Vicki's Recipe for Rhubarb

Vicki’s Recipe for Rhubarb

My grandma Vicki came to this country from Poland when she was 6 years old.  After spending a decade or so in St. Clairsville, a coal mining town in Ohio, she came north with my grandfather to pursue their fortune in Detroit, working for Walter Chrysler in the Lynch Road assembly plant.  Vicki reminded me of a cross between Rosie the Riveter, and Edith Bunker on the popular All in the Family series.  She came packaged in the same colorful aprons and housedresses, with a Polish accent, and the same homespun, pragmatic outlook on life. 

Vicki was definitely a character that defied the imagination.  She had the equivalent of a sixth grade education, but my father and I were convinced she received intensive training at a Special School for Grandmothers, a place where grandmothers are sent to learn how to be the way they are.  After all, where else would Vicki have picked up on all the things grandmothers the world over seemed to share in common?  Take cooking for example. My grandmother Vicki clearly went to a special school for cooking lessons.  Where else would she have learned how to use bacon fat in just about every recipe from frying food to baking pies?  Where else could she have learned to cook in such mass quantities (often without a written recipe) even after her sons had moved away, her husband had long passed, and she lived alone?

My grandma Vicki learned that homemade pie was a cure-all for many of the misfortunes that befall most people.  She also learned if one homemade pie was good for you, then ten must be ten times better.  I know this because I was at her house one day.  She lived in one of those post-war two story brick bungalows over on the East side of Detroit off Gratiot.  I was taking her to the Sign of the Beef Carver for an early dinner, and then grocery shopping.  As we traveled down the baking aisle at Farmer Jack's that day, she asked me what kind of pie I liked. 

“Do you’ns like rhubarb pie? Maybe I’ll make you’ns a rhubarb pie to take home.  Your dad likes that rhubarb pie. Yeah, y’know that’s what I’ll do,” she rattled on.

Sure.  What else was I going to say? That was all she needed to know.  It was enough to prompt her to make a rhubarb pie for us every week afterward for months on end.  My dad and I would go there on Tuesdays, always Tuesdays, to take her on errands and grocery shopping, since she did laundry on Monday, and had a standing hair appointment on Wednesday.  And each week when we returned from her weekly errands—to the butcher, the pharmacy, the bakery, the fortune teller—Vicki presented one of us with a freshly baked rhubarb pie.  The rhubarb came right out of her backyard, a bumper crop she cultivated along the edge of a chain link fence that framed her postage-stamp sized victory garden. She continued this practice throughout the entire summer, even as her supply of rhubarb dwindled.  Vicki was a pioneer of the Great Depression, by definition a person of extraordinary thrift.  Undaunted, she began to stretch the remaining, thinning rhubarb each week by adding tapioca and more sugar. 

These became more interesting concoctions as the months progressed. After bringing home an anemic green rhubarb pie one week, only to find one still on the counter untouched from the week before, I went to my dad and told him she needed to be stopped.  He wouldn’t hear of it.  “You can’t tell your grandma to stop baking us pies, that’s ridiculous!”  So I went back the next week to take her shopping, convinced I needed to take matters into my own hands.

As we were browsing the vegetable aisle at Farmer Jack’s, I started in, “Grandma, you know, you don’t have to make us a rhubarb pie every week.  That seems like an awful lot of work. It’s okay if you don’t.”

   

She nodded appreciatively, as if she understood.  The next week I showed up in her kitchen, and there on the counter was another creation.  I wasn't sure exactly whether it was a pie.  It was in a pie dish, that much was certain.  But this one was covered in a weird mound of white frothy ooze.  She was standing there, wiping her hands in her apron and beaming. 

I blurted out the most enthusiastic reaction I could muster, “Oh wow, is that another pie?”

“Yeah, you’ns don’t like the same thing all the time, so I made something different this time.” And with that, she presented me with a Green Tapioca Rhubarb Meringue pie.

What I’ve learned in the years since she has been gone is that with little formal schooling, Vicki had more wisdom than most folks with college degrees.  Although her work life was spent on the factory floor, and the only elected office she ever held was as president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the VFW, she remained convinced that she could solve many of the world’s most pressing problems—hunger, world peace and domestic violence, with recipes conjured up in the confines of her tiny kitchen. 

