Being a 90s kid was no joke. If one had a mother with a propensity for drama, as I did, then prime time Television was her oyster. After the daily soaps concluded, it was off to “real” drama. There was 20/20, Unsolved Mysteries, and whatever Barbara Walters was going to indignantly talk about that evening. But Dateline was my crux.
Dateline, for the uninitiated, was an hour long show that took one news event and tried to squeeze it until tears came out. And it usually approached it with two messages: “men are evil and they will kill you”, and “your children aren’t safe and they’ll be abducted”.
Sadly, that unmarked van filled with candy and psychoactive drugs never appeared, but that didn’t stop mother from confining me to my suburban corral: the backyard, enclosed with a privacy fence.
The red box roughly highlights the back yard section. And if the satellite distance reference is accurate, I calculate my pen to have been about 3000 sq ft. Or ~0.07 acres.
As one might imagine, the mind of a child tended to wander in such a limited environment. And as the summers of my stunted social development compounded, I withdrew entirely and accepted the yard as my entire world. I became intimately familiar with every detail of that small space.
And in that space was a small patch of annuals. Specifically, four o’ clocks.
One day, I noticed that the spent flowers, which had dried on the plant, had an pleasant earthly tea scent. Further observation also revealed that the petals crumbled easily, and effused their aroma quickly into water, specifically a mug of water left out on the concrete patio in the hot Texas sun. Furthermore, the resultant tisane tasted delicious. I had stumbled upon something.
But the experiment was cut short when mother, having taken her usual Schindler’s List perch by the full-length backyard windows, witnessed my activities and intervened. The resultant lecture was less a cautionary lesson on knowing with certainty that a plant is edible and more a morality lecture on how my selfish and careless decisions impacted other people (her). I came out of that conversation with no additional scientific knowledge, but instead sobbing and begging for forgiveness – exactly what a Catholic mother wants. The overlord of morality had won again.
Fast forward to today and I was watching Netflix. And as with any Netflix show involving food, that Danish chef guy was there talking about his amazing restaurant and how he forages ingredients. But, for the first time, I noticed a certain flower being used as a garnish. Nasturtium flowers always show up, because they’re pretty and taste peppery. But this looked different. I swear it was a four o’ clock flower. This necessitated a quick internet search.
30 years later and I find out that not only are the flowers edible, but they’re specifically used in infusions: exactly what I was doing.
I get that information is much more accessible today, and that digging through encyclopedias gets tedious and that was a rabbit hole mother didn’t want to explore, but did every childhood mistake have to end with crying?
I guess she was worried that if the psychoactive drug van wasn’t showing up, I’d start randomly sampling plants to find drugs on my own. But as it turns out, my culinary curiosity led to foraging – something Netflix is now telling me is the mark of a genius chef. Who knew?
I don’t want to post pictures from the holidays. I’m done with the holidays and want to move on. I’m middle-aged now and don’t find much magic in the rituals anymore. Any joy I had left was by proxy: watching my daughter enjoy them. But she’s a teen now and wants to distance herself from anything family-oriented. Plus it’s the age at which being overtly happy about anything just isn’t cool. It’s cool to be a cynic and hate.
So I’ll pass on the tree and house light photos this year. Instead, here’s a brief reflection on one of my own moments of lost magic. Here is a single snowflake, captured poorly with my aging phone camera:
Contrasted nicely against the lid of the recycling bin
It was cold enough that individual crystals were falling without clumping together. It reminded me of when I learned what they actually are.
Another consequence of a Texan upbringing, I didn’t see much snow. Some light dustings here and there, but rarely anything of consequence. So I knew snow mostly from movies. And there’s a particular scene in Disney’s Fantasia with fairies dancing in snowfall, using individual snowflakes as dresses. Granted I’d never seen a fairy before either, but my assumption was that they’re 6-12 inches tall. Representations in various media confirm this, probably because that’s a good size to work the physical world around. Any smaller and our existing environment wouldn’t scale well to make understandable films, any larger and they’re just small people. Ergo, I made the connection that a snowflake dress, presented as being as wide as the fairy was tall, would therefore be around 6-12 inches in diameter.
