Baltimore Diary

In the Press.

Dennis Miller: I don't wanna go on a rant here, but America's foreign policy makes about as much sense as Beowulf having sex with Robert Fulton at the First Battle of Antietam, I mean when a Neo-Conservative defenestrates, it's like Raskolnikov filibustered deoxymonohydroxinate
Peter Griffin: What the hell does rant mean?

—Family Guy, “Peter Griffin: Husband, Father... Brother?” (12/6/01)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

So for the last couple of years, I’ve been doing a Memorial Day post that’s been largely photos, with a little bit of side information thrown in. This year won’t be a lot different, but let me start with a little history:

Memorial Day was originally the brainchild of a pharmacist in Waterloo, NY named Henry Welles. Noting that New York State had experienced greater losses in the Civil War than any other state, he organized a community-based memorial in 1866. A parade was held, and people gathered to decorate the gravestones of the men who had died. This became known as “Decoration Day” and spread to many other communities until, in 1868, General John Logan proclaimed May 30 to be a day of commemoration for the Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. Meanwhile, a judge in New York’s Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) named Francis Finch was inspired by his tours of the South following the war, and wrote a poem titled “The Blue and the Gray”, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly. This led to a widespread interest in a national movement to establish a single day of commemoration for the soldiers who had died on both sides in the Civil War. New York became the first state in the Union to recognize Decoration Day as a holiday, beginning in 1873. By 1889, “Decoration Day” had become “Memorial Day” and was a national holiday celebrated on May 30 every year until 1971, when (like so many other holidays) observance was moved to the last Monday in May.

Some editorial cartoonists’ take on Memorial Day. I’ve tried to choose a bunch that didn’t take too left or right a slant. With one exception I think I succeeded. In that last case the overall message was the thing that shone through, and the political angle was a side note:

John McCutcheon, 1900. The caption for this cartoon is:
“You bet I’m goin’ to be a soldier, too, like my Uncle David, when I grow up.”

 

Robert Satterfield, 1919.

Hy Rosen, 1963.

Chan Lowe, 2003. Not much has changed in this arena, unfortunately.

Dick Locher, 2004.

Joe Heller, 2004.

Andy Wahl, 2007.

Kevin Moore, 2008.

Randy Bish, 2010.

Dave Granlund, 2012.

Joe Heller, 2012.

Steve Sack, 2012.

 

Thanks again to all who serve, and who have served.

UnSafe way

Patty Bouvier: I can't believe Homer ruined another family barbecue.
Homer Simpson: [offended] Hey! Everybody pees in the pool!
Patty Bouvier: Not from the diving board!

—The Simpsons, “Dangerous Curves” (11/9/08)

-------------------------------------------------------

Wife and I are planning to take a trip in a few weeks. For the second time, we want to go see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the flesh, then have our Thanksgiving Dinner in a restaurant. Friday will be a Tourist Day for us, although given that I’m a transplanted native, it won’t be especially touristy. But I’ve already digressed and the story hasn’t even started yet.

Thanksgiving Dinner is typically hosted at the Parkville Palace (i.e., our house), but since we’ll be away, Wife wanted to do a nice family dinner before the holiday. Everyone’s calendars matched up nicely for last night, so sometime last week she set the date.

This meant some high-speed meal planning for me, but Wife advised that I not make it as fancy and multi-course as our usual Turkey Day offering. Oddly enough, I was more than comfortable with that idea. So when I spotted a Safeway circular in the newspaper that offered up some complete meals for a reasonable price, I said to myself “Hey, this might do the trick.” There was a choice of the turkey dinner, the ham dinner or the prime rib dinner. (I would have loved the prime rib, but Wife’s family has this habit of ordering their meat overcooked, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.)

Now, the turkey dinner has all of the typical trimmings, with the mashed potatoes, the gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce among a couple of others, but the prime rib and the ham have the same side dishes. If you can’t see them in the picture, it’s Scalloped Potatoes au gratin, Corn Medley (what kind of songs do you hear in a corn medley?), Green Bean Casserole, a dozen dinner rolls and an apple pie. All you have to do is warm it up. Simple, right?

