Dear future archivist who has happened to come across this entry from October 17, 2014, please go back and see the post from October 15, 2014 if you haven't already seen it. And so today Ebola continues to rage through West Africa and Doctors Without Borders, the medical charity that has been on the front lines fighting the epidemic there, is running out of resources and begging all nations to send immediate help as the numbers of infected continue to swell. Meanwhile here in the United States we are suffering an epidemic of rage and fear over the two cases of Ebola that have been contracted in our country. A West African man came into a Dallas hospital sick with Ebola and two of the nurses who cared for him were infected. The man was extremely infectious and the nurses were not wearing Ebola-proof suits. Because the hospital didn't have any. Because the hospital had never had an Ebola case before. Up until a few weeks ago no hospital in this country had ever dealt with an Ebola case before. But now we have these two along with three more, two medical workers and a photographer, who arrived from Africa with Ebola, and all five patients have been isolated and are being treated in state-of-the art hospitals that were built for just such an eventuality as an outbreak of a disease like Ebola. Meanwhile the second nurse who caught Ebola is being demonized because she took a flight from Dallas to Cleveland while she was still feeling well and then flew back to Dallas a few days later while running a low fever. Now the country is in a state of high alarm. People believe that the traveling nurse is the Typhoid Mary - or Ebola Mary - who is going to ultimately be responsible for the plague they believe is imminent because she took that trip while infected. Never mind that all the passengers and crew on both her flights, all the sales personnel and customers in the bridal store where she shopped for a wedding gown, and anyone she was anywhere near are now under watch by the Center for Disease control, as are all the students in the two schools in Ohio and Texas which closed because each had a student who was on the nurse's plane. Never mind that the planes she flew on have been thoroughly disinfected. Never mind that the CDC is now fine-tuning protocol for hospitals across the nation for dealing with future Ebola cases, including new guidelines for protective Ebola-proof wear for health care workers. Never mind that the only way to catch Ebola is by direct contact with bodily fluids of a person who is showing active symptoms of the disease. Never mind all that, today people in this country are enraged and terrified of catching Ebola. They are convinced that you catch Ebola if an infected person coughs or sneezes around you, even though coughing and sneezing are not symptoms of Ebola, and if an infected symptomatic person did cough or sneeze on you the spray would have to land directly in your eyes, nose, mouth, or an open wound. People are convinced that Ebola can live on surfaces like door knobs and hand rails and can be passed along on our money even though the virus can't survive more than a few hours outside its host. They're afraid to fly because they believe an Ebola carrier might cough or sneeze or touch the same surface as them. They believe Ebola is airborne like a cold or flu. And they're angry at the CDC and the government for not protecting us better from Ebola. But mostly they're afraid. Politicians are having a hay-day-and-a-half stirring up this public fear and outrage, blaming the President, the CDC, the hospital, the nurses, using the Ebola crisis to score political points for themselves instead of being leaders working for the greater good of keeping Americans calm and informed and up-to-date on how we can protect ourselves and stay safe. And this really makes me sick. The World Health Organization predicts that by December there will be 5,000 to 10,000 new cases of Ebola a week in West Africa. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC, has said, "After all is said and done here, (tackling the disease at its source, West Africa) is the only way to truly and completely protect the health security of America -- and the world," Peter Piot, the Belgian microbilogist who discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, told CNN that, "As long as there is a major epidemic in West Africa, the rest of the world is also at risk. That is an additional reason for providing assistance to stop the epidemic." Still Piot, in agreement with other epidemologists, predicts that while there will be some cases in the United States, a major Ebola outbreak here is unlikely because of our resources and good health care. But about 36,000 in the United States are likely to die from the flu this season because so many people won't get the flu shot. They're not afraid of the flu. References: 1. "Flu Deaths Per Year", About Health, June 27, 2014 2. "Doctors Without Borders: We've 'Reached Our Ceiling,' Maxed Out Ebola Aid Resources", Huffington Post, October 15, 2014 3. "Nurse Traveled On Airline Before Falling Ill", The New York Times, Page 1, October 16, 2014 4. "Avoiding Hysteria, Ebola's Other Contagious Threat, Rests On Maintaining Trust", The New York Times, page 22, October 16, 2014 5. "The Most Destructive Ebola Myths, Debunked", The Huffington Post, August 11, 2014 6. "Ebola outbreak 'running much faster' than response", CNN, October 17, 2014
