Category → Family
Merry Christmas to one and all
Somehow
Somehow, wishing Merry Christmas to your fellow American has turned into a big time no-no. Out of fear of “offending” someone, I suppose.
Since when was a human culture based on not possibly offending someone, even unintentionally? The French culture is based on insulting and offending everyone. Like Africans, the Germans pass right by offending and go right for invading and killing.
The British snub everyone in every way, the most popular being the genteel way, of course. Etc.
Americans are so programmed to not offend the many cultures, ethnicities, and religions that make up our nation that now there’s a taboo against wishing someone Merry Christmas. What if they don’t observe or do Christmas?, goes the thinking.
Well, folks, Christmas is our national holiday. And it has become so commercialized and popularized that you don’t have to worry about someone wishing you a Merry Christmas and then in a fit of joy forcing you to eat something you detest, like pickled fish (Norway), blood pudding (Britain), etc. or that the well-wisher’s intent is to either convert you to a different religion (Mormonism) or to belittle your own beliefs.
Since when did wishing cheer and good will among men and women add up to an insult?
I’ll tell you where. In the minds and practices of America’s cultural police, who also promote atheism as America’s official religion, that’s where.
It’s not coming from a healthy place, this new taboo against wishing someone Merry Christmas. And therefore, it is with great relish that I wish all of you dear readers a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year!
The Bluefish, Ocean Challenge
The ubiquitous east coast bluefish is a monster, a predator, a giant piranha. Growing to twenty pounds and foraging in huge packs, bluefish with friendly-fire bite marks are often caught by saltwater fishermen.
Bait fish are so terrorized by bluefish that they will throw themselves up on a beach to escape them.
Bluefish are tough, and aggressive. They bite lures and bait readily, usually bringing a smile at the tug and then a grimace to the face of the fisherman. Pulling a hook on a bluefish that you intend to release unharmed is a bit of a delicate maneuver, because bluefish will just as readily bite off your nearest finger as they will stare at you with their devilish yellow eyes.
While they do put up a fun fight, bluefish are notoriously fishy tasting and difficult to make into a meal that will satisfy most fish eaters.
Having eaten bluefish since I was a kid, I have seen them baked, fried, broiled, and pickled in a variety of recipes that have to one degree or another addressed that fishy taste.
Last week I returned home from a successful fishing outing with about fifty pounds of bluefish filets (and 30 pounds of whiter meat from another more desirable game fish).
Having so much material to work with, I was able to experiment widely.
Some of the bluefish filets were baked, some broiled, some were smoked.
For baking, any way with any ingredients, I learned that bathing the filet in lemon juice for at least 45 minutes before baking got rid of 95% of the fishy smell and taste. A good cup of lemon juice poured over a filet, which is then laid face down in the juice to marinate. Some Rosemary and salt, and then after 45 minutes or longer, it’s ready to bake with butter or sauce. The lemon juice can be used with it.
Speaking of sauce, I made a sauce of spicy brown mustard and worcestshire sauce mixed together. About two ounces of each. Then pour it over the filet and broil at 500 for fifteen minutes or until it’s turning dark brown.
It was delicious.
For smoking, I found that again, brining with not just salt and sugar, as usual for fish, but also with lemon juice added, for at least 24 hours, got rid of 95% of the fishy taste.
Probably the best post-brining addition was adding lots of Old Bay over the more or less pickled fish; it also added a lot of flavor.
I’ve done a bunch of batches of smoked bluefish and I think I’ve finally discovered how to get the best tasting result, consistently. Never before did I have so much meat to experiment with and I can’t imagine too many other people willing to spend the amount of time trying to overcome the bluefish challenge.
By the way, I did remove the brown meat from the lateral line in one batch, and it made a small but noticeable improvement.
So there you have it, new recipes and processing procedures for bluefish from Central Pennsylvania. Probably the last time that bluefish were eaten so heartily along the banks of the Susquehanna River would have been three hundred years ago, when up-river striped bass migrations would have brought the Susquehannocks and other local Indian tribes into direct contact with saltwater fish and trade for smoked fish from the northern Chesapeake Bay. I am pleased to continue in that tradition.
