Woody & My IBF

Toys I can't believe still exist:

• Easy Bake Ovens (hello?, uh, microwaves and compact flourescents)
• Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots (video games)
• Shrinky Dinks (I guess there is no real substitute here)

Toys that never should have existed:

• Click clacks (remember how they not only cracked your sister's skull open, but then were recalled because they shattered and sliced her up with the shrapnel, and no one sued in those days)
• Fuzzy wuzzy soap (ew, it was sorta moldy and grew these alien-like clear buzz cuts)

Toy that will always be cool:

Slinky

The weather in the South is going to be so lousy, the Weather Channel has a whole article called "What's the difference between sleet and freezing rain?"

The quick recap of the forecast:

On Monday, there will be snow or rain in the Tennessee Valley.






On Tuesday, another "disturbance" results in "significant" snow and sleet and freezing rain over the interior Southeast.


And then the system will "save its hardest punch" for the East Coast.

Oh, poor Woody! Maybe my imaginary boyfriend and I will sit by the fire and Woody can stay in the garage.

Only one problem. I worked like crazy a month ago to clear all the old firewood from behind the barn to make way for some beautiful split cherry. I found a shed snakeskin and took a picture of it. I burned and burned and burned that wood until the house felt like the orchid house at Longwood Gardens, but totally devoid of moisture. I forgot to get the new wood. Now I have two baskets full in the house and will likely have no power again during the storm.  The cabinetmaker up the street puts its scraps in big blue plastic cans in the back of his shop.  You can take it for kindling.  I wonder if he has any unclaimed orders.  A desk or some chairs would be very useful right now.

By the way, ice accumulation impacts are officially rated "nuisance," "diruptive," or "crippling." The latter includes widespread tree & power line damage and impassible or dangerous roads. Power outages may last for days.  That's the kind we get.

We have officially exceeded our average snowfall in Philadelphia, for the entire season, says the meteorologist.

He says: So, if you are one of the "snow-fatigued", please accept our apologies. We're here to give you advance warning of another major storm looming ahead.

And then he thoughtfully provides a picture of our condition.  It's like giving a picture of a dead girl in a car wreck to her mother.

Two days this week I was trapped in my own home. I cleaned out the attic (gross). I can now make it to the road, which is perfectly clear, but dear Woody cannot come here. I thought I'd pick him up and take him to my ex-husband's for a day or two. No, he will not key it.  We are friends.

Then the snow came.  Again. And it's coming again Tuesday.  Well, I suppose it's for the best because Mississippi is still iced in, too. I want to go over Skyline Drive, and that is clearly out of the question.  Here I thought I'd have a merry jaunt across the country, and I realized it's 19 degrees here, 36 at night in Florida, and Woody has no heater. I am adjusting my packing. Check on parka, hat, scarf and gloves.

For the first time in my life, I am at a loss to pack enough.  I have a couple of pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, some long-sleeved, some not, a few old cashmere sweaters, and a boatload of shoes and pretty underwear.  I remembered my towel and my sleeping bag. Oh, and my pillow. I sleep flat on my back and I need a really soft pillow unless I want to wake up with my chin stuck to my chest.  I have a basket with peanut M&Ms and Tootsie Pops, a roll of paper towels, my favorite go cup and a water bottle. My basket of books is huge. I needlepoint (!), and I've packed a belt project (flying pigs) in my purse, and a larger one (pillow for my stepmother) for sitting on porches. Two pairs of scissors (my personal obsession; you never know when you'll have to cut something). A flashlight. Toothbrush. First aid kit (hey, I'm a mom).

