Finding Family at a Funeral

(Photo: Gravesite near Edinburgh, Scotland)

It occurs to me that you could probably make a very good guess at somebody’s age by comparing the number of weddings to the number of funerals they’ve attended, in the past year.

There are still several weeks of 2006 to go, and so far I’ve been to one of the former and five of the latter, which is probably a record for me.

But one of the few grudging benefits of getting older, I’ve found, is that you don’t dread funerals nearly as much as when you’re younger and are consistently surprised by them. For most of my life, I assumed that the task of the attendees at a funeral is to say, or do, something that will make the family’s loss seem somehow less profound, and I always came up short (no pun intended) in that regard.

I mentioned this dilemma, in passing, to a friend a couple of years back, who observed that this is a very egotistical way to think. The point of showing up at a funeral or a memorial service, she said, is to remind the bereaved that they’re not alone in their sorrow. Job over. You go home.

It was in this frame of mind that I found myself driving up Highway 269 to Oakman on a recent Wednesday morning, under rain clouds that looked as if they might burst loose at any moment. A lifelong friend’s husband of 20 years had died of a heart attack on Monday, much too young, and there was to be a graveside service only.

The turnoff to the cemetery was a narrow road that coiled up a steep hill, with the colors of autumn displayed in the hollows on both sides. I had misjudged my driving time a little bit, and as I parked and walked up to the edge of the crowd of maybe 70 or 80 people, the ceremony was already starting.

There was no lengthy sermon, just a few opening remarks and a reading of the survivors, and then an invitation for any friends or neighbors of Bob, to step forward and say a few words if they wished.

A handful of mostly older men did, and as the comments drew to a close, I realized something. Each man had probably spoken for less than three minutes, in voices whose volume was respectful but exactly loud enough to be heard among the gathered crowd and no farther. Moreover, each of the comments was not some disjointed, rambling remembrance but a real story, a story with a point to it, that made us either laugh or cry.

It was at that point that I thought: These are my people.

We Scots-Irish have the reputation of being a cantankerous lot. And Lord knows, most of us have enough genetic personality flaws to write a psychology textbook about. But when it comes to telling stories, we don’t have to take a back seat to anybody alive.

It occurred to me that I was not thankful enough for that heritage, that gift. And that I’m not thankful enough, often enough, for the great good fortune and privilege to be able to do it for a living.

The rain kept holding off. I didn’t know that the best part of the service was yet to come.

After the comments were finished, a man who looked a little bit like my father, if he had lived to that age, stepped out from the crowd. The man said that he apologized for not being as good with words as the other speakers had been, but that if it was all right with everybody, he wanted to sing just one verse of a song instead.

He cleared his throat and began:

“Farewell, vain world, I’m going home...”

The song has long been my favorite Sacred Harp hymn. It says everything important about death in a few dozen graceful words. I’d heard it sung many times by congregations, but never by just one person before, and it was like hearing the song for the first time.

The musical notes that comprise Sacred Harp compositions are as solid as the wide slabs of cut stone that are used for making steps up and down a dirt hillside, and the notes of this gentleman’s singing let me walk, in my mind, to a place I had been only once before in my life: the place my family came from.

It’s been some 20 years now since I walked down a street in Glasgow, Scotland, weary and homesick from a too-long business trip to nearby England. It was lunchtime, and the scent from a tiny storefront cafe drew me in.

Sitting at a table there, it dawned on me that I was 4,000 miles from Alabama and yet the smells were exactly the same as my grandmother’s kitchen. Not only that, but the waitress spoke to me in the voice of my great-aunt, and the conversations at the surrounding tables were the same tone and pitch as if my grandparents had been multiplied and spaced around the room.

I’m sure some of the customers wondered, when I was gone, why a strange young guy would sit there eating the best shepherd’s pie in the world and crying as if his best friend had died. But there I was.

And there I was, Wednesday morning, driving home from Oakman, changed once more. I was all the way to the fishing camps on the Warrior River before the rain showers finally came, and my one regret was that I had not sought out the man who sang the one short verse, and shook his hand and asked if I could make a good digital recording sometime of him singing the song all the way through, so that I could give a copy to my granddaughter. And she could give one to hers, and so on.