Joe Paterno gets fired, the end of innocence
When Paterno got fired from Penn State, it marked the true end of the innocence that defined much of Happy Valley’s day-to-day existence.
For Paterno to have to leave at the end of the season was a big blow to the whole university-football-alumni-money system.
For Paterno to be summarily fired, by phone and before the end of the season, indicates the depth of the failure and the cost of the coverup now dawning on Penn State’s board of directors.
Such a thing was unimaginable a week ago.
To make such a move is to sacrifice much short-term stability, long-standing tradition, and external confidence in PSU. But the trade-off is that eventually that outside confidence will return, because the board acted decisively and painfully.
Spanier’s firing is a whole other matter.
Spanier was not a fixture of PSU like Paterno had been, and he was not co-identified with the university. Paterno was Penn State, while Spanier was simply working at Penn State. Sure, Spanier was there a long time and he liked to present himself as being as much a fixture as Paterno, but he wasn’t one.
Firing a university president is a sad but important fact of academic life. While it is usually painful, most college presidents (and I have met or worked with at least a dozen in my career) are just as human as you and I, except that they all have gigantic egos for reasons that no one else outside of academia can understand. These folks are no more deserving of adulation than anyone else, and actually probably get fired a lot less than they deserve or experience. My city’s garbage men perform a more necessary and appreciated service than any college president, so Spanier gets zero sad faces from me on account of his termination.
But Penn State, my shining city on the hill, that is still getting sad faces. And we still do not yet know what happened to get us all to this point. The Sandusky scandal probably goes deep.
Here is an indication of just how broad the scandal is: A small independent news source in Israel actually wrote a report titled “Football Related Scandal Traumatizes the United States,” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/149584#.Tr1TyPL4J6Q.
A quick search of other international news outlets indicates that PSU has a far bigger reputation than I would have ever guessed. And I’m one to think that the world revolves around Penn State and State College.
Resolution had better be done correctly, or we will end up looking even worse.
Joe Paterno steps down…end of an era
Joe Paterno has just announced that he will step down from his head coach position at the end of this football season.
The Jerry Sandusky scandal has ended Joe’s career on a negative, when it should have ended on a positive. People argue that Joe could not have ended it on a positive no matter what, because he had groomed no successor, seemed unwilling to face his age, and has been disengaged from the actual sideline coaching.
I will miss Joe, for all of the obvious reasons: His leadership, his values, his dedication. I am pained that a bunch of little boys had to be raped by his subordinate in order to bring this change.
It’s not the way that anyone saw anything related to PSU turning out.
Sexual harassment for real: Jesse Jackson sued, by a guy
Somehow the mainstream media forgot to mention that racist rabble rouser Jesse Jackson is being sued for sexual harassment. And by a guy, no less.
Jackson’s unfettered ability to move about freely among mainstream media reporters without taking any questions on this affair demonstrates that if you stay on the Plantation, then you will be taken care of.
If you are a Herman Cain, an independent thinker, why then nothing you say or do can clear your name, and the mainstream media reporters and talking heads will hound you to the ends of the earth. Thus demonstrating why so many Americans have lost faith in the mainstream media (NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN etc.).
And demonstrating why Cain’s popularity and fundraising are soaring, despite the attacks.
Maybe if Jesse Jackson becomes a Republican, he’ll benefit from the same effect helping Cain. C’mon, Jesse, give it a spin. Get your real freak on.
Read the gross details here:
http://www.thegrio.com/politics/gay-ex-employee-alleges-sexual-misconduct-bias-by-rev-jackson-and-staff.php
What’s In a Pocket Knife?
That first pocket knife weighed a ton in my hand, the weight being strictly emotional as the responsibility for something sharp and deadly sank in to my five-year-old brain. I still have that knife today, and would you believe it’s about the cutest little folding knife ever made? If it’s even two inches long, I’d be surprised.