All I want is XM radio. This is what I bought:

Ok, we've all fallen victim to those special "events" in the cosmetics department. They generally require you to make a large purchase for the "gift" of a really nasty pocketbook or tote filled with tiny little samples.  Here are some of the bags I've gotten:

• A bright eggplant mock-croc vinyl shoulder bag
• A pewter woven clutch (also vinyl)
• A furry roll of something in which there was a metallic brocade cylindrical zipper thing (don't ask because I don't know)
• Faux leopard velvet shoulder bag (thank god I didn't get the hot pink one)

They want you to feel really good that you've gotten the "deluxe" samples. What, you may ask, makes a sample deluxe? If it is perfume, it's large enough to have a teeny-weeny spray top so that you don't have to dribble the few drops that come in the regular sample. A deluxe skin care sample is in a tiny tub or bottle instead of a foil packet that looks like a condiment. Unless it is a really expensive skin cream, in which case the foil packet is the deluxe sample.  I guess this stuff just can't be regular at $400 a jar.

I love Khiels, because their gift is always really useful.  The bottles are the right size for the Ziploc bag you're allowed to take on board.  Plus, they give you so many! And I'd buy anything from Lisa. They once had a special thing where they brought a fabulous gay man in from New York to consult on your look and lifestyle, whatever that is.  My BFF always wears stone colored pants, cotton tissue turtlenecks from J. Crew (so that the sweater isn't so itchy) and a heavily pilled cashmere sweater. She has the most gorgeous natural light, light blonde hair with a touch of grey, the pretty kind. She wears it twisted off her neck in a little clip.  She sports tortoise shell glasses, and always, always, always a large pearl necklace and clip-on earrings.  See, her father subscribed to the gypsies/whores theory also. Anyhow, she's very horsey and the expert remembers her having riding boots on, but we're pretty sure it was a pair of needlepoint shoes. She's really not very glamorous, but he felt that she had the best style of anyone in any Neiman Marcus in the country. He's right.


Back to the samples. If you really get down to it, we all (yes, you know who you are) go home and open the little present that comes in white tissue paper in the hideous bag. It feels like Valentine's Day without the guy, and teenage mall gorging put together. It's a heady experience, yes it is. So, you've opened them all up and kept them in perfect condition in their pretty little packages in your bottom bathroom drawer. Where they stay until they turn rancid.

I have a system for these. I divide them into little baskets by function, like moisturizers, shampoos, body washes, treatments, and so on. And when there are too many to fit, they go into my attic. It's a virtual sample graveyard up there. I figured that I can use these when I travel on very short trips, just throw a couple of samples into a teeny tote. I've done that about twice.  I now have over 500 samples (I counted; uh huh, get a life, I know). Should I send them to Sierra Leone? Kenya? The Haitian earthquake victims? Martha's Mobile Home Paradise? Oooh. How about Look Good, Feel Good, the one for bald ladies going through chemotherapy?

Nope, they will live in my attic for posterity, where they will spontaneously reproduce. These will be the prize finds of archaeologists of the future.  They'll do chemical analyses on the components to determine which natural ingredients are in them so that they can date the find, even without carbon. They'll want to know what the habitat was like.  From which region are the pollen fragments? They will find nothing natural whatsover, and the gift of samples will be the mystery that decades of PhDs will try to solve.

You know, I may actually use some on the road trip.  My Imaginary Boyfriend will help me reach the baskets down.

I have often written of my dear town.  Being Friday night, there is hockey and free skating. The rink is barely indoors- no heating, metal benches, dads in Carthearts. If you're lucky, you mom'll give you money for hot chocolate.  There are herds of feral children there.  I have to do the Supernanny thing and get down to their level, look in their eyes and explain that their behavior is not acceptable. Works pretty well, but sometimes, like tonight, I have to resort to tripping them.  Truly. After one of them really falls hard, they decide to keep the shrieking to a minimum, the bench stamping at the other end of the rink, and their hurtling paths way above me. I looked one kid straight in the face and asked him where his mother was.  She's not here, he screamed back. The rink is the mall of our neighborhood.  Moms just drop their kids there for the evening and go for cocktails. As far as I can tell, absolutely no one is responsible.

