, and said so frequently. I hated her guts, but since she was Oscar’s wife I never said it outloud -- but my face, long-trained to display the broadest emotions for thousands to see, all too plainly revealed my violent loathing.

When Becky Thingvold and I broke up, Faye pounced on my misery like a panther on a weary disoriented traveler in the wilderness.

“We heard that Thingvold girl finally came to her senses and dumped you” she purred at me one morning, using the royal ‘we’ as if she were Queen Victoria. “We always thought it was a bad idea to mix with newspaper people -- they only want copy from you. We really think Oscar should dump YOU now -- since your love affair with radio is obviously over. That last newscast was the sloppiest ever heard.”

I was too disheartened to even glare at her. Instead I just started making my morning phone calls to surrounding county sheriff’s offices, as well as to Red over at the Williston Volunteer Fire Department. I never got through to any of the other sheriffs -- I only got as far as the receptionist, who couldn’t be bothered to tell me anything except “Nothing going on here, sorry.” Even if a spaceship crash landed in a wheatfield next door, they’d say nothing to me about it, just keep parroting “Nothing going on here, sorry.”

Red, on the other hand, was a good egg. He ran a hardware store in his spare time -- but spent most of his hours at the fire station playing gin rummy and polishing up the city’s one and only fire truck until it glowed like Chernobyl.

“So Becky dumped you, eh?” he greeted me that particular morning when I called. “She’s a cousin of mine, y’know.” In Williston everyone was related to everyone else by consanguinity or marriage. And apparently the news of our extinct love affair was as widespread and virulent as a plague epidemic.  

“Don’t let it get you down, Tim” he continued. “There’s plenty more salt in the ocean. By the way, did the sheriff over in Watford City tell you about the grain elevator burning down? Big explosion -- could be heard ten miles away. Lemme tell you what I heard . . . “

And Red would give me all the details, since the sheriff over in Watford City was also one of his cousins. I got most of my hard news from Red, bless his card-playing soul.

Even at church, usually a haven from worldly sorrow and distraction, the members couldn’t wait to come up to me and commiserate with my loss -- just to see how miserable I was. All except old Doc Maisy, who ran a thriving dentistry clinic with several of his sons -- and was also the LDS Branch President for the entire town and surrounding countryside.

“You’re better off without her, Brother Torkildson” he told me in the chapel foyer. “You need a good LDS girl, one who shares our values. Say, I’ve got a niece coming in from Twin Falls this week. Why don’t I set you up with her for dinner at our house and then you take her out to a movie?”

Before I could reply there was a resounding crash from the area of the foyer couch. Doc Maisy and I looked over to see hefty Alice Anderson and several of her numerous brood sprawled on the floor next to the collapsed sofa. It had apparently given way underneath her girth and the kids jumping on it simultaneously. A young woman, a beautiful young woman -- one I had not seen at church before -- was helping Sister Anderson to her feet.

“C’mon mom” she urged. “Look what you and Mathy did to the couch! You should keep him on a leash!”

Doc Maisy and I came over to see if we could help. But the young woman had her mother well in hand, while the kids scattered like BB’s down a hill.

“Hi, President Maisy” said the young woman, blushing prettily. “Sorry about the couch -- I’m sure my mom will pay for it.”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind! It was very wobbly to begin with . . . “ Alice began to sputter. But Doc Maisy cut her off smoothly.

“Don’t worry, Sister Anderson. We were going to get it replaced soon anyway. Are you back from BYU now?” he asked the young woman. The very fetching young woman.

“Yes. I’m teaching up in Tioga.”

“Fine! We’ll get you a calling by next week. I should introduce you to this young man just moved into town. Amy, this is Brother Torkildson. He used to work for Ringling Brothers as a clown.”

“Hi.”

I shook her hand, holding it a second longer than needful. And thinking -- why, why, why does everyone have to introduce me as having worked as a clown at Ringling Brothers? That life is behind me -- now I’m an important media personality. It irritated me vastly back then, and it still does today. Even my kids introduce me to their friends as ‘This is my dad, he used to be a clown for Ringling Brothers.”

What are they expecting me to do -- drop my pants?