That’s because she learned how to live right as a graduate of that Special School for Grandmothers.  She became an extraordinary student in the larger lessons of life.  She had learned that you can’t believe everything you hear. But as they say, a smart person believes half of what they see, and the genius knows which half.  Vicki was ingenious at knowing which half, because she had faith.  But this faith in human nature ultimately blinded her to the fact that another human being might have something against her, or would take something not theirs to take.  That’s why twenty years ago, Vicki let someone into her kitchen one day, began to feed them, and was killed in the process.  Remains of a mostly uneaten pie were found in her Frigidaire when we went to clean out her house days later. 


Nowadays, whenever I make rhubarb pie for friends or family, I see Vicki so vividly in her kitchen, her apron dusted with flour.  I think of all the work across the planet devoted to pursuing domestic tranquility and world peace.  There’s so much work left to be done.  But the place to begin is very clear.  


Start small in your corner of the kitchen by making someone a pie.  Keep in mind, if you make one each and every week, there will still never be enough rhubarb pie to go around.

Ron's Edible Adaptation of Vicki's Rhubarb Pie

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie (I use Crisco instead of Vicki's bacon fat)
• 2 cups diced rhubarb (try to pick the fattest, red juicy stalks and leave the green ones!) 
• 2 1/2 cups hulled strawberries 
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons butter, diced
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (I'm not a nutmeg person, so I eliminate this)
• 1/2 lemon's worth of grated lemon zest (I added this too)*
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

* I can't imagine Vicki displaying the patience to grate a lemon!

Baking Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Divide the pie pastry in half; roll out half into a circle on a floured work surface, and line a 9-inch pie dish with bottom crust. Roll the remaining half out into a 10-inch circle on a floured work surface, and set aside.
2. Mix the rhubarb, whole strawberries, 1 cup of sugar, flour, butter, and nutmeg together in a bowl. Pour the filling into the crust-lined pie dish.
3. Cut the remaining crust into 3/4-inch wide strips (use a scalloped edge pastry cutter for a prettier crust). Moisten the rim of the filled bottom crust with a bit of water, and lay the two longest strips in a cross in the middle of the pie. Working from the next longest down to the shortest strips, alternate horizontal and vertical strips, weaving the strips as you go. Press the lattice strips down onto the bottom crust edge to seal, and trim the top crust strips neatly. Mix 1 tablespoon of sugar with cinnamon in a small bowl, and set aside.  Okay, truth be told I added this entire step.  In truth, Vicki would not have the patience to create a lattice with the dough.  In fact, she worked the dough too much on most occasions, and her crust wasn't as flaky as it should be, so I have added this, knowing she'd smile on the result.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Remove pie. Sprinkle the top with the cinnamon-sugar mixture, and return to oven; bake until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling, about 30 more minutes.
5. Nota Bene:  Vicki was notorious for going outside to put her wash out on the clothesline while there was a pie in the oven.  She would invariably return to the kitchen to the smell of burnt sugar.  As a precaution, especially if the rhubarb is especially juicy, I place a cookie sheet underneath the pie with some baking soda in case some of the filling spills over.  

A Healthy Tribute to Two Real Sweethearts this Valentine's Day!

Ron’s Favorite Scones are Now Vegan!

As a tribute to his dear son Dan and sweet friend Caroline, for Valentine’s Day this year, Ron gave his kitchen crew the assignment to take his decadent, delicate homemade scones and make them with vegan-only ingredients.  No small task given that their richness comes from traditional eggs and butter.  But they happily went to work.  Check them out.  The result:  New Better than Ever Vegan Scones! Amazingly delicate just as before.  Sweet tribute to Dan and Caroline, two Vegan Sweethearts!

The Not-so-Secret NEW Vegan Scone Recipe

1 stick vegan vegetable spread

2 cups flour

¼ teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

2 egg-equivalents*

1/3 cup almond milk (you can also use rice or soy milk)

* Egg equivalents were made using 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed, mixed with 3 tbls. of water for each egg (so this recipe would use 4 tbls. flaxseed + 6 tbls. Water)

Grind the flaxseed, measure out 4 tablespoons and put in a bowl with 6 tablespoons of water, and mix together and let sit. Using a pastry blender, cut the vegan spread into the flour and salt.  Mix until it looks like course ground cornmeal.  Add the sugar, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Take the flaxseed mixture and fold in using a wooden spoon until the mixture is fully blended.  Form the mixture into a long 3” tall rectangle on a floured surface, then cut into triangles.  Sprinkle the tops of each with sugar, and press dried fruit into the tops of each as you desire. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 6-8 minutes at 450 degrees. 

Serve with jam or fruit spread.  Enjoy them in good health, and thank Caroline and Dan for their inspiration!