If I remember correctly, one time the referee in a Junior Varsity game ejected some spectating kids. Or was it their parents? Recently, signs have been posted to remind parents of the value of good sportsmanship, and to basically say nothing at all if you can't say something nice.

If you've ever seen hockey dads, you understand that soccer moms are bush league. They ought to make dads wear helmets and pads, and then we can at least enjoy the spectacle, and perhaps score the performances.  Mr. Smith a 9.5 in stick handling on Mr. Booth's head, defense scoring a meager 8.0. The guys who sell the hot dogs in the warm room will be the first aid crew. Maybe level of difficulty point bonuses. Maybe for a broken stick? Playing with no face mask? Getting up to check the check out of the other guy? The behind the back elbow slam? Sly tooth attack?  Flipping feral child over shoulder? Oh, the possibilities! Think of the side betting!


My town is special. I bet you don't have a Zamboni painted like a cow in your rink.

Ok, I love child beauty pageants. In particular, "High Glitz" pageants. You know, the ones with the rather whorish looking little girls. I have never seen one live (which I hope to do on my road trip), but I have seen plenty of TV and YouTube clips, and done my share of googling images.  I know who Eden Wood is. And no, I am not creepy (at least I don't think so). Sorry for the plethora of pictures, but there's just no other way to get this stuff across.

There are two TV shows covering pageants: Toddlers & Tiaras, and Little Miss Perfect. I like them both.  Both shows emphasize the mothers behind the beauties, but in different ways.  T&T mothers are fairly normal, save for the fact that they put their daughters (and sons!) in pageants. LMP mothers are unequivocally fat and/or ugly.  One mother was tattooed over her entire body, and she and her little beauty go to pageants in dentist daddy's King Air.  Hmmmm... a little extracurricular pharmaceutical sales?




Child pageants are almost exclusively Southern affairs, big in Texas and Oklahoma, and, well, anywhere Aquanet sales outpace groceries.  And speaking of expense, families routinely spend $20,000 or $40,000 or $65,000 to play this sport. Dresses are custom-made and cost thousands of dollars apiece. The one we associate most with pageants is called the "cupcake." This is for "beauty," the first and most important segment.

There are also swimwear, outfit of choice, western wear, fancy dress, and talent, depending on the pageant. Each one of these requires another 10 pounds of sequins.  Unless you're one inventive mother.  The little girl came out on the stage in a white robe with angel wings (so far so good), praying, then whipped off the robe and was wearing this:

"Photogenic" is another category in which parents submit highly retouched (read expensive) pix.

Entry fees are enormous, regularly in the three figures.  From what I can tell, entering each phase of the pageant requires additional entry fees.  It is clear that the organizers and dressmakers make a hell of a lot of money.




This is what is put on the girls:

• False eyelashes
• Fake nails (this is the specialty of one "pageant dad")
• Huge amounts of curlers
• Lots of hairspray
• Flippers (fake teeth so their missing ones won't mess up their smiles)
• Three outfits for each pageant, some of which regularly cost $2,000

This is what's done to the girls:

• Eyebrow waxing
• Spray tanning
• Manicuring
• Pedicuring
• Force-feeding of Pixie Stix, coffee, or "special juice"
• For the lucky few, facials

This is the cast of people to support the girls:

• Modeling coach
• Acting coach
• Dance teacher
• General coach (usually a sorta grown up pageant girl)
• Agent
• Hairdresser
• Makeup artist
• Photographer

Here's who goes to the pageants:

• Mom
• Some dads
• Aunts
• Grandmothers
• Brothers (yup)

This is what they do:

• Clap
• Point at their own smiley faces as a cue
• Do the routine silently so the girl can follow
• Hold up puppets or stuffed animals
• Go "whoooo" and "you go girl"
• Shout the kid's name 

Here's who else is in the audience:

• Nobody

Here's what's weird that the girls do on stage, but you get used to:

• Blow kisses, especially with one finger
• Cup their faces with their hands
• Twist one finger in their cheek
• Purse their lips
• Put their faces on hands like sleepy time

Here's what it costs to be a pageant girl:

• $65,000

This is what you can win:

• $500
• Trophy
• Rhinestone crown that is too big to wear

• Pearls dangling from tiny bra tops
• Booty pops
• "Pumping"(pelvis thrusts)
• Shimmying
• Stripping

You know how every woman who has plastic surgery says she wants / has gotten more confidence? That's exactly what pageant moms say about their girls.