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1. Wear sneaks that look like this: 2. Roller skate. I used to be a whiz-bang roller skater (ask my kids) but I'm afraid to try anymore because if some yahoo skater-dude ran into me and knocked me over and broke something everybody would tsk, "What was she doing roller skating at her age?" 3. Learn how to ice-skate. See above. 4. Tell dirty jokes. 5. Send inappropriate birthday cards. * 6. Stand on a chair and hang curtains. Last time I tried I fell off the chair and broke a rib. But I only got one pair of the curtains hung so now what am I supposed to do? 7. Try stand-up comedy. 8. Eat whatever I want, whenever I want and as much as I want without getting heartburn, a gall bladder attack, or caring about putting on poundage. 9. Sing "I'm So Fancy" with a karaoke machine. 10. Tell my children how to live their lives.* *Sometimes I still do anyway. ** All About That Bass, by Meghan Trainor. As I've said a time or maybe two before, I sometimes write with the idea that perhaps some future cyber-archivist or social historian might come across this blog and see it as a documentation of life and events at this time and place. And so, future researcher, on this day, October 15, 2014, there is a great fear looming over the United States of a coming plague caused by a terrible virus that is ravaging Africa and has infected its first two victims here in our country. Ebola is the name of the virus and also of the horrific hemorrhagic fever it causes. Ebola fever has a 50-90 percent mortality rate and there's no cure for it. For the past few weeks Ebola and it's lightning-swift spread across the African countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone has been front-page news and the top story in every news broadcast, every day, all day long; and then last week the news broke that a nurse at Texas Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas was infected while caring for an Ebola victim who came to this country from Liberia with the disease. This morning a second health care worker at Texas Presyterian who also cared for the original Ebola patient was diagnosed with the infection. The plague has arrived. Or has it? It's true that hospitals all around the United States are now preparing for the Ebola invasion, and I've been as frightened as anyone about Ebola sweeping across our country like a scourge from the Middle-Ages. I have horrible daymares about my husband, my children, my grandchildren, all my loved-ones being stricken with Ebola fever and of me having to watch them suffer, forbidden to go near them, helpless. I've had the feeling that as we all go with our normal, happy lives we're just waiting for the monster epidemic to hit. Or at least I did have that feeling until last night when I began trolling around the internet to find out more about Ebola than I'd been picking up from the news and all the fear-filled discussions with just about everybody I've had occasion to talk to. Here's what I found out: 1. While Ebola is extremely infectious, in that it multiplies so greatly inside its host, it's not very contagious as viruses go. 2. Ebola is not air-borne, you can't catch it like a cold or the flu, or from food or water or just from being around an infected person. There's only one way to catch Ebola, and that's from direct contact with the bodily fluids of of an infected person. 3. Despite all the gossip, the chance of Ebola mutating into an air-borne virus is about zero. 5. Ebola is contagious only when the infected person has the symptoms. So you can't catch Ebola from an infected person in the period before their symptoms show up. 4. A virus that is efficient at survival doesn't generally kill its host; it just hangs around in the host for a while, which gives the host the opportunity to come into contact with another hosts for the virus to jump to. Ebola is not an efficient virus because it kills off its host, and kills it too quickly for the host to spread the virus around very much. 6. Because Ebola can only be spread by direct contact with the bodily fluids of a sick person and can't live long outside a host, it should be a fairly easy virus to contain. It's virulence in Africa is due to the closeness with which people live and lack of health care in the big cities where the initial outbreaks began. And so my anxiety about an Ebola plague sweeping across the United States has been calmed, even though I know that only God who made all creatures great and microscopic and you, future archivist, know whether the United States ended up falling prey to the epidemic that has been so mercilessly afflicting our brothers and sisters in Africa. My fear has been replaced by the conviction that, while we in the United States of course need to be prepared for