(to be continued)

The Short Tempered Chef: Dill Pickle Meatloaf with Bashed Neeps

I don’t know about you, but I can never get enough dill pickles in my diet. They are savory and sour and salty and just plain good for what ails ya. So today I’m making a meatloaf with ground beef and pork, and putting in about half a jar of dill pickle chips. With it I’m making mashed turnips, as a snooty alternative to mashed potatoes. I just wanted to show you guys I can be as refined and hoity-toity as any old French gourmand. For dessert I have invested in a box of chocolate-covered Twinkies, which seems kinda like gilding the lily. But never let it be said that the short-tempered chef isn’t willing to go out on a limb when it comes to good things to nosh!

Well, I got the turnips peeled and put in a pot of salted boiling water without any mishap. I added a few bay leaves just for the heck of it. Can’t hurt anything -- as long as I remember to extract them before mashing. They were much easier to peel than I thought they’d be -- I think what I’m fixating on is rutabagas, or swedes, which are the very devil to peel, as are beets. That settles it, I’ll be featuring them next week, just to show the world I can peel a root vegetable without taking the Lord’s name in vain.

I thought I had everything ready for mixing the meatloaf. There’s only one way to mix meatloaf, and that’s by hand. I had some latex gloves that I struggled into, sitting down and humming a calming hymn to myself while I tried to put them on without a yawning hole developing. After that, I opened all the jars and bottles of spices and other accoutrements to my dill pickle masterpiece (I’m using Mt Olive hamburger chips, by the way -- it was the smallest bottle I could find on the shelf; I don’t much care to get a hernia lugging a ton of groceries home just so you can chuckle at my haphazard cookery!) Anyway, I thought I had everything pre planned and prepared. I mixed up the pork and beef, added the pickles and McCormick’s seasoning packet and the cream and mayo and two eggs and then smooshed it all up with my hands. Then I put plastic bags over my gloves so I could put in a dash of Worcestershire sauce I had forgotten earlier. Man, I was on fire! But then I forgot to get the disposable aluminum pans ready, and I got raw meat grease all over knives and the sink and everywhere -- dammit!

But not to worry -- after the mixture was safely in the pans, with yesterday’s leftover cherry tomato gunk on top, I slid the two pans into the oven, set the timer, and washed down everything that might have that damn raw meat grease on it. So I’m feeling better, thank you. It’ll all come together in about an hour for a superb midday meal, the kind of meal you get in France or Italy or maybe Greece. They know how to take a long midday break in those places, have a big meal, guzzle wine, and then pass out in the shade for a few hours. Outside of the wine, I plan on doing the same thing. My tipple today is a chilled bottle of Bundaberg Ginger Beer.

I’m happy to report that the meatloaf turned out just as I hoped -- the dill pickle chips added just the right soupcon of sour and tart, and I had two helpings with deep relish. Unfortunately the mashed turnips were watery and tasteless -- I think those babies have to be roasted (or else maybe not boiled so long; I followed the online recipe that said boil ‘em for 45 minutes.) And the chocolate-covered Twinkies are superb! Light and sweet, and yet at the same time substantial enough to let your taste buds know they have had an artery-blocking dose of the good stuff.

I’ve got a pan and a half of the meatloaf left, so I’m going to make some phone calls -- see if anybody wants a pan for tonight or their Sunday dinner. My freezer is so full of unidentified leftovers that I’ve notified the Smithsonian they should drop by to look for woolly mammoths in there.

Reading Recommendations

The kind of book I’m looking for will sparkle sans tin foil.

It keeps me coming back after I am done with daily toil.

Fantasy or history, it really makes no diff --

As long as heroines refuse to dangle from a cliff.

I am not frightened of big words, but if they’re put to use

I do not want to feel they are for bragging or abuse.

A bio is a good choice if the author ignores Freud.

And sea tales are like nicotine I simply can’t avoid!

Who’s writing now like Wodehouse or Bob Benchley -- anyone?

Or Walter Scott or Robert Lewis Taylor -- he was fun!

My tastes are so eclectic that to find a decent read

I just may have to go back to the Venerable Bede.

The Clown and the Insurance Agent

Clown alley is a semi-autonomous state within the larger world of the traveling circus.  What goes on in there, who comes to visit, and why a sudden geyser of water might erupt onto innocent heads outside of the alley, are all matters of high policy not usually discussed with the circus management, unless they impact the performance of the show.

While no formal passport was ever issued or required to enter clown alley, all visitors, by mutual consent, were to be scrutinized outside of the alley by one of the veteran clowns before gaining admittance.  This went for sweethearts, bill collectors, reporters, pizza delivery boys, relatives, and insurance agents. Of course, this was AFTER they had passed muster with Backdoor Jack.