By the way, this is Eden Wood:

My kitchen door is for friends and the front door is for strangers. I've always wanted to put up one of those rustic sign posts with arrows angled in the directions of, say, Antarctica and Fiji, but with Friends and Strangers on it. Since we all know each other around here, that effectively means my kitchen door is the door.  It expands and contracts in the most contrary manner.  In the winter, it shrinks from all the dryness, and leaves a big opening above the sill, letting the northern winds in.  In the summer, the door swells from humidity, just when I want it open, and you have to hit it really hard with your hip to move it at all. Of course, we have those few precious spring days when it fits just right.

Today was to be the big day. Woody was coming home with me.  We have six inches of slush on the ground.  My driveway is gravel, and the ground is both saturated and frozen.  As you approach the road, there is a swoopy lip at the top of the hill.  You can't gain momentum and blow through it because you can't see the traffic coming in either direction, not that there's any traffic, but just in case.

I tried and tried and tried.  I tried first gear.  I tried four-wheel in my pickup. As I would get to the top, the vehicles had minds of their own, and shimmied from side to side.  So, reverse.  Well, that's just as bad, so now I'm stuck partially down my driveway with stone walls on either side of me.  I tried to just put it in neutral and let it slide down, but the slush held it in, and the progress was only to fishtail.  I became a prisoner in my own driveway.

I was afraid to leave the car there because it's getting colder and all the ruts will ice over.  Slowly, slowly I backed down, with literally inches between the side doors and the stone walls.  Then I had to unpack the car and bring it all inside.  Well, to bring it inside, I had to reach the key, and as I toppled over, all my things went into, you guessed it, six inches of white frozen Margarita.

I'm pissed, and I miss Woody, and I miss my imaginary boyfriend.

There is one.  July 18th -- always the third Saturday

Brad is getting dressed! He may meet me along the way, but if he's not finished, I may wait.

Oh, I ache for you, my imaginary boyfriend!

And I'm not forwarding my mail. Where would I forward it anyhow?

If you were alive in the late 1950's or early 1960's, you no doubt know Rocky and Bullwinkle.  Did you know that the Wilmington, Delaware minor league baseball team is called the Blue Rocks, and their mascot is Rocky Bluewinkle? At minor league games you can run around with your head on a bat and win a two-liter bottle of Coke. Ahem, back to the subject.

The moose and the squirrel were of vast entertainment value, and Boris and Natasha dastardly, but I always loved Fractured Fairy Tales best.  At the very end of each one, a little man with a broom swept up the shards from the tale that was fractured.



While the fairytales were based on the classics, the characters were something altogether different.  How about Wolfenpickle in Goldilocks? Fairy Godmouse in Jack and the Beanstalk? Kyle Clod in The Princess and the Pea? J. Quincy Flogg in Pinocchio? I didn't exactly remember these. They're from The Big Cartoon Database. But I know that I loved them.

I was watching Futurama one day, and I noticed that the voices were like FF's. The drawing was like Futurama. The plot lines were sometimes like FF's. Hmmmm... Ya think Matt Groening was born in the 50's?

Here's Aladdin's Friendly Lamp-O-Rama.



See? Rub me and get a surprise, the lamp said, and he got a surprise. Jeanie is just like Leela. Aladdin's just like.. you figure it out. And brassiere, uh, husseir, uh, middle eastern guy.

Hooray! The last coat of varnish is on the doors.  One day until it dries. I'm going to pick it up on Wednesday, and drive it home to be checked out before I leave. Tra, la, tra, la.

