Past Blogs

Eating out while traveling in America is no picnic. The chances of finding grease saturated food are about 100 per cent and of finding food with taste and nutrition about zero. Note that I don’t consider limp, brown tinged lettuce suffocated in styrofoam boxes as “healthy food”.

It’s sad that history’s lessons have to be relearned. Fred Harvey had the traveler’s food thing all figured out. He came to America from England in 1850, got a job with an American railroad, loved the job but hated the low quality food that was the rail traveler’s standard fare. From 1870 to 1968 the Harvey House Restaurants provided good meals, gracious service and ambience for the ordinary railroad traveler. His waitresses, known as the Harvey Girls, were legendary. For a nostalgic trip, check out the 1946 film, The Harvey Girls, starring Judy Garland.

Howard Johnson revolutionized food service for the motoring public. Starting in 1925 with a drug store and soda fountain in Quincey, Massachusetts, he believed his customers should have more than the three standard ice cream flavors, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.  He devised 28 flavors and doubled the butterfat content. Soon he was franchising restaurants along highways and toll plazas all over the nation. A bright orange roof and a “Simple Simon meet a Pieman” logo made HoJos instantly recognizable.

Howard Johnson’s restaurants always retained hints of New England on their menus. All you could eat fried clams were a featured item. They were also my Aunt Vi’s favorite restaurant meal and my husband and I have spent many happy  hours watching her enjoy towering stacks of them.

American travelers no longer have time for sit down dining. Ironically, my most hated current roadside plaza is a former Howard  Johnson’s over the I-94 toll road going to Chicago. The plaza has a huge banner for Geico Insurance covering its windows. Does this imply that lizards are one of the menu items?  Inside the smells of stale grease and bathroom disinfectant are overpowering. The “food” is dished out from a bevy of fast food stands. Ambience is minus ten.

This formula is repeated at toll plazas, highway junctions and many airports all over America. It is not a recipe for travelers’ happiness.

We recently had a run-in with physics. Unfortunately, I’ve never studied physics: when I went to college, that subject was not deemed necessary for art majors. My husband did study physics but always found it to be his most challenging subject.

Our lack of a bathtub got the whole situation rolling. When we designed our house, we left out a tub. Both of us take showers every morning and concluded a bathtub was not a justifiable expense.

Being bathtub-less, staying at a hotel with a tub is a treat and a room with a jacuzzi is the ultimate joy. The last time this happened, we began filling the giant jacuzzi tub immediately after we checked in.

“Do you think they might have given us some bubble bath?” I wondered. A search turned up no bubble bath, but I did find a wee bottle of body wash. I handed it to my husband, he dumped it in and we both got in. Bliss!

One minute later I said, “I think I know what a lemon meringue pie feels like.” We were enveloped by peaks of frothy white bubbles. Another minute later and the bubbles had risen one foot over the rim of the tub. Thirty seconds more and my husband resembled Santa, his beard covered with foaming bubbles. I came to my senses and turned off the jets.

Between laughter and a mouth full of bubbles, I managed to sputter, “We’ve just created our own episode of I Love Lucy.”

This incident was not recorded with photos. Use your imagination. If you need a picture, here is one of Julia and Paul Child’s annual Valentine greetings. We know how they did that.

I took Rangda to school with me the other day. A seventh grade teacher had asked if I could do a program on Southeast Asia. Since most schools consider geography a quaint anachronism, I was eager to contribute and suggested I could do a program on Indonesian art. That is how my spectacular mask of Rangda, the Balinese witch who represents all evil, took a field trip to school.

I began with basic facts about Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world and the largest Muslim nation. Consisting of 17,508 islands, Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world stretching 3,200 miles along the equator. The land is generally covered with tropical rain forests and has tremendous biological diversity. Four hundred volcanoes including one hundred and fifty active ones dot the islands. Indonesia also hosts the only native population of Komodo Dragons in the world.