Although I was a committed zany during my working hours, squirting seltzer and flinging pies with the best of them, when I was out of makeup and out of the alley I was a serious young man.  For one thing, I was haunted by the poverty and near-homelessness of one of my grandmothers.  Before I left to join the circus she had come to our house and pleaded with my mother for a room in her house to stay in, as she had so very little to use to pay for rent and food.  My mother, with tears in her eyes, had to turn her down – our house was cramped as it was, and my father, who attended the Simon LeGree school of Hard Knocks, did not approve of any relatives besides children moving in.  I did not want to wind up like that, and thought the best way to avoid such a melodramatic end would be to salt my money away in the bank and invest it prudently.  To that end, I was always ripping ads out of magazines and newspapers for mutual funds and whole life insurance, sending away for their pamphlets.

One fine day, when the show was playing Philadelphia, I was told a visitor awaited me outside the alley, having passed muster with one of the older clowns.  I thought it might be a girl I had met at church the previous Sunday, so I smoothed down my bushy hair (which I was also using for my clown wig), spritzed myself with some Old Spice, and hurried out, only to be met by a shambling figure swathed in a tan raincoat, even though it was a warm sunny day in the City of Friends.  Turns out that this creature, by the name of Dewey Moede, was with a Philadelphia insurance company which had received one of my inquiries; Mr. Moede had made it his business to come out to the circus to see if he could sell me some insurance.

Not knowing any better, I invited him into the alley.

Pulling up a folding chair, he began his spiel while I applied the greasepaint in preparation for the day’s merrymaking chores.

He asked my age, where I was born, did I smoke, how much did I drink, and was I married.  He then did some tabulations on a sheet of graph paper and produced a document that he told me indicated I would live to the ripe old age of eighty and that if I began investing in whole life right now, to the tune of five dollars per week, by the age of seventy I would have enough to live a life of ease and comfort in a broom closet in Miami Beach. If I lived that long.  Or, if I preferred, I could immediately invest twenty-thousand dollars in an annuity, which I would not start to collect on until the age of sixty-four, and could then look forward to three square meals a day, if I didn’t mind two of those meals being cheese and crackers.

While I found his logic alluring, I couldn’t quite see myself committing to five whole dollars every week.  At the time my salary was ninety-dollars a week, and I was already putting ten of that away in a savings account each week.

I was about to voice my hesitation when there was a loud bang behind us.  It was just Spikawopsky, making black gunpowder squibs and testing them out to make sure they were efficacious.  I explained this to Mr. Moede, because he seemed suddenly rather nervous.  I told him we went through at least two dozen exploding squibs each show, and I had never lost more than a singed eyebrow.  He began fiddling with his graph paper again.  While he did, I went outside of the alley to help Swede Johnson with the new flamethrower we had installed in the stove we used for the baker’s gag.  A nozzle blew powdered coffee creamer over a candle flame – creating quite a spectacular tongue of fire, about five feet long.  It was Mr. Moede’s misfortune to come hunting me just as Swede squeezed the bellows after I had lit the candle.  The resulting roar of fire caught the insurance agent completely off guard, and before I could explain that the flame was relatively harmless – producing minor blisters only – he was galloping up the exit ramp of the arena, tossing aside crumpled graph paper and blank insurance forms like confetti.

Oh well, I thought to myself, there’s always more insurance agents – and Sunday school girls – in the next town.

Thank you, Roy Dietrich!

A world without readers would be as flat as the skeptics of Columbus thought it was. I hope those who liked my graphic mini-memoir “Sex and the Single Clown” always find a rounder, fuller world each day!

Hannah Tapfield

Leo Acton

Lydia Farnsworth

Gabriel Romero Sr.

Elizabeth Jones

Herberto J Ledesma

Ann Eliza Young

Mike Weakley

Mary Van Cott

Robert E. Handley

Harriet Amelia Folsom

Mary Pat Cooney

Catherine Reese

Kenneth L Stallings

Sarah Malin

Jim Aakhus

Martha Bowker

Roy Dietrich

“Women want love to be a novel. Men, a short story.”

― Daphne du Maurier

Trump Offers No Apology for Claim on British Spying

Unmoved by a stern British crown,

The President never backs down.

Will Putin not ever surmise

The White House don’t apologize?