So you might understand my disappointment when, on a rare day of Texas snow, when my mother exclaimed “Snowflakes!” when glancing out the window, that I was greeted with the sight of tiny specks of white, and not gargantuan plates of ice crystals, floating gracefully to the ground. Such is life.
But still, on a micro level, individual snowflakes are pretty cool to look at.
White trash is a derogatory term in American English for poor white people, especially in the rural areas of the southern United States. The label signifies a social class within the white population, especially those perceived to have a degraded standard of living.[1] It is used as a way to separate the “good poor”, who are “noble and hardworking”, from the “bad poor”, who are deemed “lazy, undisciplined, ungrateful and disgusting”. The use of the term provides middle- and upper-class whites a means of distancing themselves from the social status of poor whites, who cannot enjoy the same class privileges, as well as a way to disown their perceived behavior.
-Courtesy of Wikipedia (Above emphasis mine)
Operative words to consider: distancing, disown. Indeed, poor social graces do not necessarily tie oneself to a socioeconomic class, and a “peer” within that class who exhibits such traits does not need to be accepted as an equal on those grounds, either. Nor being of the same race. “Redneck” is an inaccurate term to use in this story, but it was alliterative and therefore made for a catchier title. No – this story involves unarguably: white trash.
And the reason I believe trash tends to hate me so much is due to this distancing and disowning. If you’re not in my honor circle, then it’s impossible for you to take any action or make any comment that offends me. A child might target me with profane comments, but they’re ultimately empty. I can’t seriously consider a child’s words to have any merit. Against my character, they’re meaningless. There’s little point to engage in a duel of honor and wits with an inferior. Children and trash rank similarly on this ladder. They know it, and I know it. And they hate it.
But that doesn’t stop them from trying.
So it was that, some years following my last trash encounter, a different one would give it a go. No doubt emboldened by their idol of such behavior – our current president – this one made an attempt, apparently not realizing that our president is a billionaire, while he’s just a guy who cuts grass in an Ohio town with a population of 400. Not exactly a model for comparison.
On this particular day, the day after Thanksgiving, my father-in-law had invited my father and I out for some rabbit hunting on his property. With 8 acres, rising to a hill abutting a cow pasture, with neighbors on the sides, and the highway at the front, it does pose some limitations in safe shot placement. But with the hill, there are safe zones – all of which I explained to my father, not that he needed the warning. He’s been hunting since the 50s. I’ve been hunting for 20 years myself. We’ve got this.
What followed was a grand afternoon of flushing rabbits out of brush and trying to get them safely positioned. My old man might be slowing down a little, but he did snag a squirrel. I managed two rabbits myself. It was a great hunting day! Even the cows came out to check on the commotion – ultimately concluding our ventures as they blocked the ridge. I had nice conversation with #64. Mooo. It trotted away indignantly.
But somewhere in the midst of the excitement, I noticed a fog gathering. The fog turned out to be Trash Neighbor lighting his…trash. At that moment. On a windy day. He was, I assume, trying to smoke us out. A petty passive-aggressive attack, which I of course ignored and continued hunting.
And since being ignored reaffirms one’s lower social ranking (as previously mentioned), this enraged him. As I was retrieving my final rabbit from the brush, I heard yelling. But I was caught in blackberry thorns at the time, so whatever it was could wait. Of course, that gave me enough time to figure out the situation, so when I emerged triumphantly with my kill, I walked away and towards my dad to herald my prize. Ignoring the trash was also safety decision. I was overtly armed with my Remington 870, and I assumed Mr. Trash also had a gun.