After that, over the next few years my dad bought me ever-bigger pocket knives, each one a successively bigger symbol of my increasing responsibility and age. Dad was tough, too, because had I ever screwed up, he would have taken away whatever he had given me. Basically, they remained pocket knives, truly, stashed away in my front pants pocket, and rarely opened. Fear of screwing up and losing what I had gained was behind my being responsible.
Leap forward 35 years, and I was beginning to hand out pocket knives to my own kids. First the two daughters, and now my son.
Each got one when they were ready. The eldest was about nine, and she showed interest in it for a year, and then promptly became a teenager. Fold-out lipstick became her obsession. Even shooting became passe.
The next girl got her knife around seven, and her first gun at twelve. She’s still into them. Her middle name is “Miss Responsibility.”
The boy, ahhh, the boy…if you are an adult, then you know how boys are. They are not girls. Where girls are carefully examining things, boys are quickly demolishing them or exploding them. Would he be ready by five or six, like I had been when I got my first knife?
As a dad, I like to replicate as many of the first-time symbols with my kids that I enjoyed myself. First BB gun at six, first deer rifle at 10, first .22 at 11, first shotgun at 12. My son, I am hoping, will want to be like me. Most dads’ dream is to have their son be the mini-me, and lots of boys enjoy it. Great basis for a relationship. It worked in the Pleistocene, when hunting and woodcraft skills were passed down this way, and it works today. Watching your boy become a little man is what being a dad to a boy is all about. Great stuff.
Well, this summer in Sag Harbor I bought what was to be the boy’s first pocket knife. When I returned from the hardware store to my family, all sitting around an outdoor cafe table, each nursing a foamy ice cream drink, the rebuttals came swift and hard. Especially from Daughter Number One.
The boy is not ready, was the general refrain.
“He’s a baby,” said one daughter.
“He’s too spoiled to handle it right,” said the other.
My city-born wife had long ago yielded to the forest of rods and rifles scattered about our home, leaning in corners or stashed across door frames. Each one or pair representative of a different season or combination of hunting and fishing seasons at a given time of year. Her eyes said she was uncertain about this, even though she knows how important it is to me to reach this milestone.
With the ice cream soda in his hand and the straw in his mouth, his eyes goofily crossed and focused on the receding liquid, the boy had no idea what was happening, so we were spared the agony of offering something and then taking it away. The brief discussion flew right by him, and I kept the little box in my pocket.
Tonight on his Cub Scouts hike at the PA Game Commission headquarters trail, three months past the Long Island moment, he took with him the pocket knife he got two weeks ago. It would be surprising if any of the other cub scouts carried a pocket knife with them, and he quietly knew it. Step one in developing a sense of responsibility is discretion. Good boy!
Two weeks ago we were in the midst of a historic flood, and our home was inundated by the mighty Susquehanna. Times of crisis are times of learning, and as my wife and kids were leaving me for higher ground, I handed the little man his first-ever pocket knife, in its box, wrapped with a ribbon.
“You are the little man while I am away, and you are responsible for your family tonight while I cannot be with you, OK?,” I said to him. Even as the water was washing at the bottom of my wife’s vehicle and pouring into the house, the family gathered round to congratulate him and welcome him into the society of the Big and Responsible.
Now I have regrets. The knife is a Schrade, long the standard by which other pocket knives were judged. But this knife is now made in China, and its details show it.
All other pocket knives that I give out are made in America by Case, and at weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvas, business deal closings, etc., I hand them out. It’s my way of passing along a piece of America, both symbolic and functional, as a token of our moment together. Clients and friends have pulled them out, years later, to proudly show me that they still have it, so I know it’s a meaningful tradition.
But in Sag Harbor, they were out of Case and just had this little Schrade. And wanting to capture and enhance our family vacation moment just right, I bought it. This Schrade knife, model 897 UH with Spey, sheepsfoot, and Turkish clipped blades, just doesn’t feel like the real deal. That Made-In-China feel is all over it, as its fit, finish, and materials all seem cheap and weak.