Sanders and Clinton may prate,

But there’s no chance he’ll abdicate.

Congress may get many licks in,

But Trump is not pulling a Nixon.

And “Never Say Sorry” has thrust

Aside the old “In God We Trust.”

One Billion Yahoo Accounts Still for Sale, Despite Hacking Indictments

If you are using Yahoo you are sailing in a sieve,

Riding on a tiger, knitting with a prison shiv.

They have no more security than Mormons have DT’s,

And your account will be sliced up like wedges of soft cheese.

Don’t think your information is protected in the Cloud;

More likely it’s been delivered unto hackers in a shroud!

The Short Tempered Chef: Baked Steak with Parsnips Fried in Butter and Cherry Tomatoes Braised in Balsamic Vinegar

I dream about steak. A lot. About the big slabs we grilled in the backyard when I was a kid. I like to recall eating at chop houses across the country when I traveled with the circus. About Surf and Turf meals that punished my stomach -- but in a good way. So today I decided I would treat myself to a steak for a late lunch. I’ve been writing my circus memoirs all morning, and just got to a painful breakup I had with a beautiful brunette. So now’s a good time for a pleasant, nourishing meal -- Blast all women to blazes!

I’m going to bake the steak. I tire of fried foods, and I don’t own a grill. So I’ll try baking my T-bone and see how bad it turns out. Beef is hard to spoil, I’m thinking. Along with that I’ve got some parsnips I’ll peel and fry in butter -- a dish I made often for my mother during the last two years of her life when she was bedridden. And then I’ve got some cherry tomatoes, which I don’t particularly like anymore (I used to be crazy about them) but I got them for free when I bought a pound of butter yesterday (go figure.) And dessert, more than likely, will be Alka Seltzer. I’ll be drinking a fine Pepsi Crystal Light. One of the more recent vintages.  

I’m not exactly sure how long to cook my little T-bone. All the recipes I’ve seen are for three pound monster beef steaks, to cook several hours. No way am I doing that to my delicate little piece of meat. So I’ve put the stove on 375 and will bake it for 45 minutes. I sloshed it all over with Worcestershire Sauce and sliced the rest of the shallots over it before sealing it in tin foil. You can't ever go wrong with Worcestershire Sauce. Not with beef. Now I gotta figure out how long to cook the tomatoes in balsamic vinegar without reducing them to mush, and peel the parsnips. I’d forgotten about that unpleasant chore -- bleck.

So I peeled the parsnips without a hassle (I think it was turnips I was thinking of that are so hard to peel -- or is it beets?) Oh, and I forgot I had cooked bacon in the frypan yesterday, so I’ll use that AND some butter to fry up the parsnips. As always, a little improvisation is what spices things up pleasantly: I dumped the cherry tomatoes in the wok, then saw an old cannister of dried apricots I’ve been getting ready to throw away -- they’re as hard as marble and the grand kids won’t eat ‘em, not even the little ones that are still teething. So I tossed a few of them in with the tomatoes. What can it hurt? Might make an interesting flavor blend. Mmmmmm . . . I start smelling the baking steak, and the Worcestershire Sauce. Splendid! Oh, and just to be on the safe side, I wrapped the steak in my last two pieces of bacon. This is my main meal of the day, folks, so it's gotta be good and nourishing!

The final result

Final results were decent. The parsnips were very fine, making me wish I had cooked many more of them. The tomatoes and apricots were surprisingly in sync, so I’ll save the leftovers (for what exactly is a mystery best left to the morrow.) And the steak . . . well, the steak was okay. Not tough; not stringy; salted just right; and yet, and yet it wasn’t quite the thing. I don’t believe a T-bone was ever meant to endure the indignities of moist surrounding heat. A T-bone needs the sear and spit of the hot grill. So I apologize to the spirit of this particular T-bone; I disrespected you, O great piece of beef, and the next time I have truck with you it will be on a grill and nowhere else.

And now I think I’ll get back to my circus story and make up some more lies about that brunette.

Sex and the Single Clown

                                              In Thailand, performing in and out of makeup.

I finally got Becky Thingvold to come visit me in my basement apartment. She had been to Minot covering a political rally, and when she came back her face had hardened somehow and her breath began smelling of stale coffee. A policeman in Minot had shoved her and when she swore at him he arrested her; she spent the night in jail before the newspaper bailed her out. But they refused to print the story of her night in jail, as being too ‘negative.’ That’s when she said she’d come down to my place “just to relax and talk about you competing against the Ringling clown school.”