the arrival of Ebola in this country, our nation needs to come together with every other nation and health organization on the planet to fight Ebola in Africa, its source . The United States is sending 3,000 troops to Liberia to provide support in battling the epidemic. Finally a war I can condone. References: 1. "Scientists Rein In Fears of a Virus Whose Mysteries Tend To Invite Speculation", The New York Times, October 14, 2014 2. "Five Reasons Why You Shouldn't Be Freaking Out About Catching Ebola," Jason Butler, Elite DAily, October 15, 2014 3. "Ebola, The Dumb Virus", Chisom Ojukwu, March 29, 2014 4. "The Hot Zone Questions, 21 Terms by mcrowley", Quizlet, 2014 5. "U.S. Sending 3,000 Troops to Africa to Battle Ebola", Military.com News, September 16, 2014 6. 610 WTVN news, October 15, 2014 Last week I walked into Second Sole, a local running apparel store, for a pair of Spenco arches for my tennis shoes. Upon entering the store this strategically-placed rack of Homage running shirts hit my line of vision: I did a take, then a double take. An image flashed through my mind of some old comedy movie scene of a simple-minded black man with a name like Catfish, or Willie, or something, tip-toeing through the dark then turning around suddenly to see someone with a sheet over their head. Thinking it's a ghost, he throws his hands up in the air, his eyes go all big and buggy and he cries, "Feets, don't fail me now!", then zips comically off. Though I'd only experienced a quick moment of mental free-association, I felt like the saying on that shirt, though it had changed "feets" to the more grammatical "feet", had some racist origin, but I wasn't sure. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I'd ever really seen the black-man-being-scared-of-a-ghost scene, yet I must have, or why would the image have leapt into my mind as soon as I saw that shirt? When I got home I yahooed "Feets, don't fail me now" and sure enough, there were several entries. According to Wikipedia this phrase was: "(A) Catch-phrase that possibly originated during the vaudeville and chitlin' circuit days. Spoken by several African-American actors in motion pictures of the 1920s to 1940s, usually when scared by a ghost or such (whereupon the character scooted). Delivered by actor Willie Best (1913–1962) in the 1940 Bob Hope film "The Ghost Breakers"; delivered by actor Stepin Fetchit (1902–1985) in several films; often attributed to actor Mantan Moreland (1902–1973)." According to another website called The Straight Dope, which describes its mission as "Fighting ignorance since 1973 (It's taking longer than we thought)": "(Feets don't fail me now) was one of the catch phrases of Stepin Fetchit, an early black film performer. He basically transitioned the old racist minstrel shows from stage to screen, portraying a humble, fearful Negro caricature for the delight of white audiences. He made a lot of money doing it, but it's still a rather hateful stereotype." The author of the entry then adds: "I find it interesting that the phrase has survived to the present, while somehow shedding its deeply racist origins, to the point that it can apparently be used in mainstream marketing (though I haven't seen that myself and would welcome a citation). In any event, if you choose to pick up this phrase for your own usage, be very careful about your audience, lest you inadvertently cause serious offense." I guess I could give the author a citation now. Because the phrase is apparently being used as somebody's idea of a slogan for the upcoming 2014 Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Marathon, which will take place in downtown Columbus on October 19. Now, granted, the Homage-brand running shirt on display in Second Sole doesn't actually say "Feets Don't Fail Me Now"; it says Feet Don't Fail Me Now". In fact in my research I came across several different rock songs dating back as far as the 1980's with the name "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" which I listened to and found to be ballads about guys trying to find the courage to leave a relationship or escape from a bad situation. I'm guessing that the inspiration for the slogan on the shirt was the title of one of these rock songs and not the phrase in its original form and usage. I'm also guessing that whoever put those words on that shirt never heard the phrase in its original form and usage. But though the phrase may have been de-fanged and laundered by time and more innocent usages, "shedding its racist origins", as the Straight Talk" contributor noted, there still obviously hasn't been enough time gone by if its appearance minus one letter on a running shirt causes a stab of recognition in a 63-year-old white lady like myself. And if those words resonated negatively with me, how much more negatively might they resonate with an African-American my age or older who might be watching the marathon and catch a glimpse of them on a shirt that appears to be official apparel of the Columbus Marathon? Perhaps whoever chose to pick out this phrase for this use should have been a little more careful.
