You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Having voiced my theory about adults-only food, let me now counter it with kids-only tastes. Things you loved to eat as a kid but would rather avoid now.
(Dirt doesn’t count. I’m serious.)
Velveeta would be on my list, now that I’ve discovered real cheese in all varieties.
Angel food cake would be another.
We were even given slices of raw potato sprinkled with salt as a treat while dinner was cooking.
You get the picture. Now it’s your turn to add to that list.
Big or little, it’s a city, after all, with daily encounters. Along the street. From the porches. In third-floor apartments. It’s broken glass on cracked pavement. Parking along the curb, maybe requiring a permit. It’s the bakery, Laundromat, or bar around the corner. It’s decay and repair over the years imbedded in the floors, walls, and ceilings. It’s a stale cigarette in the morning of love.
~*~
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Those suspicious of small-state influence in the early stages of the American presidential race should also be alarmed by the disproportionate clout of the biggest states in the final count. I’m talking about the Electoral College, which has – even in modern times – given the presidency to the second-place winner in the popular vote, possibly even played into fraudulent results. Think of the George W. Bush “victories,” for starters.
For a starker perspective, consider that it’s theoretically possible for a tad over 25 percent of the American voters to elect a president. All it takes is 50 percent of the ballots, plus one vote, in each of the 11 states that hold 50 percent of the Electoral Votes. Yes, that’s 11 states in total: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and New Jersey.
The only thing that’s spared us so far is that these states haven’t lined up together and seem unlikely to so in the near future. But I still find the possibility scary.
Another measure I apply in meeting White House hopefuls:
Does this candidate look presidential?
Or simply lightweight?
An argument’s been made that November has the loveliest sunsets of the year.
Water-powered mills, once the backbone of American industrial might, run as an emblem throughout Big Inca versus a New Pony Express Rider. The novel overlaps layers of history and ambition, geography and resettled ethnicity, growth and decay as they center in the once bustling town of yrubBury, where Bill is dispatched fresh out of college.
His mission is vague, misty, constantly shifting – and highly lucrative – even when he has no clue where it’s going. His coded messages to and from his boss in corporate HQ are his lifeline to the outside world.
It’s exciting, of course, to see preservation take shape. As what’s old becomes new again when his international conglomerate starts recasting a backwater town for its own ends, however clandestine. As we discover, behind the renovation of the decaying mills is a design for an isolated facility for a military-industrial behemoth.
At the heart of it all, Bill’s a solitary innocent puppet at the bidding of a distant boss pulling the strings from afar – a station agent out on the frontier. And then, running frantically along it.
Will he survive? And what of the mills?
Everything depends on the confrontation with the rival Big Inca.
~*~
The novel is available here.
When it comes to launching a product, smart companies have long relied on test markets – small metropolitan areas where they can experiment with their advertising and sample consumer response before taking their new line national or global. They’ve learned it’s better than risking everything only to fall flat at the end of years of research and development.
In the political arena, New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary comes as close as we can to a test market for the candidates. Regardless of the state’s demographics, the reality remains: if you can’t win here – or finish toward the top – you’re not going to win much of the rest of the country. It’s the values that resonate.
The state is small enough the candidates can get out and meet people without having to have an enormous treasury. An advertising budget can be focused on a relative handful of newspapers and broadcasters, plus all the yard signs and buttons.
South Carolina, while small, is also nasty – and falls far to the right of the rest of the nation. Iowa, another early contender, is huge by comparison and requires much more media investment. Delaware is simply too small and unrepresentative. Any other other nicely contained possibilities? I’d like to know.
The other part of the New Hampshire tradition that’s often overlooked is that the election has legs – it originated as part of the annual town meeting day in March. As long as folks were out to do their exercise in democracy, they could also cast their votes for their party’s nominee. Besides, we didn’t have to pay to heat the town hall again. (You know that penny-pinching characteristic of our state.)
Too bad we can’t hold it all back to March, though. Christmas is way too early for this decision.
Time flies. And how!
So there they were, well after dark, telling of the gluten-free boxed brownie brand they’d selected to make the pot-laced squares they were munching as they sipped their third bottle of beer.
Wait. Isn’t beer full of gluten?
As she said later, “They’re so dumb.”
Think of a food a child in your life refuses to eat. Or glance back to your own childhood. Something you, as an adult, now find heavenly as you anticipate that first bite.
I’ve long held a theory that there are certain items that should be made adults-only, you kiddies keep your hands away.
We could begin with asparagus, Brussels sprouts, clams and mussels. Coffee, beer, and wine are no-brainers. Maybe even lobster or lamb or Swiss cheese or spinach or salmon.
What would you add to that list?
Jnana's Red Barn 