I should also mention at this point that, some years back on an unsuccessful rabbit hunting expedition, he drove over to my in-laws to complain. There were no rabbits and I hadn’t fired, so his complaint was limited in nature: I was pointing my gun at his property and staring menacingly in his direction (I’m paraphrasing, since I wasn’t there to hear the accusation).
But now I had fired shots, and since I knew that he had lied before about trying to intimidate him with a weapon, I assumed any confrontation would lead to more lies, with the potential for a “defensive” need to pull a gun on me. There were a more than a few reasons to nope out of that situation. As a result, his initially neutrally-worded albeit aggressive hails turned into sputtering monologues of profanity. I had made the right call.
Unperturbed, I went about field dressing my rabbits, but first decided to call Liz and give her a heads up. Based on past events, I didn’t think Mr. Trash would let this go.
Two successful hunting runs this year, and one with my dad too!
He didn’t. He spammed my in-laws’ phone, prompting them to block his number. That’s some next-level dismissive ignoring there! Your own neighbors in the country won’t even acknowledge you now. Take a hint, trash.
But the shriveled remaining vestiges of his geriatric masculinity overpowered reason, though on some level he still retained a sense of self-preservation and, deciding against a second attempt at direct confrontation, decided to call the sheriff instead. Big man.
Turns out, he upgraded menacing waving of a gun to dodging my shotgun pellets which were apparently coming towards him. That’s one hell of a ricochet. #6 birdshot bouncing 90 degrees from their path of flight and arcing over the hill into his yard by his fire pit.
Is it possible that a direct line of sight shot would have hit him? Yes. Is is possible that an arcing shot into the air above the ridge line would have hit him? Yes. Did I do either of those? No. The only explanations, therefore, are either a shot that defies Newtonian physics, or a lie. And while I often jest about my guns in video game multiplayer matches having phasic rounds, I’ve never seen my Remington pull that off.
The authorities, it would turn out, either agreed, or at least didn’t pursue the issue out of lack of evidence. That or a trash resident with a local reputation didn’t hold much credibility against a family of educated and productive members of society. (Some Facebook comments from locals also insinuated he might be suffering from Angry White Man syndrome and has a drinking problem.) Oh, and neither my dad nor I have warrants on us! Go figure.
It was a memorable Thanksgiving week, worthy of the family archives.
But wait, there’s more!
Seeing a recurring pattern with potential for future encounters, I began a dossier. Upon asking, the Clark County Sheriff’s Department turned out to be very accommodating with their records. I mean, they have to be cooperative in theory, but it was still nice that they didn’t fight me on anything or make the process difficult. Sadly, there was no 911 call or official police report – only the initial dispatch record:
Still good to get the official details. And amusing. Note that Mr. Trash, in his last pathetic vestige to appear as alpha male, said that I “took off running the other way”. Again, he couldn’t handle being ignored, so he fabricated an image of his imposing and intimidating manliness. I’ll wager he even truly believes it, too.
On the other hand, note that he thinks I’m in my mid 30s. Aww, thanks, Mr. Trash. It must be all that not smoking and not eating spam that’s maintained my youthful complexion.
It also turned out that I could request a copy of the body cam footage. There’s a fee to do so, as personal info has to be redacted and there’s no doubt some administrative work to go along with the video extraction, but I certainly couldn’t pass up that opportunity! I was hoping for some footage of Mr. Trash, but I don’t think the responders ever spoke with him directly. But I do get some amusing still-frames I can extract and print off for family gifts.
My dad likes to preserve notable memories with shadow boxes, and this gives me a lot of material to work with. So not only did I get to go hunting and spend some time with Dad, but I gave him a good story, too. And I now have another gift in the making for him come Christmas. All in all – what a great holiday!
No, I did not travel to Vienna in my youth. I went to New Mexico a few times, but that was about the extent of family vacations. Travel to me involved Boy Scouts, which mostly consisted of bleeding and sweating…and sometimes hypothermia. But tourism wasn’t exactly on the menu.