In case any of us ever need to be reminded of where we come from.

November Sunset

I don't know what the meteorological factors are, but the first couple of days after a storm front passes through and a cold front moves in are generally a time for spectacular sunsets here in the South...such as yesterday's, seen here from our back window.

The Zen of the Chattering Mind

You know that one part of your brain that just never shuts up? The little voice that keeps going and going and going, every minute you’re awake?

Eastern philosophies refer to this chaotic part of our mind as “The Chattering Monkey,” and as one teacher puts it, we achieve wisdom by “sustaining awareness for as long as possible without interference from the monkey mind.”

(There might as well be a footnote to this teaching that says, “Good luck, Dale.” I feel like I’ve got a whole cage of hyper-active monkeys up there in my skull, not just one.)

I can’t help it. I was born with a one-track body and a hundred-track mind, and if I ever complete more than one percent of all the things I intend to do on an average day, but get distracted from, I feel like I’ve lucked out.

Okay, here’s an example... not long ago, we were heading up to Memphis for a book festival and listening to the Alabama game on the car radio. For some reason, my brain can focus better during a good football game than almost any other time, which is one more reason I look forward to autumn.

Anyhow, Kenny Stabler (one of the best commentators in the business, for my money) says about the Ole Miss quarterback, “That boy’s so quick, you couldn’t hem him up in a phone booth.” And after the Diet Coke spewed out of my nose and I finally quit laughing, my mind drifted off to phone booths and how rarely you see them, nowadays.

See, apparently so many people have cell phones that there’s not much money to be made in the phone booth business any more, especially what with vandalism and all.

Then my mind jumped back to August. when I had to report on a story in the Mississippi Delta. Once I got where I was going, the town was so small my cell phone had no reception at all and so I couldn’t use it to call any of the people I was supposed to meet and interview there. I had to find service-station phone booths instead, and the operators who connected the calls told me they were “independent service providers.”

Well, I was so busy I didn’t give any thought to what their rates might be, and when I got my next month’s phone bill I had a $90 charge for Mississippi phone calls from some company I’d never heard of. Which, getting back to football for a second, gave me yet one more good reason to hope Alabama stomped Ole Miss good.

But then one of the radio commercials during the football game had a saxophone solo in it, and that got me to thinking about Beale Street up in Memphis, where we were headed, and that beautiful song “Walking in Memphis” from a guy named Marc Cohn. It won him a Grammy, I think, back in 1991 if I remember correctly. What a great line, “I’m walking in Memphis, with my feet ten feet off of Beale…”

But, see, “Beale” sounded like “bill” and I remembered my August phone bill again and I got worried I’d have to use pay phones on this trip. But I checked my cell phone, and the signal stayed good and strong all the way up Highway 78 through Tupelo and beyond. So I’m thinking, one less thing to worry about, right?

Except that my new cell phone has Internet service too, and when I’m checking the sports scores on ESPN to see how Alabama and Ole Miss came out (we were out of radio range of Kenny and Eli by that time) I got distracted by an Internet headline about medical researchers in St. Louis who were teaching people with spinal cord injuries to play video games with no hands, just by using their brains.

And that got me to wondering if I’d live long enough to have a cell phone I could operate with my brain, and whether I could tame my monkeys enough to do it, and finally I just settled for living long enough to see Alabama find another wide receiver with the talent and heart of Tyrone Prothro, and thinking about him got me sad.

By that time we were in Memphis, but my brain was so tired from all its monkey-chattering on the drive up that we didn’t go to the book festival that night but found a motel instead, so we could hit the festival fresh the next morning.

If you’ve never tried to get a hundred chattering monkeys to sleep in a strange motel bed, you’ve missed a treat.

But that’s a story for another day. And another monkey.

Nourishment and Sorrow: A Scots-Irish Heritage

I don’t know why food, and the cooking of food, is so closely tied to death and sorrow in the Scots-Irish heritage that I come from. I just know that it is.