In 1976, I went to Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review in Tampa, Florida. I can't remember too much about it, though.  I was 17, and my sister was 13.  She and her friends were the ones that planned the outing.  I suppose they wanted me to go because I was old enough to drive.  Well, my little sister gave me my first LSD. Okay, this was in Florida, and we certainly had more than our share of drugs, but it really only got bad with coke in the 1980's.

In 2006, I took my son to his first concert, The Stones A Bigger Bang. He was 13. The tickets were $950 apiece, face value. We bought t-shirts and blinky tongue pins.  He wanted to hear Paint It Black because his school hockey team always came out on the ice to it.  We left before Satisfaction because he was too tired, according to him, to experience the rest. I heard it from the parking lot.

And we talk about how kids grow up too fast these days. Thirty years ago, we did LSD with our friends. Four years ago, my son went to a concert with his mother.  At least he wasn't planning a Columbine.

These are my maps. I have three book maps of the USA (never know if I'll go some crazy place I have no information about). One has Festivals listed, with photos. There is a miserable dirth of festivals in the winter.  On the positive side, it should be easier to get a room.

A rodeo seems to be on the likely list, as does NASCAR. I love rodeos, absolutely adore them.  I have never been to NASCAR and I'm pretty sure I'll hate it, but my imaginary boyfriend will probably find it a welcome relief from the plantations.

I also have two maps of the Southeast, one laminated (as my woody has no cup holders, I bet this one is the most valuable). And, I will be taking a cool picnic thing.  I call it a thing, because it's not a basket, it's a suitcase. Lots of fake travel labels are on it.  It looks cool; no wonder it was made for some movie or another.  I bought it on Etsy. I did have to augment its pretty plates and sliverware, though. It has no wine glasses.

Hmmm.  I do have a vintage sextant, the one my parents used before I was born.  But that's going a bit far

The woody has no cigarette lighter.  At least I don't think it does.  Come to think of it, maybe it does.  Does it work? I dunno.

GPS and XM need charging. Through a cigarette lighter (or I guess in the evening, unless I'm sleeping in the car). Video cam, MacBook, iPad, iPhone, iPod, not to mention my toothbrush and hairdryer, all need charging. I'll have to pack a power strip.  I have an entire canvas bag full of cables, adapters, manuals and batteries.

I also don't have a radio.  Or if I do, it's AM. If it works. XM runs through your car speakers. Thats a big negatory.

Now, all of this is sort of cheating, as I am planning to be not planned.  However, a road trip just isn't a road trip without music.  I don't want to be permanently missing in some swamp. And I really, really want to document this trip.  Okay, I feel better about the electronics.  Now for the wifi... let's not go there with lattes and Starbucks.

So here's what I did: I bought a "power pack." This thing can power stuff through regular plugs and a cigarette lighter port. It can jump start the car. It has a radio (for local stations, yeah!), a flashlight, and a compressor.  I wonder how much it weighs. Since I have Amazon Prime, I'll know in two days.

This, apparently, is not a big deal today. I'm not sure how to approach the situation.

My sister had a gay friend in high school.  She had Tinkerbell tattooed on her shoulder blade.  When my sister got married and we had to wear hideously large bridesmaids dresses, she tried to cover Tink with makeup.  My mother told her to just let her fly.

When I look back at that moment, and also remember my mother was a no nuker when I was quite small (she also campaigned about cable TV, why should we pay for TV we already get free?), she seems so terrifically avant garde. She was always just mom to me, the lady in the Science Center group, and the mom who made Girl Scout punch, with the ice mold with maraschino cherries and orange slices floating in Hawaiian punch from the blue can, and ginger ale and sherbet.  The punch was served from our punchbowl, of course, and we had glass punch cups, too.  I was always afraid the handles would break off and I'd spill my drink during moving up day.