On Friday afternoon I called the toll-free number in the ad. This is actually where the trouble started, only I wasn’t smart enough to read the warning signs. The guy who answered the phone was, to be generous, not the brightest bulb on the string. The first thing he asked for was my first name, which is reasonable. My name is not something that people automatically know how to spell, so I immediately spelled it out for him. He didn’t get it on the first try, so I spelled it for him a second time. On this second attempt he read it back to me; it came back as something like “C, R, L, E”. I asked him, “Does that look like anybody’s first name to you? Let’s try it once more.” He finally got my name, then my phone number. OK, says I, we’re sailing smoothly now.

The next question was my zip code. From this information he deduced that I was located in Baltimore City. Based on this fact, he asked me which of the four stores in Baltimore City I wanted to use: Lauraville, Canton, Charles Village or the one out on Baltimore National Pike. I told him that I didn’t want to use any of those; I wanted to use the one in Parkville. This, he couldn’t find. As it happens, part of the reason he couldn’t find it was because he was looking for a Safeway in “Parksville”, but even after I straightened that out, he still couldn’t figure it out. Then he suggested that if I do a Google search, it’ll show me where the four stores he’d mentioned are.

I said, “I know exactly where those four stores are, and I’m not going to any of them when there’s one less than a mile from my house.” Then I asked him if he had Google. When he responded in the affirmative, I suggested that he do a web search for “Safeway 21234”. Lo and behold, he located the store in Parkville. I was kind enough to spare him the necessity of trying to pronounce “Waltham Woods Road”. Then he asked me again if I wanted the store at Waltham Woods Road. I told him “Yes, and if you ask me a third time I’ll probably say ‘yes’ again.”

A few more seconds of typing, then: “And what was your phone number again?”

We’d been on the phone for eight and a half minutes and, of the four pieces of information he’d gathered from me in that time, he’d already lost one of them. “That’s it,” I said. “I need to speak to a supervisor.”

Another eight minutes, this time on hold. Finally the supervisor came on. I’m not going to recount the entire conversation because you probably have that part figured out. It’s all apologies and obsequiousness and “We’re sorry you’re not having an excellent experience” kind of crap. But he did take my order and confirmed that I’d have to go to the Deli to pick it up, 24½ hours hence.

And I went there the next day and everything went perfectly.

Ha, Ha! I was just yanking your chain, there! And so was Safeway, apparently!

At 4:05 I arrived at the store, grabbed a cart and headed toward the Deli. The clerk behind the counter asked if she could help me. I told her that I was there to pick up a dinner. She looked at me blankly. I tried again: I ordered a Ham Dinner for pickup at four o’clock. She still didn’t know what I was talking about, so she turned to a co-worker: “Do you know anything about a Ham Dinner?” The co-worker nodded, then said, “but we don’t have it.”

Excuse me?

She then started saying something about how they have the ham, but they don’t have “the kit”. The kit is apparently a package that contains all the other parts of the meal that aren’t ham. No package means you don’t have the meal. (Remember also that this means they don’t have everything for the Prime Rib Dinner, either.) This second clerk then disappeared into the walk-in refrigerator, but she emerged empty-handed and shaking her head. Again she told me the thing about the ham and the kit. Oddly, I didn’t find a repeat explanation comforting. I saw a sheet of paper in her hand and asked, “Is that my order? May I see it?” I looked at the sheet only long enough to establish that my name and phone number had been correctly recorded. That IS my phone number, and I haven’t gotten any calls from you.” I was getting a little more strident by this point. “I have a bunch of people en route to my house and I have nothing to give them. What am I supposed to do? Calling you guys was supposed to take the stress out of this whole deal.” She suggested that we talk to the manager.

I followed the clerk over to the manager’s office. In this office is a woman—the assistant manager—and I swear to god she’s eating an entire pepperoni pizza out of the box. I mean, it’s sliced and all, but she’s clearly doing this thing some serious damage. She continues chowing down her pizza while the deli clerk tells her about how “this man ordered the ham dinner and we have the hams but we don’t have the kit, and now he’s yelling at me because it’s not here.” Because it’s apparently my fault that I’m upset about placing an order that A) nobody filled; and B) nobody contacted me about a problem. Between bites, the assistant manager suggests that, rather than looking for a kit that isn’t there, she gather up the discrete pieces and give those to me. Because part of this was said with her mouth full, she wound up having to repeat it to the clerk, who heaved a big sigh and walked back to the deli area.