Or at least done a little research. Yesterday my daughter Claire and her husband Miguel left with a team from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago to spend a week on a medical mission in Haiti. Claire, an intensive care unit nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, has been spending a week or two in Haiti with the Rush team since the catastrophic earthquake in 2010. The country is still far from recovered. A tent city in Port-Au-Prince, May, 2010. A tent- orphanage, October, 2011 This year Miguel, an advertising production coordinator, is joining the Rush team. I sometimes joke that I don't know if Miguel is so good at getting things done because of his job or if he has this job because he's so good at getting things done, but one thing I do know is that if you want something, anything, done and done exactly as you ask it to be done, then Miguel's your man. And so this week Miguel will be utilizing his talents to help with the logistics and people-organizing end of the Rush team's work at the make-shift medical clinic they'll set up at Jerusalem, a relocation tent-city and orphanage on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince. Claire, meanwhile, will probably work in triage determining the priority of the patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. Or in the pharmacy: For the trip Claire and Miguel each packed a suitcase full of supplies for the clinic: For themselves they were allowed to bring whatever clothes or personal needs they could stuff into a carry-on backpack. I last heard from Claire and Miguel yesterday afternoon; they were in the Miami airport about to board their flight for Haiti, full of excitement and anticipation. And right now they should be there, deep in the labor of love they set out to take on. Update: Last night Miguel posted on facebook: "Successfully ordered a round of beers in Haitian Creole. Crisis averted."
I knew he'd be a big hit! Several decades ago, when I was still a fledgling cook, I produced one of my more memorable, though certainly not my only, culinary disasters. But about ten years after the event the memory of my disaster was put to good use when The Columbus Dispatch sponsored a "Dessert Disasters" contest. I entered my disaster and mine was among the worst-disaster entries chosen for publication. So, as the difference between tragedy and comedy is time, here's the re-sharing of an event that was already well-aged when it was published in the Dispatch on May 18, 1994: One time I decided to throw a little dinner party to introduce some old friends to some new ones. Nothing fancy, except for the desert! I'd come across a recipe for lime chiffon pie, which sounded like the perfect dessert to impress the new friends and amaze the old. But I waited too late in the day to start the pie, and I suppose that in my hurry I must have thrown in too much of one ingredient or not enough of another, because the filling didn't gel and I ended up with lime soup in a crust. One old friend happened to arrive early enough to find me in the throes of panic. He took the situation in hand and asked what he could do o help. Run to the grocery store for me? Buy something to salvage the dessert situation? Yes! In a burst of inspiration, I rushed him out the door with instructions to bring me a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream. I'd simply mix the lime liquid with the ice cream, let it freeze in the pie shell and serve up a lime chiffon ice cream pie. An even better dessert than I'd planned! Now if back in high school I'd paid any more attention in chemistry class than I did in home economics, I'd have realized hat it takes more time for liquids to freeze into solids than it does to eat dinner. Anyhow, we ended up eating not ice cream pie but cold lime-vanilla flavored soup in which floated soggy pie-crust croutons. Of course the real disaster of the evening was not the failed dessert but the nervous state to which I had at that point degenerated. After my new (former) friends had gone home, my old friend said, "Patti, if you wanted a pie for dessert why didn't you just tell me to buy you one from the store? Or else you could have just served the ice cream plain instead of mixing it with the lime stuff." Duh! Do I laugh at that fiasco story today? No, but I do tell it when I'm trying to impress friends at a dinner party. Here's another more recent dessert disaster, already previously posted: But turned out like this: "Good times, Sergeant-Major. We'll have the again."
