WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS - FOOD WORKS

If you're anywhere near the same place I am these dark, damp, dreary days, a nice culinary pick-me-up is just what can turn the tide away from the mudflats of despair, the shoals of aimlessness and the craggy rocks of self inflicted bodily harm.

The following just might save your life. First go find three other people and follow these directions. This can work for just one, or two, of course.

Go get four 6 oz salmon filets or a sections - it isn' critical. Sprinkle a little salt on the fish.

Then put these things in a small bowl and mix well. If you have large pieces of fish then increase the amounts a little. After you do this a few times you may want to add a little more of this or a little less of that. It's just a guide.

2 tsp paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground ancho chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp brown sugar

Heat a non-stick pan to medium and wipe the bottom with an olive oil soaked napkin, or spray with some good non-stick spray, just to be sure. We are not frying this fish.

Rub the fish with the dry spice mix to coat it well.

Cook about 7 minutes on a side and about half way through the second side cooking time, drizzle some maple syrup on the fish. Some of it will run off and sizzle in the pan. That's not a problem.

Maybe some peas or carrots on the side along with a fresh spinach salad. It's up to you. You want French Fries, go on ahead. It's your happiness we are working for here.

Most any nice chilled dry white wine will do and soon after your first taste of salmon treated this way, you'll begin to think you are truly important and that the sun will actually shine again in your lifetime.

Enjoy! Jerry Henderson

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE OCEAN

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EATING OUT WITH HEARING AIDS or QUIET - THE LOST VALUE

There really is nothing that compares to a nice quiet evening spent in a nice quiet restaurant with someone you care for, and enjoying a good meal and conversation.

If you find such a "quiet" place, please call me.

I love to have a dinner out now and then. I also love breakfasts at a few favorite places. But I am a special case. I know, I know, you have thought that for years. You are probably right, but I am talking about another thing altogether. Without hearing aids, I do not hear much at all. Let me be clear - I don't hear anything at all. Even with them, I am hearing only part of the audible spectrum and have great problems in noisy environments, which describes most restaurants.

Don't get me wrong. I am quite thankful for the instruments. Without them, I would be entirely left out of normal social activity. As it is, I don't get half of what's being said, even in a quiet group. Add the usual cacophony of restaurant ambient noise and I can't sift through it enough to hear my dining partner well enough to have an intelligent conversation.

Many people who have more or less normal hearing say they have similar issues in similar situations. Why, then, is this a persistent problem? Forgive me if I venture an opinion. It's either callus disregard for the customer experience or plain ignorance.

For instance: if there were some noise dampening treatments on the floors, walls and ceilings, the noise would be reduced to a tolerable level in most situations. One of my favorite places, Stones, over in North Yarmouth is the "liveliest" room on the planet. You drop your "ticket" on the floor and it sounds like an anvil falling through the roof. The Freeport Cafe is another example. I love that place but when it is full it is nearly impossible to place your order without shouting. Tin ceilings, hard floors and nothing at all in place to dampen sound.

There are places that when you go there you expect to be assaulted by deafening noise. Irish bars, sports bars, juke joints and Texas beer parlors. Places for adolescents to behave like adolescents. Ye, Ha!

I walked into a place in Camden some years ago and there was immediately a wave of quietness that washed over me as I walked into the room. I think the place was called Swan's Way. I had to wonder if Marcel Proust would have been comfortable there. There was a Willy Nelson CD playing softly and it was deliciously quiet. The tone was set by the decor and music. I feel certain that if four hockey pucks came in and began shouting and slamming fists down on the table someone would have suggested they find another place to have dinner.

Obviously this is my problem. But quite often other people with normal hearing say similar things about their experiences in restaurants and other places. There seems to be a premium on noise. The more noise the more lively things are. It's normal. I can't argue with that. But is it better? I think not.

If things keep on the way they are going and I live long enough, it won't make any difference, as far as I am concerned.  I won't be able to hear a damned thing. Hearing loss is a progressive condition.  Total silence.  There has to be an up-side to that.

PASSING THROUGH -THE PHONE CALL

Well, I'll be damned.  I can't believe it's really you.  I never thought I'd ever hear your voice again.  Where are you calling from?

LL Bean?  My god you are practically in my driveway.  I hope you are coming by here.  Surely you must.