Hey, you know what? If I’m such a bother to everyone, I don’t need you either. I walked out of the store, not bothering to see if the deli clerk had even noticed I’d left. Given that I stopped immediately outside to text Wife about what had happened, it doesn’t appear that she did.

So here’s the Postscript to this tale: I went to the Shoppers Food across the street and put together a meal of my own: Spiral Sliced ham (about 8 lbs), frozen corn and a red and green pepper for chopping up into the corn and sauteéing slowly in butter; frozen Stouffer’s macaroni & cheese, frozen broccoli for steaming, an apple pie and a couple of tubes of biscuits. Dinner was about an hour later than we’d planned, and the total cost was nearly $10 cheaper than the Safeway meal.

This morning I mailed a letter to the Safeway folks. We’ll see what they have to say.

S’meeps? P’ores?

Burton “Gus” Guster: I have peeps, Shawn.
Shawn Spencer: You have two peeps. And one of them is made out of marshmallow.

—Psych, “He Dead” (8/14/09)

------------------------------

Wife and I were looking through the Sunday newspapers this morning. I was reading the comics first, then moving on to the rest of the editorial copy; Wife was reading all of the sales supplements, what I like to think of as Porn for Women. Because I’m progressive that way.

Wife happened to notice in one circular that Marshmallow Peeps were on sale pretty cheaply. She wanted to get some to send to Daughter up at school. For whatever reason, this got my mind running: Peeps are made of marshmallow, but all we ever seem to do with Peeps is eat them. We never toast them up, or put them in cocoa or anything else; why is that?

I said to Wife, “You know what we should do? We should make Peeps s’mores.”

She gave me that look that most people would interpret as “What the hell is the matter with you?” but I choose to read as, “My god! That’s brilliant!”

Better yet, she actually went out and bought me the stuff to make Peeps s’mores. The bad news is that she came back with the Peeps bunnies, not the chicks, but that’s OK, it still worked out. In fact, it may have worked out better because of the bunnies’ flatness as opposed to the overall roundness of the chicks.

Here’s what I did. I’ve included pictures to help you keep up.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Then I put some aluminum foil on a cookie sheet. I put them on foil in case of accidental meltdown, just to keep some of the mess down. It’s a typical s’mores setup: graham cracker, then a piece of Hershey bar, then the Peep bunny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bunnies spent exactly three minutes in the oven. Two-and-a-half minutes might have been better, since the chocolate was pretty runny.

It’s tough to tell, but the bunnies poofed up a little from being in the oven.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see where the bunnies’ eyes and nose dots dissolved into brown puddles.

 

 

 

 

Finally, of course, I took another piece of graham cracker and pressed it down on the Peep. In the s’more closest to the camera you can see the chocolate oozing out, which is not really what I wanted to have happen, but for a first effort it’s not disastrous, it’s just a little messier than you expect. Especially when you actually bite into the thing and then the chocolate runs in pretty much every direction.

So that was my little foray into Fun Food this week. My next mission is to find something interesting to do with jelly beans.

Breakfast for Dinner

When you’re doing the hard driving, sometimes the trips up and/or down I-95 can be pretty uneventful. My travels to Florida ran much in this vein. I’d packed some sandwiches so I didn’t have to stop for lunch, and in fact I stopped only for gas or to use the rest room. Oddly enough, I don’t think I ever stopped for both. As a result, despite my leaving later than I’d planned, I wound up in Walterboro, South Carolina (approximately Exit 48) for the evening of December 23. This isn’t too bad; I usually stop in Florence, SC for the night and have a pretty long drive ahead of me the second day.

(Naturally, it wasn’t until the next day that I learned that Walterboro is maybe 10-15 minutes’ drive from some relatives of mine; I could have saved some money on lodging for the night.)

Here’s a tip if you’re traveling down the I-95 corridor: there’s just no good way through the Washington, DC area, so just skip it altogether. When you get to Baltimore, take either I-895 or I-695 to I-97 and take that down to Route 301 south, which will bring you back to I-95 just north of Richmond, VA. You won’t save any time at all, but you’ll be spared the madness of the Mixing Bowl south of DC, where there is NO GOOD TIME to travel through.

