Tag: parents

Lucky You a Pen

~ johnbrandall

In 1986 my dad’s favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, lost the World Series in heartbreaking fashion to the New York Mets.  The Red Sox had twice led the Mets late in Game Six, repeatedly coming within one strike of winning the game and thereby the Series.  But bad relief pitching and an infamous miscue by the Boston first baseman allowed New York to prevail in extra innings.  

I was seven years old so I don’t remember the game well, but I do remember my dad moving from one room of the house to another, depending on how the game was going, believing superstitiously that how and where he watched the game could affect the outcome. 

The next spring my mom bought me some clothes from an erstwhile store called Venture.  Or it could have been Glik’s.  What I remember is that among those clothes was an orange t-shirt that I really liked.  The Mets wore uniforms with orange trim and their logo is orange on blue.  The t-shirt disappeared.  I asked my mom what happened to it.  Apparently my dad had banned the t-shirt on the basis of orange being a “gang color” but I suspect that the shirt reminded him of the Mets.  

~

You can’t make your bed while you’re on it.  That’s what my mom would say to me as I tried to straighten the covers atop my bunk bed, the higher of two bunks in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother.   At the end of the bunk was a window that looked out over our driveway, toward the house next door where Domino the German Shepherd lived, along with the couple who owned the house.  I could lie prone on the end of my bunk and look out the window, high above our driveway.  

Even though my bedroom was on the first floor it felt like a second-floor view because our driveway sloped down as it ran from the street to the back of our house.  On our side of the driveway was a lovely terraced rock garden that my mom looked after.  On the other side of the driveway was a steeply slanted hedge of unruly ivy and honeysuckle that my dad sometimes clipped.  The valley-like feel of the driveway put our yard at a remove from our neighbors’ yard even though they weren’t but twenty feet apart...  


To read the rest of this essay, click here...

All Roads Are Crossings (2020)

~ johnbrandall

Where did I put that thing? It has to be in here somewhere. I’ve never brought it back into the house. Maybe I threw it behind the seat? Or maybe the kids were playing with it, even though I’ve asked them to stop. Perhaps I stashed it in the console, along with the sunglasses, the pens, the motion sickness tabs, and this notebook. Or maybe it’s hanging on the rearview mirror, hidden in plain sight, like a rabbit’s foot, a pair of dice, or an air freshener that wore out many moons ago.

~

Things that are crumpled: bedspread, sauteed greens, the economy, mask on the ground, the hours of last night in my memory, recyclables once tipped into the collection truck, an old friendship, the silence, a grounded butterfly’s wing, used latex-free gloves, plastic bag in my pocket that once held oatmeal raisin cookies, my stash of reusable cloth bags now outlawed from use at the grocery, deleted email, used coffee filters, my previous laptop after an unfortunate run-in with the suddenly vital videoconferencing app known as Zoom, various articles of clothing that are now just laundry...

The full essay is here

Oiled Newspaper Hack for Charcoal Grilling

~ johnbrandall

Today I want to write about a “hack” I have been using to get charcoal fires started.  By hack I mean a tip, a trick, a shortcut — in the fashion of a home remedy. 

Over a decade ago, I invited my friend Ray over for dinner and he noticed I was having trouble getting my charcoal grill going.  The method I had been using was to put scrunched up newspaper in the bottom of the kettle, topping that with the smaller of two round metal grills that fit in kettle.  I would dump charcoal on the smaller grill, then eventually place the larger metal grill on top of that.  It’s the larger grill that holds whatever you might be cooking: hamburgers, chicken, bratwursts, whole onions, whole peppers, foil packs of sliced potatoes and butter. Pork steaks, carrots, asparagus, shrooms.

The problem with what I’ll call the “straight newspaper” method is that the newspaper would often burn up too quickly, not having burned long enough to have caught the charcoal, the flame wasting away too soon.  In this event I would have to awkwardly lift the bottom grate, which was a little hot and which was still holding the unburnt charcoal. Then, in a vexed state, I'd have to shove more wads of newspaper down into the bottom of the kettle.  Sometimes I went through three rounds of newspaper before the charcoal would finally catch...


Get your charcoal fire started easily with this one simple trick...

Trip to See My Siblings, Sept-Oct 2019

~ johnbrandall

Game via radio, Chicago feed. Pat Hughes, Ron Coomer, Zach Zaidman. The Cubs take the lead on an Ian Happ double. The regular season is almost over. Can you believe it? Like a wink. Wild pitch, Cubs add a run, it's 3-1.

We say it every year, and not just about baseball, but: where did the season go? Where did the time go? The months like water, like sand, like air. A temperature that will change and what can you do about it? No, nada.

As we drove north-northeast from Springfield today the skies were mixed. To the west, dark skies. Confused, malformed clouds. A blue darkness. We were along the flatness of Illinois. The sky extended as far as we could see in any direction...


North, to Chicago, go on...

The Quiet Politics of Love

~ johnbrandall

Moments preceding the Randall-Paz wedding, 6.1.2019

I.

Shoehorn, suspenders, aftershave
Wedding in a warehouse
Down Ashland in hermano's Honda
Bumping past taquerías,
Body shops and hair salons
None of which
Dad fails to point out.

II.

The candles yet unlit
While the hail outside
Sounds like the clink
Of clean glasses
At the levee bar. Early
To a wedding, it's
Never been done before.

III.

A pair of headphones
In the street
In the rain

But in the bridal suite
DJ Flowerz is blooming
Like green ivy
Finding
Foothold on the height
Of an unknown building.

IV.

Both
Of our parents
Walk her down the aisle.
They do,
Making it official.

V.

She's walking away.
He's dancing after her. No,
Wait—she's still dancing. Soft,
Sly steps. That's
Her move.

VI.

The macarena: fadded
Hated
Brought back
Tonight
Hey, it's underrated
Hey, macarena

VII.

Take a cab, take a Lyft, take the bus.
You've taken the world
And arranged the perfect salsa.

The late-nite
Snack table
Is now open. Congratulations.
Thank you for everything.

I'm-a let
The slickness
Of the dance floor
Show me which way
Home.