This fact was made clear to me again on the recent Sunday when we got the phone call, early in the morning, that my grandmother had died in the night. Her passing didn’t surprise us. She would have been 99 on her next birthday, and her health had been steadily going downhill for the past couple of years.

After we gathered with our family and set into motion the plans for the funeral, the day was still fairly young. I wasn’t hungry, but for some reason I felt a strong need to come home and start cooking.

I tried a new potato salad recipe I’d been meaning to use for a while, one with green onions and tarragon and a vinaigrette dressing with a touch of brown mustard. There was broccoli and baby carrots in the bottom of the refrigerator, and with some grated fresh ginger they made a decent stir-fry. I found half a head each of green and red cabbage that was still fairly fresh, and whipped up a bowl of coleslaw.

We weren’t having friends over, so there was nothing for us to do with all the food but eat part of it for lunch and put the leftovers in the fridge for another day.

It occurred to me that if this had been a weekend only a few years ago, the potato salad would have been a good recipe to try out on my grandmother on the day each week I went to eat lunch with her, at her apartment in the retirement complex just across town. Until she was well into her nineties she insisted on doing all the cooking for those lunches herself. But when her strength and balance started to decline, she agreed to let me cook for her instead. We joked that it was finally time for me to start paying her back, for teaching me how, when I was just a kid.

One of the many aggravations of growing old, she said, was that her taste buds were fading, and many of her once-favorite foods had all started tasting the same. I took this on as a challenge, and stayed on the lookout for new recipes that were a good bit more tangy or spicy than she would have enjoyed, when she was in her prime. I branched out into Mexican cookbooks, then Thai and Indian and Chinese, then Cuban and Ethiopian.

Most weekends, my experiments worked. She approached each new dish like a puzzle to be figured out. Before she tasted it, she had me tell her the ingredients and how they were fixed. Then, when she chewed a bite, she would stare into the distance with the look of concentration people get when they’re listening to music, or dreaming up a floor plan for a new house.

Finally she would render her judgment, which was nearly always the word “Good.” Followed shortly by, “What if you...” and suggestions for minor variations in seasoning or toppings or texture. Impaired taste buds notwithstanding, she still knew food the way an increasingly deaf Beethoven knew when a piece of music worked and when it didn’t.

In retrospect, looking back on those long weekend afternoons in the late 1990s before the whole world went haywire, I realize that it’s a good thing we can’t predict the future. If either of us had known then, while she sat at her new computer learning the fine points of scanning photos and sending them to her relatives by e-mail, and finding news headlines and weather forecasts on the Internet, that Alzheimer’s would soon make me a familiar stranger to her, some days, we couldn’t have enjoyed those hours as much as we did.

By late afternoon of the Sunday she died, I had depleted our kitchen of things to cook and had to make a run to the grocery store to restock. I didn’t feel nervousness or compulsion about this fact, just a level of calmness and rightness that at times almost verged on pleasure. Almost.

As I went into the supermarket, the skies looked as dangerously dark as if a tornado was coming, but there were no winds. When I came out of the store pushing a grocery cart, a rainstorm slammed down. The biggest, loudest drops I ever remember seeing, and in the middle of the downpour the sun popped out, as blinding as in a dream.

A young man riding a bicycle, who had sought shelter under the concrete eave of the store, said to me, “The sun makes the drops look like diamonds, doesn’t it?” I agreed with him that it did.

On the way home, with dusk very near, the rain clouds blew away to reveal a spectacular double-ended rainbow, a perfect mirror of itself, over the drab gray shopping center.

And that was the end of our first day without her.

'A Circle with No Escape': Some Wisdom on War

In times of war, most nations seem to go at least a little insane, as though the violence triggers primal attitudes inside us that we prefer to think, in ordinary times, we've grown beyond. That dysfunctional aspect is especially magnified where the United States' current occupation of Iraq is concerned, because of the war's dishonest and confused origins and rationale.