Anyway, Walterboro.

I stopped for the night around 8:00. I was kind of hoping to make it to Hardeeville (around Exit 10), but I figured, I’m hungry now and why stop twice? I popped into a place called the Country Hearth Inn, which is a small-ish chain, and got a room for the evening for only $31 after taxes and such.

In this part of the country, the location of your room is apparently pretty important. Rooms on the first floor are more expensive than rooms on the second floor. My room was cheaper because it was second floor. Go figure.

Here’s another aside: I don’t really get the mentality that a hotel room has to have fourteen thousand amenities when you’re on a road trip. I’m stopping to eat, sleep, and get generally relaxed for the next leg of the trip. I don’t need a pool, or chocolates on my pillow, or a flatscreen TV. This is a crash pad. I want a clean room, a place to take a shower and a clear picture on the TV. I don’t even need 75 channels, since the TV is just a talking lamp at that point; I’m happy with local TV plus CNN or some such. Everything else is just gravy. So for that little bit, there’s no way I’m shelling out $80 if I don’t have to. And fortunately there are plenty of places on I-95 which are willing to fill this request. Country Hearth Inn turned out to be one of them.

Once checked in, and with my bags and stuff in the room, I got back in the car and wandered the immediate neighborhood in search of food. Most exits on I-95 have lots of places to eat; a few have only a couple of options, and one or two have none at all. This was one in the second group. All of the choices were pretty typical: Cracker Barrel, Subway, Waffle House, Shoney’s, McDonald’s and a couple of others. I didn’t want -fast food, but I didn’t necessarily want the sit-down-meal-with-the-bum’s-rush experience that you sometimes get from Cracker Barrel, so I went to the Shoney’s.

I’d forgotten that Shoney’s had the option of eating via a buffet, so shortly after I’d reached my table I was greeted by a server who pointed out that the buffet was almost entirely breakfast foods. This really appealed to me. “Outstanding!” I said. I rather like having breakfast food for dinner once in awhile. Wife, for some reason, is not, so we rarely do it. The waitress then asked me what I wanted to drink. I ordered a Coke and hit the buffet.

Sure enough, there was a wide variety of stuff available: eggs, toast, grits, biscuits & gravy, sausage, bacon, home fries, cheese (for the grits, I think), pancakes, French toast, etc, etc. I took a look and said, “Yes, please!” When I got back to my table, the waitress was just delivering two glasses of soda to me. I asked her, “Is this Happy Hour?”

She said “Of course it is!” Then, “OK, not really, but I figured you’d been on the road and you looked kind of thirsty.” Smart waitress, that.

And I, who have been eating quite sensibly for the last eight weeks as a side-effect of Wife’s diet, had myself two plates of breakfast for dinner.

Cookies!

Danny Concannon: You keep glancing over like you're afraid I'm going to steal something.
Mrs. Landingham: No. I'm just not used to having members of the print media in here.
Danny: I'll try not to get ink on the furniture.
Mrs. Landingham: Aw, Danny. And I was just about to offer you a cookie.
Danny: And now?
Mrs. Landingham: No.

—The West Wing, “The White House Pro-Am” (3/22/00)

---------------------------

I mentioned a couple of posts back that I baked up some cookies for the Patti Rothberg concert, and they turned out to be quite the hit. No kidding; I was hearing good stuff about them from people who didn’t realize that A) I was nearby, and B) I was the guy who baked them. And, when I told them what the mystery ingredient was, they said to me “Oh…you have my attention.” It was almost a shame that Wife was there; I could have gotten me some of Patti’s castoff groupies that night based solely on my cookies. (note to self…)

So, being a generous soul, I’m going to share this recipe with you. I’ll note that I did get the original from the Washington Post several days ago, but I see in looking back that they, in turn, got it from somewhere else. I’ll cite that specific detail at the end. I’ll also add in a few of my own notes as I go along. Enjoy! And, if you make these, let me know how they came out.

 

Chocolate Chunk Cookies With Nutella

 

· MAKE AHEAD: The dough can be frozen for up to 1 month. The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days.