Which means that the little man will have to get a second knife sooner rather than later, and it’ll be a Case, something that’s really a quality product. And this second gift will introduce him to the other aspect of owning outdoors gear: You just can’t ever have too much, and once you get started collecting it, you really end up using it. Outdoors life is the best living there is, so the first and the second knives are both seeds toward something much greater. A life of adventure and accomplishment, health and clean fun…All that and more is wrapped up in this little knife in my hand.
Flood of 2011 Experiences In a Nutshell
Ladies and gentlemen, like many families along the Susquehanna Valley, our clan experienced a lot of displacement, loss, and discomfort as a result of the five feet of water in our basement.
But challenges like the flood are just a test, a test of our abilities, our faith, our ability to be a good neighbor, and our friendships.
It also tests whether or not businesses are willing to be good neighbors, or if they try to take advantage of people who are vulnerable and needy.
Here are some kudos that came out of our experience, turning the lemons into lemonade:
***Big thank you-s to Ed, Dominic, and Devon, friends who over-rode my last-minute living-in-denial mentality and simply showed up, despite my protests, and helped our family carry hundreds of pounds of things out of the basement and up to the first floor, and then from the first floor to the second, as the flood warnings changed hourly. Just in time. Without their muscle and hard work, our personal and financial losses would have been much higher.
***Big thank you to long-time friend Mark Brodsky, who selflessly dropped off a huge generator on my front porch on Friday morning, which kept the sump pumps going long after the electricity had been turned off in our city.
***Big thank you to Mark Woodland, an amazing friend and neighbor, who helped me set up sump pump after sump pump in our basement, despite the late hours, the gross water, and the hard work. Mark is a gifted technician of anything involving mechanics. Without Mark, I likely would have ended up with the pump hoses circling back into the house.
***Thanks to Rabbi Ron Muroff who descended like an angel to help out himself and then with other volunteers (thanks, Judge Solomon et. al.) when we needed help most. We are not members of his house of worship, but we will be making a donation to it.
***Thanks to neighbors Steve and Dick for helping with the sump pumps and generator when I was running helter-skelter.
***Thanks to the Harrisburg City Police for putting in long hours chasing down would-be looters in our neighborhood, putting up with ridiculous answers from these guys, and for bringing comfort to me when our neighborhood was dark, abandoned, and completely vulnerable to break-ins and looting. Officer Bobby Yost, call any time for a BBQ in our back yard. You earned it, buddy.
***Thanks to the two very likeable Allstate adjustors, Tim and Paul, for treating us fairly and kindly. These two suuthin good ol’ boys from Louisiana are hunters, fishermen, even-keeled, and really all-American in all respects. We enjoyed their company as well as their hard work to ensure that we were treated fairly. Hey, fellow Central Pennsylvanians, these guys from the bayous are our kind of people. If you desire a vacation in a very different part of the nation but still want to feel at home, I think we can safely recommend coastal Louisiana.
***Thanks to FEMA for helping so many of our communities. We pay our taxes for this kind of service, and it’s nice to see our government provide service with alacrity and a smile. James Ferguson, our guest FEMA employee (well, a contractor) all the way from Tacoma, had an easy, caring way, and a hard work ethic.
***Thanks big time to our US Mail carrier, John, who stopped briefly to talk with me on Friday, September 9th, to strategize about the best paths for him to take to various neighborhood homes under feet of muddy water. Yeah, we know that the US Mail folks are under the gun in so many ways, but John delivered our mail despite encountering conditions that he could have easily walked away from.
***Thanks to Todd at Rainbow Cleaning. Although he made money, Todd also helped us above and beyond the call of duty. Without his dozen airplane-prop – sized fans and two industrial dehumidifiers for almost two weeks, our basement would have never really dried out. Todd provided good advice, too.
***Thanks to my parents and to the Family Boss, Viv, for keeping us all on the straight and narrow despite the strong urges I often felt to run screaming in circles.
Josh
When Texting While Driving Becomes Manslaughter
Allison was a young, smart, beautiful, productive American
Learning how to blog
Dear Visitor,
Thanks for coming here, and I do promise to get better at blogging. Much better content and format to come.
–Josh
Kids and guns do mix, in our family
Target practice with her new .22, the PA-made Crickett