Here are the perspectives of two thinkers on the subject of war and human nature, from ninety years ago, as recounted in the book In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky, a student of the philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff (pictured above):

"For a man of Western culture," I said [to Gurdjieff], "it is of course difficult to believe and to accept the idea that an ignorant fakir, a naive monk, or a yogi who has retired from life may be on the way to evolution while an educated European, armed with 'exact knowledge' and all the latest methods of investigation, has no chance whatever and is moving in a circle from which there is no escape."

"Yes, that is because people believe in progress and culture," said G. "There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change. Man remains just the same. 'Civilized' and 'cultured' people live with exactly the same interests as the most ignorant savages. Modern civilization is based on violence and slavery and fine words. But all these fine words about 'progress' and 'civilization' are merely words."

This of course produced a particularly deep impression on us, because it was said in 1916, when the latest manifestation of "civilization," in the form of a war such as the world had not yet seen, was continuing to grow and develop, drawing more and more millions of people into its orbit.

I remembered that a few days before this talk I had seen two enormous lorries on the Liteiny loaded to the height of the first floor of the houses with new unpainted wooden crutches. For some reason I was particularly struck by these lorries. In these mountains of crutches for legs which were not yet torn off there was a particularly cynical mockery of all the things with which people deceive themselves.

Involuntarily I imagined that similar lorries were sure to be going about in Berlin, Paris, London, Vienna, Rome, and Constantinople. And, as a result, all these cities, almost all of which I knew so well and liked just because they were so different and because they supplemented and gave contrast to one another, had now become hostile both to me and to each other and separated by new walls of hatred and crime...

Avocados and the Art of Life

Whoever said, “The older you get, the more you appreciate the small things in life” sure hit the nail on the head.

If anybody had told me, 30 years ago, that someday I would have a bounce in my step from anticipation when I approached the shelf of fresh avocados in the supermarket, I would have insisted that before that day arrived someone should obtain a power of attorney over me and force me to get a life.

But here I am, and loving it. How ‘bout that avocado crop this year? Aren’t they a work of art?

In my youth, I was not crazy about guacamole. I could take or leave the guacamole dip sold in the potato chip section. I later learned that avocado, guacamole’s heart and soul, was pretty far down the ingredient list in the commercially prepared version. Apparently the manufacturer waved an avocado over the mix for appearance sake, but the real payload was guar gum, green food dye, and a lot of chemicals whose names I can’t pronounce. The result was a vaguely greenish mush that tasted vaguely of mayonnaise.

Once I tasted homemade guacamole, though, my life changed. I wanted this food of the gods three meals a day, and for a couple of snacks besides.

Imagine my dismay when I tried to make a batch of this delight in my own kitchen, only to discover that the first step was peeling the avocados.

The skin of an avocado, if you’ve never peeled one, has a texture somewhere between tree bark and rhinoceros hide. Combine this factor with the soft, buttery consistency of the inner fruit-flesh that the tough skin protects, and you can whittle on one avocado with a paring knife while continents shift around you and the seasons change.

ONE avocado. For a party-sized bowl of guacamole, you’d need to peel at least six to eight of them. Forget it. Life’s too short.

Fast-forward this story as decades pass and my taste buds remain bereft of homemade guacamole except for brief interludes in out-of-the-way Mexican restaurants.

Then, a miracle. This spring, our TV’s channel-flipper happened to settle on a cooking show, and the chef was demonstrating how to prepare...avocados!

Turns out, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Er, fruit.

Don’t waste time peeling, the chef said. Just cut the little booger in half lengthwise on both sides, down to the big hard seed in the middle, and with the slightest hand pressure the avocado separates into two halves, one of which contains the seed.

Pluck out the seed and discard it, and then it’s surprisingly easy to scrape out the avocado innards with a tablespoon. Throw the tough, empty hull-halves away, and you’re done. With a little practice, you can scoop out a dozen avocados in far less time than it takes to peel just one.

Life is good.

As I pursue my guacamole habit these days, I discover endless refinements of technique that keep the process fun.