· Makes 38 to 42 cookies

Ingredients:

• • 2 1/3 cups flour (level off in a measuring cup)
• • 1 teaspoon baking soda
• • 1 teaspoon salt
• • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• • 1 cup granulated sugar
• • 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• • 1/4 cup unsweetened or regular Nutella (may substitute hazelnut paste)—I used the regular Nutella and it makes for a sweeter cookie but basically works great.
• • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• • Scrapings from 1 split vanilla bean (may substitute 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)—I used the extract. Again, no problems.
• • 3 cups (12 ounces) bittersweet chocolate (preferably 60 to 66 percent cacao content), coarsely chopped into 1/4-inch pieces or larger—with this, I bought a bag of chocolate chunks from the supermarket. Nestlé makes them, but some places now have a store brand version, too.
• • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts (optional)—I used walnuts. This recipe is expensive enough.

Directions:

1. Position the oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat to 375 degrees. Line 2 or 3 rimmed baking sheets with silicone liners or parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt onto a piece of parchment or waxed paper.
3. Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer; beat on medium speed until creamy. Reduce the speed to medium-low, then add the Nutella and beat until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition, then add the vanilla bean scrapings, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed.
4. Reduce the speed to low. Gradually add the flour mixture, beating just until the dough comes together.
5. Stir in the chocolate pieces and, if desired, the nuts.
6. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough 2 inches apart onto the baking sheets, flattening them slightly by hand as needed. (At this point the mounds of dough can be frozen, well wrapped, for up to a month.)
7. Bake for 4 to 5 minutes, then rotate the baking sheets top to bottom and front to back. Bake for 4 to 5 minutes until lightly browned (or a few minutes longer for crisp cookies). (When I did 5 minutes, I got cookies that were TOO soft; they were limp rather than chewy. I went an extra minute or two in each period. Of course, this could just be my oven, so your mileage may vary.)
8. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to the wire rack to cool completely before serving or storing. Repeat to use all of the dough.

Recipe Source:

From The Perfect Finish: Special Desserts for Every Occasion, by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark (W.W. Norton, 2010).

130 calories, 6g fat, 4g saturated fat, 15mg cholesterol, 90mg sodium, 18g carbohydrates, 1g dietary fiber, 11g sugar, 2g protein.

Doing it Right

Buddy: The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear.

—Elf (2003)

------------------------

I know that in the past, I’ve railed on about Christmas music, specifically the fact that when it comes time for radio stations to begin their All Christmas All The Time programming, they ordinarily have ridiculously small playlists which have no sense of history whatsoever. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey gets played hourly, while Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” goes ignored. It’s not that I don’t like the Mariah Carey song, but when there are so many versions of a relatively small pool of songs out there, it gets old in a big hurry. Worse yet is the Straight No Chaser version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, because there’s just no way that that song isn’t tedious. Even the parody versions are just painful after the second go-round (Bob & Doug McKenzie notwithstanding).

At any rate, I was given a tip by a friend on Facebook that a station in Colorado was playing ACATT and that I might want to tune in via their Internet stream. I was reluctant, but since I was baking cookies and wanted to hear some Christmas music, I figured “why not?”

Holy cow, this station is actually good at All Christmas All The Time. The station in question is KTRR-FM, billing itself on the air as “Tri-102.5”, and they actually do ACATT right. I don’t know who the Program Director is there, but my hat is off to that person. It’s got a mix of the modern and the traditional, the old artists and the new, the familiar recordings and a few that might be new to some people; it was incredibly cool. I was able to listen for literally hours without getting bored. If I had anything to complain about, it would be that pretty much all of the songs I heard were “modern” Christmas songs; there wasn’t an awful lot of the more traditional Christmas carols going on. What’s the difference? Carols are more overtly religious. Tri-102.5 doesn’t avoid them but they appear to prefer songs about Christmas. In the long run it’s no harm, no foul.

So I strongly suggest that you tune in, especially on the weekends when that Fabulous Deejay, Keith Allen, is on the air. Call him at 1-800-964-1025 and request something cool for your Yuletide celebration. Chances are, he’ll be able to play it. And tell him I said Hi.

Road Show

Homer Simpson: [after hitting a deer statue] D'oh!
Lisa Simpson: A deer!
Marge Simpson: A female deer!