No nice people had tattoos at the time, so this girl was really wild.  They didn't come out, either, so she was very brave. Most afternoons, we'd all lie by the pool to sun. She was a goddess, with skin so smooth and so tan, and her belly so flat.  She always sunbathed nude.  I'll remember that image forever, and often wonder what it would have been like with her.

I think this is on my bucket list.  My imaginary boyfriend has to stay home, though. Who knows? A three-some someday? You need not an imaginary boyfriend, not an almost-real imaginary boyfriend, but a real boy friend, I mean friends and boy. Actually I don't need a boy at all, just a few beers.

I am very nervous posting this (what an old prude), but Brad said it's okay.

If a guidebook mentions Helen's Sausage House in Delaware, and knows you call in advance from your truck, it's the one for me.


Roadfood by Jane & Michael Stern is a bit like a small telephone book, the ones they distribute in very small towns.  Oh dear, they have an awful lot of listings. Should we chase banana pudding or meat pies? Chicken and dumplings or hush puppies? I vote for anything containing lard. Cornmeal is a plus.

When I was a teenager, my cheerleader friend and I wanted to make sugar cookies for the bake sale.  Her mother had one cookbook which seemed to be rather, well, outdoorsy.  The recipe called for rendered bear fat. I guess that's as good as lard.

My imaginary boyfriend and I are perusing the tome in front of a roaring fireplace. Visions of orangeade dance in our heads.

I need a tacky ashtray for Rivertavern, as I don't plan on paying for drinks. This is what I decided on.  It is about a foot wide.  It better get me a really big drink.

I have been reading Guy Fieri's books that I assume have been generated by his TV show. While there are many places I'd like to visit, I have yet to find a diner, drive-in or dive in any of the pages.  Furthermore, there are testimonials from the restaurant owners about how being in the book increased business a zillion percent.  I want to find those places without the zillion percent. I think the websites might offer some more info for evaluation.

Here is what I have found that Guy would like me to visit:

Alabama

Panini Pete's Fairhope
Has Guy on home page, and paninis? Please. Will visit if on my route and I'm hungry when I get there. Also has t-shirts and coffee mugs. And a tab for "Bloggin'"

Manci's Antique Club Daphne
Hmmm... has a nice website- suspect. However, lots of cheese and bacon and ranch dressing. Also, the gimmick is kind of great. Looks like a great place for Brad to pose for a picture.

Louisiana

Casamento's Restaurant New Orleans
Has "merchandise"-- hmmm again.  Also in New Orleans a real negative (minimal cities for this girl)

Parasol's, New Orleans
Hooray! No web site. Negates New Orleans location problem

Rivershack Tavern Jefferson
"Home of the Tacky Ashtray" but tweets and facebooks.

Mississippi

Darwell's Cafe Long Beach
Uh, oh.  Guy Fieri's plug on home page. Also moving dots at bottom advertising web developer.  Plus, the video looks like a bunch of frat bros after a keg-- they think it's great, but we don't.

Tennessee


Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken Memphis
Geez.  What is it with Guy Fieri's pic? Web site a plus only because you can order the seasonings and sauces. But, they have a press area.  C'mon, press? But this looks like a place I'd really like

Tom's Bar-B-Q Memphis
Damn.  Guy's pic again. A video even. But gotta love "Where Friends Meat," and the contact is an aol address.

Pizza Palace Knoxville
I dunno. I'll have to be really sick of southern food to eat pizza. But the sign looks cool, and it says drive-in.  I wonder if that's true- great for Woody, and my imaginary boyfriend won't have to get out. Unfortunately, I'll probably have to pee. Web site's nice and basic.

And, Florida


Ted Peter's but not because he said so. I grew up eating there.
And it has no website

While I have been poking around to find places I want to see or do (or, especially), eat, I have run into some places that are near and dear to my heart.