Well, I could at least feed you and it would be great to put you up for the night.  I have fresh booze too!  Heh. Heh.

What?  Doctor took you off of the booze?  Change doctors. . . . . 

Oh, I see. . . . I see.  Well, that is too bad.  I was joking of course. You need to take care of that.

So it's just you and Darlene? That's nice. Nice little romantic getaway?

Okay, just a getaway then.  Heh Heh. 

I am curious, after what – 60 years, how did you find me? - - - Bill?  You in touch with Billy are you? Well, yes he comes up at least once a season and we have a good time with each other.

I stopped trying to find old boyhood chums a long time ago. I found it depressing.  Kind of like graveyard browsing.  But that could just be my own problem.  I drug up and left town and never returned.  It didn't occur to me at the time that I was leaving my entire childhood behind, but I suppose that's what we all do at some level. I did it big time.  2000 miles and 60 years makes intimacy just a tad difficult.  So many have passed on, you know.

Yeah. You got it.  No, I am not in touch with too many of the old gang.  Billy, of course.

Louise? Yes. She married a cousin of mine you know and we have managed to be in touch for the past 20 or so years. 

I do email another cousin now and then. I don't even know where any of the others are these days. You move on, you know. I find it best not to hang around too much or too long in the past.

So, where'd you say you are headed? Canada?  Love it up there. Well, I do wish you had the time to come by.  It would be good to see whose the fattest.

Ha!  So you think you're the champ in that category?  Let me tell you, at our age we are just plain lucky no matter what body type we sport around.

Yeah, ain't it the truth?

So you're getting on the road now, huh?

Yes, my father used to say that.  Got to make that good time when going somewhere. How far do you think you'll get today? 

All the way to Moncton? That's a good days work. And you were outside of Boston last night? 

Oh, I see. So you flew to Logan and rented a car. That's the way to go.

No, I never get down south anymore since all the old folks died.  Listen to me. Whose calling who old?

Well, yes.  I can imagine driving down.  We've talked about that.  Road trip, you know.  I'd rather like that.

Listen, I am so glad you called.   I still think you need to come by here.  

I understand, believe me, I do.

You drive carefully now, and have a good time.

And stay in touch too, you hear?

You too. . .

Bye now.

THE TWO MINUTE WARNING

I talk a good game.  It's easy to do when you are able to walk around, take nourishment and have more or less regular episodes in the bathroom.  Talk is cheap.  Adversity is the real test of  "a good game".  I talk a lot about growing older and all the interesting dimensions of that process.   What I don't talk a lot about is the end game.  Life after the TWO MINUTE WARNING.

I've been around the sick and dying off and on all my life.  The end game is played out in as many ways as there are players in the game.  That's all of us, folks, every last one of us.  I can't say I've seen it all.  Frankly, I am happy not to have seen it all.  But I've seen enough to feel qualified to say that though the end comes to us all, it does not come in the same way to us all. 

For many, there is no two minute warning.  A blinding flash, a numbing jolt in the brain, a simple last sigh in the night, or a stupid act by a stupid driver - no warning - CRASH!  St. Peter has heard it millions of times, "But I didn't hear the two minute warning!"

My partner CA is a hospice nurse.  She can talk about dying with as much focus as if she were describing a new cardinal pair at the feeders.  She is really engaged and loves the work.  It's a mission, if you will, that seems to me to have real value.  I couldn't do it five minutes.  The hospice mission is to seek to assure as little pain and discomfort at the end as possible. 

A dear friend of mine, living out west, says now and then in our many email exchanges, that she believes in rational suicide.  I guess what she means by that is that it's only for thinking people.  She asks, "Why can't I be in control of the end like I am in control in the middle?"  I can't find any fault with that. Although, for me, the "middle" often seems out of control.

I saw this enormously gripping program about assisted suicide where this middle aged man with  amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS - Lou Gehrig's Disease.  In its final stages one can not even swallow, having lost all control of bodily functions.  It's a less than ideal exit I am told.  He and his wife traveled to Switzerland, where it is apparently legal to have someone who is licensed, to assist in the end of life process.  This man wanted to have control over his dying while he could still hold the cup containing his "cocktail" and swallow it.  He went to sleep listening to his favorite music and holding his wife's hand.  He heard the two minute warning and he played it out according to his own play book.  I sat there as a stone, much the same way I remember feeling when I first saw that clip of the first atomic bomb test in the desert.  I had to remember to breathe.