The Simpsons, “Bart Gets an Elephant” (3/31/94)

--------------------

This past weekend I headed up to New Paltz to see some of Daughter’s handiwork.

This time around, she was working on Noises Off, a three-act play which, each time, covers the first act of a play-within-the-play called “Nothing On”. Daughter’s main job was as the Propmaster, so during the show itself she didn’t really have an awful lot to do. Most of her work comes before the show, when she has to acquire or fabricate props, or in-between shows, when she has to repair them. (And don’t get her started on the prop sardines.) As a result, she was able to actually sit with me during the show and chit-chat between acts, so that was pretty fun. But I’m getting a little bit ahead of the story.

Wee One was sidelined from cheerleading because of an injury, and it was supposed to be the end of the season for her. But she managed to bounce back quickly and, about ten days ago, was given clearance and put back into the cheer routine. So Wife took Wee One to the last cheerleading meet of the season, and I headed to upstate New York, solo.

For most of the trip, I listened to an audiobook I’d downloaded (Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys, if you’re interested, and the narration by Lenny Henry is awesome). Since I’m still without my iPod, I accomplished this by plugging the Aux plug into the headphone jack of my laptop and listened away. When I got off the highway, however, I decided that I wanted to concentrate a little more on what I was doing. So I shut off the audiobook and I tuned in to local radio.

Because I was alone, I got to do something that I’m pretty sure Wife hates: I hit the “scan” button and tuned in to all of the radio that Ulster County had to offer, ten seconds at a time. There was the usual mix of rock, country, classical, and so forth, and then I heard…

No. Way. Back that sucker up.

Sure enough, I found myself listening to Frank Sinatra singing about those J-I-N-G, L-E Bells. Christmas music! Well, I reasoned, it’s close enough that stations could start sprinkling in the holiday tunes. But then the song ended and another Christmas song started, this one by Harry Connick Jr. Yes indeed, 92.1 Lite-FM in Poughkeepsie had already gone All Christmas All The Time. I’ve ranted on about this in previous posts, and I expect to do so again, so I’ll let it go for now. Anyway, that plus the displays appearing in the stores the last few weeks impressed upon me that ‘tis the Season and all that. But that’s not all…

I hit a diner and got a grilled cheese sandwich, then checked into my hotel. I dumped off my stuff and it was off to A Night of Theater.

The show itself was fun, as I mentioned above and everyone truly did a fine job. There were a couple of pratfalls that had everyone worrying about the health of the actors involved, and a couple of incidents where Daughter worried actively about the health of the props that had just hit the floor unexpectedly. In the third act, a lamp had been knocked off a table and out of sight behind the furniture. When an actor finally picked it up and returned it to the table, it was still lit. Resilient props, those.

The next morning, we had some breakfast and I wanted to get some apples from a local orchard. I actually had several orders to fill from co-workers, so off we went to a farm about seven miles outside of town, in the town of Gardiner. While there, we picked out roughly two-and-a-half pecks of apples, which is meaningless to anyone who isn’t in Farm Country, so let me convert that for you: we bought a metric shitload of apples. No kidding, I spent about $45 just on apples, and only five bucks of that was for me. My co-workers were really hot for apples, but I confess a lot of that was my own doing, so when I gave them the apples I deliberately allowed myself to be under-reimbursed by about a third. No harm, no foul, everyone’s happy and Do A Good Deed Now And Then, you know?

Anyway, on the way back to New Paltz, we passed a road sign. It had clearly been around for awhile, but someone made a recent addition to it. Naturally I turned the car around and went back so that I could get a photograph of it:

Now I know for SURE that ‘tis the season.

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

We Remember.

---

Chris Griffin: I was going to school, and this guy won't let me.
Peter Griffin: Oh yeah? Him and what army?
Chris Griffin: [points to soldiers in street] The U.S. Army.
Peter Griffin: Oh, that's a good army.

--Family Guy, “E Peterbus Unum” (7/12/00)

----------------------------------

Hover your mouse over the photos to learn a little more about them.

War of 1812

The Civil War

p

The Spanish-American War

World War I

World War II

Korean War

Vietnam War

Persian Gulf War

Iraq War

Thank you all for your ultimate sacrifice.