In 1972, my family moved to St. Petersburg, Florida.  At that time, it was really, truly geriatric.  Shuffleboard was the state sport.  Flying back and forth from the North to the brand-spankin' new Tampa airport, we would always get to pick up the coconut patties, notwithstanding that Tampa is not in the tropics (semi-tropical, no coconut palms).  They came in yellow boxes shaped like saltine boxes but smaller, and each patty was wrapped in waxed paper.  I think they still exist, but with cellophane packets. Sometimes, we also got sickly-sweet orange blossom perfume.  I can still smell it.

Our new house was on a small bay, and as we were fisherman up north, we had to try the fishing there.  Mullet are the predominant aquatic vertebrates in those parts. Mullet are also vegetarians.

My sister and I were used to digging up worms in the mud flats exposed at low tide in order to fish at high tide. Our father used the big fork to turn up rocks and mud clods while we picked the wigglies out. We put the worms in a can in the refrigerator.  I was always afraid they would get out.

So. What bait to use for mullet? Bread? Lettuce? Bananas? It turns out there is basically no bait for mullet.  You need to learn to seine.  The nets are round with weights all around the edges. To do it right, you chomp down on one side and toss the rest in a perforated parachute.  The weights sink the net, and then you pull it in, hopefully with fish in it. My dad did it for awhile with not too much satisfaction.  We watched the pelicans poop on the dock and occasionally tiptoed out onto the oyster bed.

No mullet in our kitchen.  And then we discovered Ted Peter's.  Ted Peter's is a wooden shack that smokes mullet in a little smokehouse at the side of the restaurant, if you can call it that.  The place is famous for its fish spread, which is made with the mullet and probably mayonnaise or something.  It is served with saltines, a favorite food group of ours.  Dad always had the whole smoked fish.  I think they smoked other kinds of fish, but I can only remember mullet.

Ted Peter's also served gigantic hamburgers.  Remember, this was before quarter-pounders were invented.  I'm not sure how they would compare, but those were some mighty large burgers.  And German potato salad.  They just called it potato salad, but we knew that there were two kinds of potato salad: the one with sieved hard-boiled eggs, carrot shreds, and Italian dressing AND mayonnaise AND sour cream for regular, and German potato salad that grandma made infrequently and was rather immigrant-y.  Ted Peter's was stealth German potato salad.  It was made with onions and bacon and vinegar and served warm from the pan.

My grandmother actually had a prescription for alcohol written during prohibition.  I have seen it. She would drink her sherry in her room, with confidence that we all knew it was good for you.  She used to go out to buy it, along with gelatin orange slices and Carmel Nips. One day, Gramma got stopped driving the wrong way on a one-way road, and we were all at the mercy of my mother's schedule to get anything good, and basically we didn't get anything good because Gramma had been our pusher.

When we went to Ted Peter's Gramma had a beer.  I don't think anyone else did, as I had only seen my parents drink once or twice, a Tom Collins at a fancy restaurant. We all loved sitting on the picnic tables under the canvas ceilings.  If it was particularly rainy, the curtains were rolled down.

Gramma was really old.  She eventually kind of fell apart physically, and my mother couldn't take care of her anymore. She was put in a nursing home, "a nice one," not too far from our house.

By that time, I was old enough to drive.  My parents gave me a car and told me to take my sister wherever she needed to go.  We were free.  And we loved Gramma. And Gramma's nursing home was across the street from Ted Peter's.

As time had gone on, that street got to be four lanes wide, two in each direction, and it was pretty busy.  One day, my sister and I sprung Gramma.  We threw her in a wheelchair and raced across the road to Ted Peter's.  I remember that she had to go to the bathroom, and it was a bit of a struggle to get her into the weathered closet in the back, but that was part of the gig.

We sat and had fish spread and potato salad. We asked Gramma if she wanted a beer. I have never seen someone so happy in my life. She slurped the suds and slid the fish onto the saltines.  We raced her back over before anyone noticed she was gone.  And shortly she was gone.

I have been told that Ted Peter's is still there.  I intend to introduce my imaginary boyfriend to it on our road trip.