Oh Brother (In-Law)

Just winding down from an Easter dinner with the in-laws.  Getting together with my wife's family on major holidays is always enjoyable. She has seven brothers.  They are some of the kindest people you'll ever meet. But, after years of sharing a dinner table with these guys, all of whom grew up in a hardscrabble farm family of 14, they've provided me an opportunity to observe multitudes of mealtime misconduct.


Though the brothers (ranging in age from 47-60) are college-educated and professionally successful.  Each of whom continues to carry with him a lifetime of questionable table manners.  Plates are loaded in layers with heaping scoops from each of the serving bowls in the buffet line - with no regard as to what goes where. Pork roast on top of Jello . Gravy on grapes.  Coconut cream pie nestled in baked beans. Coleslaw sandwiches with pineapple and pickle shishkabobs. And everything smothered in ketchup.

Eating utensils are gripped like digging tools, as food is bulldozed back and forth across the workspace of their plates.  I'm not averse to using an occasional thumb to coax something onto a fork, but I've witnessed grown men using several fingers to trap and manipulate cake crumbs like he were packing a pinch of snuff.  And at least once a year someone actually licks his plate.

Fortunately, with 30 people in the house the clamor is loud enough to drown out the sounds of finger licking and lip smacking.  But when the conversation lulls, the noises emanating from their mouths have to be similar to that of a pack of hyenas gorging on peanut butter Popsicles.


One brother, with Olympic-sized offensive eating habits, never fails to leave me standing at the counter slack-jawed and slightly sickened.  His bulging styrofoam plateloads are legendary. This year's quivering concoction featured half a tube of crushed Ritz crackers sprinkled on top and half a stick of butter a-la-carte. ~L

Redneck Black Guy Sings Blues

R.L. Burnside:  See My Jumper Hanging On the Line (1978)

Sitting on a bucket in his backyard.  Listen to the kids hollering in the background.  Check out the shoes at 3:16.  Got the same ones.  ~L

Can't Make Up This Stuff

Had this conversation at school recently.

"Want to see a picture I drew yesterday?" the boy asked, as his sixth grade classmates filed into the room.  "I like looking at pictures." I replied, generically.  Though crudely drawn in a spiral notebook- and heavily smudged from his hand repeatedly brushing over the intense pencil work - the artwork mildly portrayed a terrestrial theme.  "I can't quite tell what it is," I said, handing back his drawing.  "I see a lot of stars."

"It's a macaroni spaceship," he beamed, proudly admiring his creation of elbow-style pasta with flames shooting from the hollow ends.  "There's two of them - blasting off into the galaxy.  I named them Mach I and Mach II - but now I call them Mac I and Mac II for short." 

(The anecdote alone is amusing.  But, read his quotes aloud - with a voice afflicted with adenoids - and you'll  understand why I shared it.)  ~L

What's That Smell?

Sadly, after weeks of performing painful digestive detective work (while sleeping on the couch), I've determined that my home brewed beer gives me dreadful wind.  ~L

101 Uses?




I wonder if the folks at the Swiss Army company have "scraping hard water deposits from a toilet bowl" in mind when they envision uses for their knives?  (I wiped it off really well before making supper.) ~L

Spring Cleaning

Spring arrived this week.  Finally.

After a humbling winter, consisting of weeks-long temperatures in the tens-below-zero, we Wisconsiners refer to any consecutive days above freezing as spring.  I'm almost giddy as I make my twice-daily trudge to the outdoor wood stove while needing only a pair of knee-high muck boots and one jacket.

Along with the renewed sense of excitement and freedom that the receding snow cover brings - also comes the need to tidy up the view from the front door. 

Because I live on a remote stretch of town road that dead-ends at a river, I find alot of "party supplies" jettisoned from passing vehicles. Mostly the usual - cardboard beer boxes, mis-matched women's under garments, and two-liter bottles of urine. Occasionally, I'll get lucky and salvage a still-useable girlie magazine.

This year, my seven-year-old boys volunteered for clean-up.  Not so much to help make things look nice, but to scavenge for rusty junk to stash in their bedroom.  They got a little excited when they discovered a bear hibernating in a culvert near our mailbox.  A closer look revealed the animal was actually a black lab that met an untimely demise on the road before the county plow pushed it into the ditch.

Near the house, scattered piles of sawdust, bark, and branches from my fledgling wood cutting business are now soggy eyesores. I should just declare the mess as highly valuable mulch I could sell to green-friendly townies, but the tattered blue tarps will take a hundred years to decompose.

I don't remember the season's first snowstorm, but apparently it struck with a Pompeii-like suddenness.  Scooters, baseball gloves and various articles of clothing lay exactly where the kids left them last fall.

The dog's been busy doing her part contributing to the clutter.  Unidentifiable chunks of what I assume is formerly-living wildlife are nearly as numerous as the beer cans she's fished out of the garbage.  Picking up the cans would be a lot easier if I didn't have to dodge the landmines she's deposited on the lawn.  Luckily, water-logged turds are easy to scrape from the soles of my shoes.  ~L

Eight Keys to Life

Over the years, two of my children have adorned their bedroom doors with various homemade posters and signs.  "No Boys Allowed!", "Do Not Enter!", and "Don't Touch My Stuff!" - traditional pre-teen admonitions. 

Recently, following their elder siblings' lead, my two youngest displayed their own artistic advert.  This is what seven-year-old boys find important.  ~L

According to my little ones, "things that help people live" are:
drinks, houses, brains, farting, bees, food, water, and exercises.