-Ward Just, "Soldiers." Everyone have a wonderful weekend! 8) ...Continued from yesterday: I expect that every recipe that someone gives you was passed on to them by someone else, who got it from somewhere else. Which I guess begs the question: does there exist a branch of geneology for recipes? Has anyone ever taken one of their favorite recipes and traced it back to its source? Anyway, here are a few of my legacy recipes, going back one generation. I'll hopefully be working on writing down the rest of my recipes ( or rather the recipes I've inherited form someone or somewhere else), but in the meantime here are the top-tier most important ones all in one place. (So if anyone is ever looking for them, just remember they're here in the October 9, 2014 Ailantha post). 1. Green Beans Almondine. Back when I was living in Paris back in 1972 my best French friend, Marie-Paule Demets, once made these green beans. I don't exactly remember the occasion, but I think it was the time we decided to make dinner together - or rather, she made the dinner, I just brought the meat, which I'd bought earlier in the day from a butcher's shop. Or from what I thought was a butcher's shop. Turned out where I bought it from was a boucherie chevaline, or a horse-meat butcher's shop. (I thought "Chevaline" was the butcher's name 'til Marie-Paule saw the name on the shop's bag and set me straight). So that was the first time I had green beans almondine and also my first (and last) horse meat. Marie-Paule's Green Beans Almondine 4 cans of French-cut green beans 1/2 cup slivered almonds 2 tablespoons butter or margarine Lawry's garlic salt Dried parsely Melt about 1 tablespoon of butter or margarine in a large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add the almonds and saute until light brown, be careful not to let them burn. Drain the green beans. Add to the almonds in the pan the green beans, the rest of the butter, the Lawry's garlic salt to taste and parsely. Cook until the green beans are heated through. 2. Mashed Potato Casserole. I got this recipe many years ago from my good friend and founding member, with myself, of the Panera Posse, Marianne. For years my family referred to this dish as my Marianne's potato casserole, but over time they've come to think of it as mine. It's really still Marianne's though. Marianne's Mashed Potato Casserole MIX: A large pot full of potatoes, cooked 1 stick of margarine 8 oz. cream cheese 1 cup sour cream chives - dried or fresh 1 tablespoon horse radish 1 shot pepper sauce salt to taste ADD: 1 cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese Bake at 325 degrees for a while. 3. Taco Dip I got this recipe also many years ago from my college friend and roomie, Lynn, or, as we called her back in the day, Little Lynnie. Little Lynnie's Taco Dip In a square or round glass pan layer the ingredients in the following order: 1 16 oz can refried beans 3 avocados, mashed and mixed with a squirt of lemon juice 16 oz. sour cream mixed with about 1/2 tablespoon of taco seasoning (or more if you'd like) Mild chunky salsa, enough to cover the sour cream layer shredded sharp cheddar cheese, enough to generously cover the salsa layer. 4. Cherry Almond Streusel Pie This recipe originated from a cherry pie recipe that I think originally came from some magazine article I found when I was first married. I've tweaked it from the original, though. Cherry Almond Streusel Pie The Pie: 2 cans of tart red cherries. 2 tablespoons of quick-cooking tapioca 1 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon 1 9-inch unbaked refrigerated roll-out pie crust The Streusel: 1/2 cup butter or margarine 1/2 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup flour 1/2 cup slivered almonds Drain one can of cherries and mix it with the other can of cherries with the juice from that can. Mix the cherries and juice with the tapioca, sugar, and cinnamon. Let stand for 15 minutes. Mix the flour and brown sugar then cut the butter into the flour and sugar until the mixture is crumbly. Mix in the almonds. Roll out the pie crust, place it in a 9-inch pie pan and spread the cherry mixture into the pie crust. Spoon the streusel mixture over the cherries. Bake at 375 for 45-50 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and topping well-browned. So these are some of the good recipes. Tomorrow I'll share one of the more memorable disasters. 8) 37 1/2 years ago I entered into marriage knowing how to cook four things: lasagne, chicken baked in the oven, French onion soup and a turkey dinner. I learned to cook all these things when I was working for the American Army in Aschaffenburg, Germany. A couple of army wives taught me how to make the lasagne and the chicken, some captain taught me how to make the French onion soup, and my mother sent me written instructions on how to make a turkey dinner, since one Thanksgiving I decided to invite about a dozen soldiers from the unit stationed in Aschaffenburg for a Thanksgiving dinner at my tiny apartment. (I still remember a young female sergeant named Carol telling me, upon accepting my invitation: "Just be sure you got plenty of spuds and gravy. I love my spuds and gravy!") But anyway, soon after Tom and I were married the wisdom of at least one of us learning to cook a more varied menu than my lasagne, chicken, onion soup and turkey dinner became very clear; so as I was already the most experienced, it was decided between us that I'd expand my repertoire and be cook of the outfit while Tom would be the dish washer, an arrangement that continues to suit us to this day. Anyway, my sister- law- Debbie had given me the Settlement Cookbook as a wedding gift. It was the first cookbook I'd ever owned. As you can see, it's been well-used - and well-loved - over the years.
