by jphilo | Jan 14, 2013 | Current Events
This is the traditional Easy-Bake Oven, the modern day version of the Easy-Bake I coveted during my childhood. But my childhood was so deprived, I never received the gift of my dreams. Probably because Mom made us walk to school every day.
In the snow.
Uphill.
Both ways.
My desire was finally realized during our 2007 family White Elephant gift exchange. That was the year I made darn tootin’ sure to win back the Easy-Bake oven that was my contribution to the event.
I found it at Good Will.
In the box.
Never opened.
With all the food mixes intact.
Apparently, my childhood Easy-Bake obsession or my adult one–or perhaps both–made an impression on my sister. Because as the media buzz about McKenna Pope, the teenage girl in New Jersey who petitioned Hasbro to make a bro-friendly oven for boys, Sis sent me the link about the story.
The new design has not yet been unveiled.
But rumor has it that the stove will be grey and black.
Or decorated in camo.
Very manly.
I feel ambivalent about Hasbro’s new Easy-Bake for boys bros. Not because I have anything against boys learning to cook. All boys need to learn the basics of cooking, and baking teeny-tiny cakes under a light bulb is as a good a place as any. It’s just that deep down, I’m jealous worried. McKenna’s little brother, Gavyn will have the first every Easy-Bake Oven for boys before he’s five years old. I was over fifty before I cooked with one.
It took all morning to bake one teeny-tiny cake.
Which I couldn’t eat because the cake mixes were expired.
Plus, I didn’t read the directions carefully enough.
So the plastic spatula sort of melted.
After about six hours slaving over a hot light bulb, I threw the whole mess in the garbage. The whole experience was rather traumatic. Hopefully, Gavyn will have more success with his Easy-Bake.
So he doesn’t become bitter.
Turn his back on cooking.
Develop an aversion to light bulbs.
Become a habitual plastic spatula melter.
Easy-Bake Ovens can be life-changing. I just hope Gavin’s Easy-Bake bromance is a long and loving one.
by jphilo | Dec 25, 2012 | Current Events
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by jphilo | Dec 7, 2012 | Current Events
The November 25th issue of the Des Moines Register ran a story about how many aging authors are continuing to write and publish well into their eighties and nineties. Several authors who follow this trend were listed, pictured, and/or quoted in the story:
- Elmore Leonard won the National Book Award this year at age 87, and it inspired him to keep writing.
- Tom Wolfe, 81, released Back to Blood this year and says being an octogenarian is a hobby of his.
- Herman Wouk, most famous for his WWII book, Winds of War, released a new work this year. He’s 97.
- In March 88-year-old William Gass will release his first book since 1995.
The article listed several more authors still writing and publishing in their 80s and 90s. Only Philip Roth, the youngster in the group at age 79, bucked the trend. He says he’s done enough writing and his novel released in 2010 will be his last.
One of the aging authors, A.E. Hotchner, 92, attributed the trend to clean living. William Gass adds, “During the 1950s, the academic world was full of people who drank too much. The parties were cocktail parties and pretty potent. Now, there are dinners with nice wines.” Hermon Wouk’s editor says the author has taken care of himself since his first book came out 60 years ago. “His lifestyle has remained steady–work, family, religious faith, studying the Torah daily.”
Though that explains why these authors are living and writing longer. But it doesn’t explain why every author mentioned is a ma, with the exception of Toni Morrison, 81, who’s a Nobel laureate and thus hard to ignore. Women’s life expectancy has been greater than men’s for years, so there must be a few more women writers still wielding pens and tapping keyboards far into their golden years.
Since the press doesn’t seem to notice aging women writers (unless they won a Nobel prize) it’s time for clean-living female authors to toot their own horns and remind people they’re not dead yet. They need to let the world know they’re still pounding away, cranking out new books so libraries stay in business.
In that vein, I’m jumping on the aging writers bandwagon. Not that I put myself in the same category as the well-known writers listed above. And it’ll be several decades before being an octogenarian becomes my new hobby. But what compels them to keep writing is what compels me. The need to capture thoughts into words and put them on paper in a way that’s engaging, informative, and thought-provoking.
That said, if my mind goes before my body, I still want to keep writing. So whoever’s still around can put a keyboard in front of me. No doubt, I’ll type a whole lot of gibberish, and I’ll be happy as a clam while doing it.
That’s how much I want to be an aging writer when I grow up.
photo credit: www.freedigitalphotos.net
by jphilo | Nov 6, 2012 | Current Events
Election Day 2012 is here much to my relief delight. As a citizen of one of this year’s swing states, it didn’t take too much thinking to come up with a list of the top ten positives associated with the long-awaited end to election season.
10. No more robo-calls for Hiram and me from candidates, their spouses, immediate family, extended family, political cohorts, good friends, acquaintances, and pets.