The other "personal" way out is what I call the Kodak method, named after the inventor of the once ubiquitous Brownie roll film camera.  George Eastman sat in his office one night in March 1932 at the age of 77 years and put a pistol to his chest and fired a bullet into his heart.  Now, a head shot would have been an instantaneous "light's out" experience - I am told.  I am convinced that there was a beat or two before the lights went all the way out that the fly on the wall might have heard something like, "My goodness, but that hurt."  But, probably not.  He was a determined man.  He left a note - "To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?" 

There is the view that claims that we should hold out as long as possible in case someone bursts through the door with the hoped for miracle cure, or just a raw miracle.   I suppose that could happen, but it sounds more like magical thinking than science.  If you live long enough the very idea of a miracle cure becomes kind of irrelevant, if not darkly humorous.

I suppose that if we are lucky we will hear the two minute warning and begin executing our end of game plan.  Things like making sure everyone knows where your last will and testament is filed, what you want to happen to your mortal remains, who gets your porno films, your old drug paraphernalia, your gun and your leftover prescription drugs which could be worth a lot of money on the street.  It would, however, seem the ultimate irony to think of luck at the time of one's death.  I mean, really.

No, incase you're wondering, I have not heard a two minute warning.  However, I do remember that impossibly boring half time program that seems like a long time ago. 

I'll see you around.

Jerry Henderson

FRIENDS AND AQUAINTANCES

My FaceBook sidebar is telling me about some of my FB friends who have several hundred FB friends. I think FB is trying to make me feel guilty for not having as many friends as I could have. I think I am friendly, but maybe I'm not. I mean, I don't even know 300 people. 500 people. I suppose if I tried, I could think of 300 people, but there is no way I could call all of them actual friends. I heard of a woman who had over 1000 FB friends. I am sure there are people who have more. Maybe there should be a button for acquaintances. People you know of, but perhaps do not actually know - you know?

I saw a most remarkable presentation at the Portland Museum of Art last year, that exhibited dozens of photographs of the artist's FaceBook friends. She went around and made very tasteful portraits of her friends and presented them in this show. I was fascinated with the whole effort. But did she send birthday greetings to them all? Send Holiday greetings to them all? Call them all and have coffee now and then? You know the answer to that.

Here's a test. In a friendship there is always mutual knowledge and understanding. It has to go both ways. There is a level of intimacy - closeness in a real friendship. That doesn't mean there is a lot of groping every time you meet, but there are some shared experiences that merit at least a gentle fist bump upon greeting. Know what I mean?

It takes more than simple recognition to make a friendship. In a country that makes so much of freedom of speech any word can be word-naped and given a new identity. FaceBook has done this with "friend". Friend has been taken from her home in the middle of the night and given a new hairdo, a facelift and new clothes and passport. A friend now is anyone who was at the same party you attended, passed you on the street, worked for the same company, served in the same battalion, or lives on the same planet as you do. "Hey, somebody who knows you and is your FB friend, also knows Joe Bliztifac. Why not be Joe Bliztifac's friend." It's not far from that. Wait a minute - that's exactly what it is.

The one thing that doesn't need watering down in our culture is friendship. But if someone comes up and says, "Hey, I want to be your friend," what do you say? "Sure, it's an honor to be your friend". Wait -
is it really? I mean you could say something like, I would love to be an acquaintance of yours and then perhaps as time goes by, we may become real friends. Get to know each other. Something like that. We don't do that, do we? And that's the little chink in our social armor that Mr. Zuckeberg exploits.

Here is test #2. The next time you get a friend request, go ahead and accept it and then send a private message and ask the person to meet you next friday at Slumgullion's or where ever for a beer. Maybe they'll pay. You never know - you may have just met your long sought soul buddy. Ya think?

Here's a disclaimer for you: I actually like FaceBook. Not the whole thing, but the bulletin board feature where we actually go back and forth on some subject or other. It is an over the backyard fence thing at heart and that is all it is for me. The games, the sidebars, the crap that wants to snare you into sharing more of your personal information is garbage. Of course, this is only one man's opinion.

I love communicating with people. It's what drives me. When something better comes along I'll go to it. Meanwhile - - - - - - - will you be my friend?

I'm Jerry Henderson