A Season's Greeting

Roseanne Roseannadanna: Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, New Jersey sent me this Christmas poem that says: [reads aloud from a greeting card]
Dear Roseanne Roseannadanna,

Well, the holiday season is finally here,
Bringin' Santa and sleigh rides and lots of good cheer.
Children are laughin', there's lights on the trees.
Everyone's happy except for me.
Folks goin' to parties, folks having fun.
I wanna blow my brains out, get me a gun!
Christmas is here and I should feel swell
But I'm cryin' in my room and I feel like hell. What should I do?

--Saturday Night Live, “Elliot Gould/Peter Tosh” (12/16/78)

--------------------------------------------------

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, I grew up in the New York Metropolitan area, and mentally I’ve still got some pretty strong ties. For instance, I still listen to WCBS-FM a lot, mostly so I can listen to Bob Shannon, who is one of my favorite DJs.

One of the DJs who left the station awhile back was Harry Harrison, whose NY radio legacy is vast. Harry did six years of radio in Illinois before coming to New York City in 1959, where he became one of WMCA’s “Good Guys”. He held the midday gig until 1968, when WABC picked him up as their new Morning Mayor. He stayed there until 1979, when WABC’s format began the slow, painful change from Top 40 to News/Talk that completed in 1982.

 By 1980, however, Harrison (seen here at left, with Ron Lundy)had joined WCBS-FM, still in the morning slot. Incidentally, this makes him the only New York DJ who was on WMCA, WABC and WCBS, all of which spent some time dominating the ratings for their format. He remained there until March of 2003, when he left the station, retiring only briefly and returning in a weekend morning show that lasted until WCBS began their disastrous experiment as “Jack FM.” When the oldies format came back, Harrison did not, and he remains retired in New Jersey.

Now, the backstory is a little hazy, but it appears that in 1965 he located a holiday-themed piece that he liked, so he recorded it with some music and sound effects. It was released as a single on the Amy label, and it made the Billboard Christmas charts that year.  Some time later, he re-recorded the piece for WCBS, where he'd play it several times during the season. I don't think the station airs it anymore (at least, I haven't heard it), but you can still get it on certain Christmas music collections. Or, just click below to listen to it. 

Peace.

 Harry Harrison-May You Always

Pfeffernüsse!

[Ross is selling girl scout cookies]
Chandler: So, how many boxes did you sell?
Ross: 517.
Chandler: Wow.
Ross: Yeah, I know. A week ago, I was at the planetarium, and as they were leaving I sold like 50 boxes. That's when I realized what sells a lot of these- munchies. After that, I started hitting NYU dorms around midnight. They call me "Cookie Duuuude".

--Friends, “The One Where Rachel Quits” (12/12/96)

-------------------------------------------------

Not a typo, not a reason to be all wacky and reply, “Gesundheit”. Pfeffernusse is a cookie, and it’s generally only available during the holidays, and it’s a slippery slope, my friend.

The word literally translates to “Pepper nuts” in German, Dutch and Danish, referring to both the flavor and the fact that most recipes include just that: nuts and black pepper.  The cookie is rather hard and therefore difficult to eat when it’s fresh, unless you dunk it in something. It gets softer over time, and it’s usually a soft cookie that you buy. It’s ordinarily coated with powdered sugar and is just a joy for me.

As noted above, it’s one of those limited-time cookies, perhaps because traditionally they’re made for Sinterklaas, the Feast of St. Nicholas, which is in early December. More often than not, there are just a few brands that make the pfeffernusse available: Entenmann’s, which doesn’t appear to carry them in the Baltimore area; Stella D’Oro, which seems to be a rapidly dwindling brand in this town; and Archway, which is also pretty hard to find.

Once in awhile you’ll find them in a small cellophane bag in the grocery store, with some off-brand name on them, but those cookies also have a hard shell rather than the powdered sugar. Not so great, those.

This year, they’ve been all but impossible to find. I’ve been to at least five supermarkets, ranging from the Safeway on 25th and Charles, to the Shoppers on Joppa Road, and come up empty-handed. This is part of my holiday tradition and it’s disappearing on me. So if you’ve seen them, please share their location with me before it’s too late.