For instance, if you buy avocados of only picture-perfect consistency (not too ripe, not too hard) you can actually remove the seed without touching it with your fingers. Stab the seed precisely in its center with the tip of a well-sharpened knife, and when you pull on the handle the seed pops loose as if by magic.

To take these culinary acrobatics one step further, you can tap the knife blade sharply on the edge of your kitchen trash container and the seed hops off the blade as gingerly as if you’d trained it. The process develops the rhythm of a symphony, or a ballet, or...

Not that I’m obsessive-compulsive, or anything.

Once you have a waiting tub of gorgeous avocado flesh, the remaining ingredients are a matter of debate. Some guacamolers (guacamolars?) use minced onion, diced tomatoes, jalapeno slices, fresh cilantro, and even the heretical addition of sour cream.

By long experimentation, I maintain that the ultimate classic guacamole contains avocados dressed only in a hint of garlic (actually, garlic juice, if you want to be picky), a squeeze of fresh lime juice, and a light sprinkling of salt.

Anything else is gilding the avocado.

And anybody who insists that if you have to break some eggs to make an omelet, you have to peel some avocados to make guacamole, is just behind the times.

But don’t take my word for it.

I’ll see you at the avocado counter. And if I’m there with my eyes shut, communing with the spirit of each fruit as I test its firmness for exactly the proper bounce with my thumb and index finger, just humor me until I’m done and I’ll be out of your way.

You’re only young once, but perfect avocados are for a lifetime.

Forgive Me, Papa; I Broke Your Wardrobe Rule

In years to come, I’ll remember this week as the time I broke the Hemingway Rule.

I was driving past the mall and remembered something I needed to pick up. There was only one problem. I’d been working on the house all day, and I looked sweaty and bedraggled. And I had the attire to match: sandals, running shorts, and an old T-shirt, all of which were daubed with grime and the house paint of projects past.

Should I run in and take care of business, or should I put it off until a day when I’m freshly bathed and better dressed?

In case you’ve never heard of the Hemingway Rule, it’s one I came across many years ago when I was reading a biography of the great writer.

One day, or so the story goes, Ernest Hemingway had hired a man from the neighborhood to help him put a new roof on his house in Key West. The day was blistering hot, and by mid-afternoon the two men pretty much looked a mess. That’s when they realized they needed another bucket of roofing tar.

Hemingway handed his helper some cash, and asked him to run into town and buy the tar. The man hesitated.

“Well, I can do that,” he replied, “but I’ll have to go home first and clean up.”

“Nonsense!” Hemingway told him. “I go into town dressed like this all the time.”

“Yessir,” the man said, “but a-body has to have a whole lot of money to go around looking as nasty as you do.”

So, back to my predicament: I was looking nasty, but with not much money, and the mall was a mere turn signal away. I hemmed and hawed a moment, but then I went for it. I broke the Hemingway Rule, in a most blatant and brazen fashion.

And…nothing happened.

The sky didn’t fall. There was no film of my transgression on the 10 o’clock news.

In fact, everybody including the sales clerk treated me with the utmost courtesy. I didn’t even catch any customers grimacing at the fact that I looked like I’d come there straight from working on the railroad. Or at least, from painting one.

I was actually back in the car and driving home, feeling a little smug, when the truth dawned on me: I’d gotten away with it because I have white hair.

It’s such an important corollary that I’ve mentally added it to the Hemingway Rule, i.e.: “To get away with going around looking nasty, a-body has to have a whole lot of money. Or, white hair.”

The silver lining (so to speak) of our impatient and road-raged society is that we still tend to cut a lot of slack for somebody with white hair. Unless that person is, say, frothing at the mouth, sleeping in our carport, or openly carrying a loaded firearm (none of which I’ve done…well, not lately), we tend to look over them.

And that’s all to the good. Because by the time a person has white hair (although mine started turning when I was 30), he or she has a lot more problems on their plate to worry about than being stylish at all times.

As just one example, there’s the problem of trying to write as well as Hemingway. The secret to that, of course, is the same as the answer to the famous joke about, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

Practice. Practice. Practice.

Which, come to think of it, is what turned my hair white in the first place.