But that cookbook was just the beginning of my culinary odyssey, which has been marked, as every fledgling cook's is, by shining successes and abominable failures. And yet, though I could hardly find my way around a kitchen 37 1/2 years ago, today I feel like I could write a cookbook. No, make that two cook books: one with all the really good stuff I've ever made and one with all the really awful stuff I've ever concocted; one could be a how-to, the other, a what-never-to-do. My sister Romaine in her comment reminded me of how at her husband Rick's memorial she handed out copies of Rick's mother's recipe book. I think that's something I would like done at my memorial service. I mean, if I have a memorial service. Though I expect they'll probably throw something together after they've scattered my ashes at Creekside Gahanna, right? So at my memorial service I think I'd like copies handed out of the recipes for the things I used to make that everybody liked. I like the idea, too, of giving the provenance of each recipe, who passed it on to me, who passed it on to the person who passed it on to me. I guess recipes are kind of like folk history, passed from person to person, generation to generation, always changing a little along the way. But anyway, if there's to be a recipe booklet to pass out at my memorial service I guess I'll have to first do as Romaine suggested and write all the good recipes down in one place. Maybe this is something all of us for whom cooking is part of our identity should do: collate all our favored recipes and keep them with our will, to be passed out to our survivors after we're gone. I mean, even if you don't have any money or significant material possessions to pass on, you could give people your good recipes. You could live on in your recipes. I think that would be a good tradition to start. Leave your will. Leave your recipes. Start writing them on a word document. Enter one a day. Organize them later. That's what I intend to do. But in the meantime, and just in case in spite of my intentions I never get around to writing down all my recipes, I'll share a few of the more popular ones now: the green beans almondine, the potato casserole, the cherry streusel pie, the taco dip. In fact, I think I've probably already shared some of those recipes in blogs past, but just in case, I'll share them again tomorrow. 8) ....Continued from yesterday: So, here's what made me realize that the memory of my sandwiches won't live on with the many after I'm gone: Several weeks ago my nephew Randy brought his girlfriend, Anusha,over to the house for dinner for the first time. Randy and Anusha Randy specially requested that for dinner I make my green beans almondine and mashed potato casserole. So I did... Green Beans Almondine Mashed Potato Casserole ... along with oven-fried chicken, a loaf of home-baked bread, fruit salad, Tom's apple pie and ice cream. Dinner was a hit and so was Anusha. So then the following weekend my daughter Claire and her husband Miguel drove in from Chicago for a visit. Claire specially requested that I make my green beans almondine and mashed potato casserole. And my cherry almond streusel pie for Miguel. And that's when it hit me: People want my green beans almondine and mashed potato casserole. They ask for them all the time. No family get-together can happen unless I make my green beans almondine and my mashed potato casserole. And my pies. And my taco dip. And my mini-cupcakes. But...nobody cares about my sandwiches! And that's when it also hit me: Nobody cares about my sandwiches because almost nobody knows about my sandwiches. Not that I don't make them often. I make them almost every day. But I only got into the craft of sandwiching in recent times, and so the only ones I make my super sandwiches for are Tom and me and anybody else who happens to be around the house at lunch time, which almost nobody ever is, except for Tommy once in a while on a weekend, or back when he was living with us while he was recovering from his hip surgery. And maybe now and then I'll whip up a super sandwich for one of the other kids when they're visiting me or I'm vising them. But of course I never serve my sandwich on those special occasions when we have a houseful because, for one thing, you don't serve sandwiches, no matter how super, on special occasions when you have a houseful and besides, making even one super sandwich is time-consuming. But then that which makes each sandwich so time-consuming is also what makes me feel like each sandwich is a creation, crafted step by step, piece by piece: And voila. An original edible artistic composition on a plate. Sort of.
