UFOs
What a treat greeting me from my patio this early morning;
What a treat greeting me from my patio this early morning;
My mom, Millie LaRock, was a superb cook. She always put much thought and effort into putting tasty and appealing meals on our table. Growing up, the only food I remember disliking was spinach, cooked spinach. Other than that, I liked everything mom put on the table. I wasn’t a big fan of steak when I was younger, preferring my beef in the burger style. I tell you this as a segway into the following; when I would come home on leave from the military, mom would always ask me, “what can I fix you to eat? what’s your favorite thing?” And, every time, I’d reply, “anything mom, I like everything you fix.”
My favorite summertime meal is a simple, fresh from the garden, tomato sandwich on wholewheat toast with fresh lettuce and slathered with Hellman’s mayonnaise. Coming in a close second would add to that sandwich a couple slices of crisp bacon to create a BLT. Of course, I have to wait ‘til late summer, when the tomatoes are ripening, for that meal. To finish off this late summer meal, I’d look for a generous slice of vine ripened watermelon. Also, the addition of fresh boiled sweet corn on the cob smothered with real butter would add another layer of gustatory delight. Since we are starting this menu in late summer, desert would have to be blueberry pie. Everything washed down with fresh squeezed lemonade.
Summer starts in June however so what to eat while we wait for the garden harvest? How about a lunch of fresh strawberry shortcake and vanilla ice-cream and fresh iced sun tea? For supper we can throw some hamburgers and Glaziers hot dogs on the grill. Ice cold lager goes well with this meal. Recently, lobster has entered my summertime, meals to enjoy, preferably while viewing the Maine coastline.
Of course, the 4th of July brings us to the fireman’s field day and the choices are hot Italian sausage smothered with grilled peppers and onions. Or BBQ’d chicken well marinaded in Grandpa Aubrey’s State Fair Spiedie sauce. accompanied with macaroni salad and if available canned garlic green beans from last year’s garden.
Fall ushers in, Caprese salad with fresh basil. And homemade, fresh from the oven, yeast bread.
With a gin and tonic in hand on a blistering hot summer’s day, I wish you a bon appetite.
Our journey begins in a small hamlet, former village recently dissolved, on a bay along the edges of the mighty St. Lawrence River. Currently, the year-round population of our little hamlet is just over 300 persons as of 2019. Although I was not, my dad was born here in 1920, a more populated and prosperous river village of the time. There was a Railroad depot and stockyard, a ferry to Canada, A milk processing plant, a graphite plant as well as being home to Dr. Morse's "Indian Root Pills." A K-12 school sits atop the ridge which the village was built on. A stone Windmill also sits up overlooking the River. There were, at one time, 5 gas stations and at least 3 grocery stores, one of which my grandfather was owner/proprietor, when my dad was born. Our own U.S. Post office currently occupies the building where my grandfather's store was. High atop the street leading from the river up and out of the village toward the State highway, on the left was a hotel/dance hall called Rose Manor.
Today the village is a skeleton of it's former self, retaining only, of the aforementioned, the K-12 school, the stone windmill, the post office, a volunteer fire department, and a fuel and hardware supply store. Still it retains the ambiance of a neighborly community with a landscape to delight the senses.
To own or have access to a motorized vehicle of conveyance is a mandatory necessity here if only to enable one to travel the ten or more miles to avail oneself of certain amenities: gasoline, groceries, and healthcare.
I return from a six month hiatus in Florida to find a car with a dead battery, a home with few foodstuffs, and a doctor's appointment in 3 days requiring lab work prior.
Undaunted I proceed; you know, the old adage concerning life, lemons, and lemonade. Call a friend who is, BTW, a mechanic, and in a day and a half I have a reliable, drivable vehicle. I research the local hospital's (12 miles away) website and glean that they have Saturday outpatient lab draws from 7 AM to noon. Okeydokey, a plan forms; hit the lab at 7 then head to the grocery store and pick up items on my list. And finally proceed to the nursery to purchase garden supplies.
In the car at 0645. It starts. Yay, it's gonna be a good day. Walk into hospital receiving area; Young woman asks, "what are you here for today?"
Me: showing her my lab request form, I say, "I'm here for lab work.
young woman: "The lab isn't open on Saturday."
Me: "You may want to mention to the higher ups that they need to update their web site."
Young woman: "Oh, they've been told many times."
Well now, isn't that a fine how-do-you-do? Now that I've been handed a bowl full of lemons; what to do. I head over to the grocery store and pick-up supplies. I only forgot 2 items on my list of 15, which btw, I'd left on the counter a home.
Next, I stop at a local diner for a delicious omelet/wheat toast with tomato juice and coffee. I skipped the garden center for today. Now it's home to get ready to attend a local Bluegrass festival in a neighboring small village.
Tomorow we'll pick here, where we left off.
Whether I've ever been a hero to someone is really a story to be told by others not me. Some would say that being a hospital corpsman on the battlefields of Vietnam might qualify me as a hero. Having administered in excess of 40,000 anesthetics over a 50-year career as a CRNA has possibly made me a hero in some of my patient's eyes. Aside from just doing my job, I like to think that the quality that qualified me to be called a hero is my unwavering attempts to alleviate fear and despair in my patients. I'm not talking about the drugs I administer to that end but the emotional support I provide while interacting with them.