9. No more surveys for Hiram and me of the automated or real-person-on-the-other-end-of-the-line variety.
8. No more robo-calls or surveys for our son who hasn’t lived in this state since 2001.
7. No more robo-calls or surveys for our daughter who hasn’t lived at our house since 2010.
6. No more robo-calls for Jayme, whoever she is, who never lived at our house though the Democratic Party is sure she did.
5. We can watch television again without hearing the same political ads over and over again.
4. No more watching television and feeling like a teacher trying to break up fights between two popular kids who keep calling each other names.
3. In a few more days, news reporters will talk about something other than the election or Frankenstorms powerful enough to push the candidates off the front page for a few days.
2. The sense of equality that comes from standing in the voting line with fellow citizens in our voting precinct. One person, one vote, regardless of gender, color, creed, class, or earning power.
1. When we vote, whoever wins, we’ve participated in the making of history.
What positives get you excited this election day? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Aug 20, 2012 | Current Events
The Little Missouri winding through Teddy Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch in North Dakota.
On August 7 during Morning Edition, National Public Radio ran a story about Theodore Roosevelt and the Little Missouri River. The story titled Roosevelt’s Badlands Ranch Faces Potential Threat gave the history of TR’s connection to the North Dakota Badlands and the Little Missouri. But the bulk of the article was an expose about how the North Dakota oil boom is threatening the wide open spaces of TR’s historic Elkhorn Ranch.
My grasp on the details is shaky because when I first listened to the piece and during each subsequent reading of it, the same questions pop into my head. Can this really be the same Little Missouri that meandered through Harding County and past Camp Crook, the town where Hiram and I lived and worked for seven years after we graduated from college? How did I miss the historical connection?
The answer, of course, is that we were young and ignorant when we moved there. Plus, we lived in Harding County, South Dakota, about 150 miles south of TR’s ranch. And once Allen was born, our lives got…complicated. Even so, I can’t reconcile our South Dakota Little Missouri and the surrounding countryside with the concerns about TR’s North Dakota Little Missouri and the land around it.
Because Little Missouri country was wide open in TR’s day, it was wide open when we lived there from 1978-1985, and it’s still wide open today. If you’re wondering how wide open it is, consider this.
We drove 90 miles to the hospital the night our son was born.
The first 55 miles of the trip were gravel back then.
They’re still gravel today.
And it’s not too far from the Mcfarthest Spot.
If you need more convincing, here are a few pictures I took during trips to Harding County in 2007 and 2010.
State Highway 20 west of Camp Crook, three miles from the Montana border. This is about a mile from the Little Missouri.
Custer National Forest, about five miles from the Little Missouri. The view reaches well into Montana, about forty miles.
One of the horses on our friends’ ranch which is along the Little Missouri.
This country is big.
Wide open.
Huge.
No wonder I can’t wrap my head around the worries articulated in the NPR story. Not that they aren’t legitimate or newsworthy. They are. But there’s also a lot a land in them thar hills, and in my opinion, the story downplayed that fact to emphasize others.
There. I got that off my chest and feel much better. Except for one thing. Now I’m homesick for Harding County and all my friends there. I want to go to visit. But it’s a long way to drive.
About a thousand miles.
And the last fifty-five miles are still gravel.
On second thought, maybe I’ll wait to visit next summer.
by jphilo | Aug 14, 2012 | Current Events, Top Ten Tuesday
Hiram and I went to the Iowa State Fair Sunday. The weather was cool and the rain held off – a perfect day to celebrate our state’s agricultural history, people watch, and eat food we don’t touch the other 364 days of the year. If you haven’t been there yet, here are my top ten reasons the fair is worth visiting:
10. Eating something relatively healthy, like say a gyro and an apple slush, instead of totally decadent foods like deep fried mac and cheese or deep fried candy bars makes the average person feel like a health nut.
9. Visiting the livestock barns will conjure up good memories of parents or grandparents who lived on a farm. For me, it’s visiting the cattle barn and remembering Dad.
8. Fairgoers get to see Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin in the flesh.
7. For those of us who didn’t make it to the Olympics and see Queen Elizabeth, the fair’s another chance to glimpse royalty.
6. Those of us who have lived West River in South Dakota can pretend we’re back in cowboy and cowgirl country.
5. Non-mechanically inclined spouses can listen to their mechanically inclined spouses explain how contraptions like this one work…and come away still clueless.
4. You can watch a family member or friend’s face light up when totally engrossed in something he or she loves – say old-timey music or figuring out how some contraption works or watching a carpenter make furniture by hand – until you get bored.
3. Nothing says “happy” like watching kids dance to the music of a one man band. Get a load of his socks!
2. The State Fair’s the perfect place to analyze the latest in wool fashions.
1. Where else will you see the butter cow and the seven dwarves and Snow White and the Evil Stepmother and the Magic Mirror all in one dairy case?
Now it’s your turn. What are your top reasons for attending your State Fair?