But in the end, I guess it's okay if I'm not remembered for my arty sandwiches. I guess it would actually be okay with me if people remembered me for my green beans almondine or my potato casserole or any of those other dishes - none of which are in fact really "my" dishes - all come from recipes that were passed on to me from someone else and that I've likewise since passed on to others. So anyway: Besides being a wonderful, loving person, what would you like to be remembered for? Though I often forget it until I look in the mirror, I'm not really all that young any more. In fact I just turned 63. And though my father lived until he was 84 and my mother is still rockin' and rollin' at 94... ...there's no guarantee that I'll be rocking my parents' great genes for decades to come.
The hard-to-face-truth is, I've reached the age where it starts hitting you that maybe you'd better start taking care of business now, or at least start making a plan or two. Of course, some things are easier to plan than others: you can write your will and plan your funeral and let your kids know where your money is just in case you drop tomorrow or live so long that where you can't remember where your money is. But even if you manage to order your affairs down to the last detail and maybe even feel reasonably secure that your final wishes will be carried out as you dictated - and by the way, just so everybody knows, me, I want to be cremated then have my ashes scattered at the park at Gahanna Creekside - there's one thing that not you or me or even the richest or most powerful person on the planet can dictate, and that's what people will say about us after we're gone. What we'll be remembered for. Our legacy. All any of us can really do is hope that we'll be remembered for what we hope we'll be remembered for. Which, I guess, begs the question: What do you hope to be remembered for? What would you like people to say about you after you've gone? This is a question I've actually given some thought to. Subsequently I came up with an idea of what I'd like my legacy to be in the minds and hearts of those who'll remember me. So, then, what is it that I hope my children, children-in-law, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and any other family and friends who happen to out-hang me will remember about me long after the last of my ashes have blown from Gahanna Creekside Park down Mill Street and up Route 670 towards downtown Columbus? Do I hope they'll talk about what a wonderful, loving wife, what a wonderful, loving mother and grandmother, what a wonderful, loving sister and what a wonderful, loving friend I was, and how wonderful and loving and well-loved I was by everybody who knew me? Hecks, no! That's the kind of thing that gets said about everybody when they die. After you die people will say how wonderful and loving you were even if you had a jerky streak a mile wide. It's like the lowest common denominator. (Remember that great episode from "The Sopranos" when Tony soprano's mother Livia died and all her family was sitting around trying to scrounge up something nice to say about her?) I'd rather be remembered for something meaningful. Something that made people happy. Something that was the essential me. So I had this idea that I'd like to be remembered for my great sandwich. Because I really can whip up a sandwich like none other. And so I like to imagine the young ones sitting around together saying, "Remember those great sandwiches (Patti, Mom, Grammie Patti, Aunt Patti) used to make? What did she used to put in them? Deli turkey, avocadoes, onions, tomatoes?" "And didn't she used to throw in some olives?" "And sometimes some grilled mushrooms?" "And mayonnaise and that Hellman's dijonnaise mustard?" "And remember how sometimes instead of deli turkey she'd use cheddar cheese, or left-over oven-fried chicken or roast beef or pork chops shaved thin?" "On that home-baked bread?" "And served up with kettle chips and a pickle on the side?" "Yeah, she really made the best sandwiches," I hear them sighing with a smile, their eyes moistening at the memory. And that 's what I was thinking would be a neat legacy. Patti and her super sandwiches. In fact, I'd kind of decided that's what I hoped my legacy would be. Until a couple of occurrences few weeks ago, after which I was hit with the realization: Nobody's gonna remember those sandwiches! To be continued... |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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