What I did have was a very good friend in 7th grade – Aaron. He was not a subscriber to the traditional Texan masculinity. I hate the term “Toxic Masculinity”, as it implies an inherent problem with men as a whole, but in some circumstances I think it’s the best explanation for male adolescent behavior – particularly those in Texas during the 90s. Example: the time someone broke the soap dispenser in the locker room at the pool (I was in school swimming at the time), and surreptitiously squirted its contents into my locker, soaking my clothes. That was a fun day. I’m still not certain why, seeing as I avoided the groups of larger boys and kept my mouth shut. I suppose I was just an easy target for random aggression.
Fortunately, the aforementioned friend was in swimming with me and also avoiding the bros. He was incredibly religious, like many Texans, but meant well. He gave me a pocket bible on one of these particularly bad days to try to help my declining mental state, and – for the purpose of this post – regularly shared with me his daily canned ration of Vienna sausage. I don’t know why, but he always had a can in his packed lunch. I had never had them prior, nor knew what they were. At the time, they just seemed to be small canned hot dogs. But 7th grade males aren’t very discerning with their meat products, and I thought they tasted wonderful. I had never had them since.
Then, just recently, some 28 years later, I took the kid to the liquidation outlet she likes to visit. Packed with mis-inventoried/lost/returned/written off shelves of all the crap Americans order through the mail, it’s a paradise for people possessing more time than money and trying to get a good deal on something random. Or, in my daughter’s case, someone who doesn’t know what to do with her allowance. And there, sitting on warehouse wire shelving, was a cardboard pack of Vienna sausage cans.
Mmmm, in chicken broth!
But to the kid’s credit, she’s willing to try most any food substance at least once, and agreed to eat some if I bought a $1 can of this processed meat-like…stuff, and try it with me to scratch an old nostalgic itch.
So – for Aaron! A kind soul in a desolate wasteland of Texan douche-bros.
And upon her initial bite, the kid spit it out and said it tasted like cat food. And I’m afraid that I have to agree. It was not like a hot dog. There was no pleasing snap followed by salty ground meat. It was a pressure-molded funky mush lick of the remaining meat stuck in a grinder that has to be washed out before the health inspector arrives. Yuck. Although the dogs didn’t seem to mind.
Sorry Aaron. You were a good friend and I appreciated you sharing your lunch. But I hope the times since have treated you well enough that you can now enjoy something a little higher quality. It was fun to reminisce, though.
Alton Brown had an amusing take on these flat meat diner foods in which he concluded that regional variances render this American staple undefinable. And if you were to try to find agreeable definitions, you would indeed be engaging in folly. Fortunately, I’m never too concerned with being agreeable here, so I’ll happily offer definitions.
Chicken-fried steak: flattened beef cutlet breaded with flour and deep-fried, then topped with sawmill gravy. Served with fries.
Country-fried steak: flattened beef cutlet breaded with flour and pan-fried, then topped with broth-based brown gravy. Served with fries.
Salisbury steak: cubed beef cutlet breaded with flour and pan-fried, topped with onions and braised in tomato sauce with broth. Served with mashed potatoes or vegetables.
There. I’ve managed to piss everyone off now.
But as for the nostalgia-based reason for this post: I miss chicken-fried steak, which was a staple of my west-Texas childhood. Every restaurant, diner, and cafeteria had it – usually as the first item on the kids’ menu. The Midwest, however, seems to favor country-fried steak. And I don’t remember ever seeing Salisbury steak outside TV dinners. And none of these variations are very common at all now, seeming only to occupy a niche in country home kitchen type restaurants like Bob Evans or Cracker Barrel (neither of which are very good, I’ll add).
But not being terribly culinary difficult, it can be easily made at home. Which I did.
Family reviews indicated that it was “not terrible”, and “not the worst thing I’ve ever had”. So I guess that’s why it doesn’t find its way onto many menus. It’s in actuality cheap food with minimal spices, relying on flavor through caloric addition.