Art followed the facts, and I displayed intricate water buffalo skin shadow puppets, carved flying guardian figures and numerous masks from Bali. Rangda and her counterpart Barong were the finale. The Barong, a creature that looks like a cross between a lion and a dragon, is a good spirit. His face is seen everywhere over doors and gateways to ward off evil. Rangda is pure evil bringing death and disease and casting spells.

Masked, costumed dancers representing Barong and Rangda act out the struggle between good and evil. The Barong is never killed, but Rangda is never destroyed only temporarily vanquished.

The class was totally attentive and eager to find out what their art project would be. “Draw a mask of either Barong or Rangda”, I told them.

Before I left for school that morning, my husband predicted what the outcome of the art project would be……but I didn’t believe him. When I asked who would be drawing Rangda, 36 out of 40 hands shot up. My guy certainly called that one right. So much for goodness.

I am extremely pleased with the effort the students put into their artwork. Here are some of their creations.

My father worked hard all his life, saved a part of every paycheck and pulled himself out of the poverty he had known as a child. After retiring, one of his favorite activities was going to the bank. He would deposit checks, get cash, visit his safety deposit box and have pennies counted. He knew all the tellers and brought them Hershey bars (with almonds) as a thank you for their courteous services.

If my father were alive now, he would be appalled. Big banks have become the bastions of crooks and scam artists, and most of the scams are legal. Not one of these jokers deserves a Hershey bar, almonds or no almonds.

If you think I’m exaggerating, consider the fact that many banks change their names about every six months. One of our banks changed names so many times that we could hardly keep track of our own money.

The ingenious ways that banks have devised to divest customers of their savings and homes is breath taking. And if you actually have money left in your accounts, accessing those accounts takes advanced computer skills and constant new passwords. I believe the theory here is “If the customers can’t find their accounts, they might forget they have them.”

I admit to nostalgia. In my father’s time:

• Banks paid interest on customers’ savings.
• Banks often had names that were 100 years old.
• Banks updated the balance of accounts in a passbook at the time of every transaction.
• Banks had tellers who were friendly and helpful even without Hershey bars.
• Banks gave toasters, popcorn makers and other incentives for opening new accounts.
• Banks sponsored day trips for older customers.

I have no desire to take a field trip with my bank nor do I need multiple toasters. I would, however, like to be treated with fairness, respect and decency by my financial institutions. I’ve got a much better chance of winning the lottery.

Counting birds is akin to numbering popcorn kernels as they explode in the kettle. How can it possibly be done accurately?

But last month there was a knock on the door and our local bird expert asked if we could count the birds coming into The Tooley Cafe for the  afternoon. Apparently our well stocked cafe is known as a “hot spot” for birds. We confessed to total inexperience in bird numbering, but readily agreed to give it a try.

We asked for advice on how to avoid counting the same bird numerous times, and the reply was  “Just do your best, it’s difficult”. Unfortunately, birds can’t be tagged with paint like the sheep in Ireland.

The temperature was zero outside, but we were warm inside sitting or hovering near the kitchen table where there is a direct view of all our feeders. Because of the freezing temperature, the birds  were in need of plenty of calories and the cafe was an ongoing flurry of activity. Our best efforts for six hours yielded the following results:

• 3 Downy Woodpeckers
• 1 Red Bellied Woodpecker
• 4 Chickadees
• 8 Cardinals
• 4 Blue Jays
• 9 Goldfinch
• 10 Mourning Doves
• 8 Juncos
• 19 Sparrows

Last week a brutal Arctic cold front moved in. Temperatures plunged to minus 16 below and constant winds roared for three days. I worried constantly about our birds. My husband kept the feeders filled to the top, put piles of seeds on the ground and added 5 extra suet cakes as well as a big pan of water with a heater in it. I turned my kitchen chair to face away from the window: it was too hard watching the few birds who were braving the gale winds.

The happiest moment of the week was when the temperature got back to thirty degrees and scores of birds converged in our Cafe. I know the birds’ survival can be explained with scientific facts. However, how a tiny one ounce bird can endure Arctic weather conditions seems to be simply a miracle.