She brought a six pack of Coors, which embarrassed me -- since I didn’t drink and I didn’t know if she wanted to drink, or not. I just put it in the fridge and we sat on the couch. Her eyes were cold and hard, not the kind of eyes I had dreamed of finding in a girl someday. When I asked her about her time in jail she got so bitter I hardly recognized the same person that had been so enthused about my clown academy. Her innocence, I saw, had been bruised in Minot, and she was allowing it to fester and die. Now she wanted to be a grown-up, hard ass woman reporter. Another Murphy Brown. So she had come to my place to drink and have sex and then write some grungy piece about the has-been clown and his pitiful dreams -- which she’d get published in Rolling Stone or Mother Jones. I intuited all this just by looking at her face, which was now the face of a stranger. I didn’t like her anymore. I wanted her to leave. But there were juices and hormones and subconscious imps that also wanted her to stay.  

But I was in no way ready for or wanting to initiate a physical relationship. My mind had been on marriage ever since returning from my LDS mission in Thailand. Back in those days the party line was that a returned LDS missionary should be married within six months of coming home, or else become a pariah. I hadn’t met the deadline, and did feel a bit ostracized by the LDS community in Williston for my marital tardiness -- but that didn’t mean I was going to take up with Becky. Physical relationships with women have always frightened me -- in and out of marriage. I blame my mother and her hairbrush so often used on my backside . . .

Terribly conflicted, I sat on the couch as far away from Becky as I could. And I began to tell her a story, a clown story -- which, I think, saved both our souls that evening. I just started randomly.

“I wanted to teach clowning when I was a missionary in Thailand, but that really wasn’t part of my calling to preach the gospel, you see. I did a lot of clown shows as benefits for the Thai Red Cross, which was under the auspices of the King and Queen of Thailand -- but that was to garner some positive PR for the Mormon Church, since Mormons were not liked at all. The Thais all thought we belonged to the CIA or something.”

“What kind of clown show did you do, then? Balloons and stuff?” she asked, settling in. Until that moment she had perched on the edge of the couch like a hawk.

“Well, I tried to do as much pantomime as I could. You remember I told you about the training I had in Mexico? Los Payasos Educados? I loved doing that stuff for the Thais -- they really got it most of the time, too. And then, of course, I played my musical saw. But I think the most favorite shows I did weren’t for the general Thai crowds, but for church members and missionaries. We used to have a Mission Conference every six months and I always put on a full hour’s worth of pantomime for them. They were held at resorts like Pattaya -- beautiful beaches, which the members could visit but we missionaries couldn’t. One of the rules.

I had several specialty pantomime numbers I did for those special meetings. Things I had created on the spur of the moment just for LDS audiences. One was about a missionary getting a Dear John Letter and how he tries to commit suicide after reading it. He can’t seem to kill himself until he remembers that his ex-girlfriend sent him a box of cookies -- he just forces himself to eat one of those and dies immediately with a smile on his face.”

The memories of those performances were flooding back, distancing me from my own carnal desires and dulling Becky’s pagan intentions.

“Another one was about the difficulty of getting money out of the bank each month. The pens didn’t work and the clerks kept shunting me from one window to another. It was a great bit of mime, because I actually interacted with several imaginary people, including bank robbers! I think I was inspired somehow when I did that one -- I don’t even think I could do it now!”

“But my best bit of mime was the sleepy man at church. I pretended to sit in Sacrament Meeting and tried to stay awake through it all. That one always got the biggest laughs. The very biggest.”

“You love getting laughs, don’t you Tim?” asked Becky, her hard edges suddenly dissolving.

“More than anything” I affirmed.

“Well, I gotta go. Gotta write up some stuff for the Sunday Arts page -- maybe I’ll use that story you just told me. Is that okay?”

“Sure, Beck. That’s fine.” I moved close to her. Suddenly I wanted to kiss her hard and drink all that beer and see what would happen. But she was no longer willing to take me down that road, so she took the Coors with her and left.

She never did write about my clowning in Thailand. Or about my clown academy again. We only ever met at city council meetings, nodding at each other. She married one of the other reporters that winter; they moved out to Boston so he could enter a graduate program in journalism. And that’s all I know about it.

My favorite venue in Thailand; performing for members and missionaries