 

Cautionary Tales with Our Kids: Oversight NEVER ends

Our Cautionary Tale with Our Kids:

Michigan State Student dies of suspected infection

This is a true story with a happy ending.  I can say that now, because after returning home from a fantastic trip to Toronto Public Library, my last few hours picking up Dan at Michigan State were a parents' worst nightmare.

It all started when I went to pick up Dan at Michigan State to bring him home for a weekend of rest and relaxation.  His past few weeks at school had been demanding, and included late nights with little sleep.  He expressed worries that he might even have mono. (I didn't press him for details.)

When I arrived on campus he was still crashed in his room, and I had to call him a few times, but thought little of it. We decided to eat lunch in the cafeteria at Brody Hall, and I was overwhelmed—it is an incredibly impressive operation. Great food, great staff, great service as North America's largest non-military food operation.

I noticed Dan was eating very little, some bland cereal, and a juice drink.  As we drove home to Ann Arbor, Dan suddenly began complaining about feeling really sick.  When pressed for details, he said he was just achy, nauseous and feeling really tired, this after sleeping 12 hours the night before.

We were picking up his car at the dealer in Ann Arbor, and as I dropped him off, I noticed he was looking pretty sallow, and very lethargic. I pressed him a few times about whether he was well enough to drive home, and he assured me he could, and we live just a mile away.

As I got into my car, I checked my Blackberry and saw I had an email from the Provost's Office at Michigan State.  The subject line said: "Student dies of suspected bacterial infection."

I read on: "Late last evening, a 19-year-old Michigan State University student living in Snyder-Phillips residence hall was taken to Sparrow Hospital and passed away a few hours later. At this time, officials with the Health Department are investigatingthe possible cause of death as a bacterial infection, with one of the suspects being meningococcal disease. Health department officials are working to identify those people who may have been in close contact with the student and could be at risk. Those individuals identified as being at risk are receiving antibiotic prophylaxis.

Meningococcal disease can cause both a systemic (rapidly progressing flu-like) illness, and an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord, commonly known as bacterial meningitis. The spread of meningococcal disease typically requires close contact with an infected person. Common symptoms include flu-like symptoms, sore throat and a fever that rapidly becomes more severe, unlike most respiratory illnesses. These symptoms can develop over several hours, or they may take one to two days. Other symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, and discomfort looking into bright lights, confusion and sleepiness. Students who are experiencing symptoms should contact the Olin Student Health Center or their health care provider. If one is getting rapidly ill, one should go to the emergency room."

I was now in full alert mode.  I called Dan, and he had just hopped into bed as I reached him.  He was barely talking at this point, and didn't want to be on the phone.  He all but hung up on me.

"Dan, by any chance were you at Snyder-Philips yesterday?"

"Yes, I had dinner in the dorm there."

A pit in my stomach formed. "I want you to meet me immediately at the UM Health center on Jackson Road."

He protested, was just really tired. He tried to assure me everything was fine.  I emphasized why he needed to get to UM Healthcare immediately "Dan, meet me at the health clinic immediately. I just need you to get there right away, can you do it?"

He was lethargic and the severity of the circumstance was only slowly beginning to dawn on him.  It became clearer when he arrived, and the triage nurse immediately put a mask on him, and isolated him from everyone in the reception room while we waited for the doctor.

We shared the Provost's email and the entire story with the doctor as she fired questions and examined him.  She seemed concerned, and when I pressed her she said, "I've seen a lot as a doctor over the last 25 years.  Nothing scares me.  But I have to tell you, this strikes fear in me. You did the right think getting right over here."

As she completed her exam, she explained that rapid decline actually presents with far more severity than Dan was exhibiting.  Since MSU didn't share the student's identity, it was impossible to know if the student had actually been in contact with Dan. The doctor decided to treat Dan as an at-risk candidate, and had a nurse immediately administer Rosephin prophylactically.

As the nurse was doing so, the doctor left the room only to return a moment later extremely agitated. She had asked if Dan had any allergies to medication and we said 'Keflex and Amoxicillin.' Her original research showed this wasn't a problem, but upon further investigation, she had discovered he might be allergic to the antibiotic he just received.  They immediately administered a dose of Benedryl, and kept him under observation for 20 minutes to make sure he didn't go into anaphylaxis.

When the doctor returned, she had good news on several fronts.  Although Dan was sick and his symptoms came on fast, they were not severe.  In addition, because of Dan's mission trip to Costa Rica in '08, he had been vaccinated for meningitis, and was more than likelyprotected, even without specifics on the strain of bacteria. And as an additional precaution, he now had a strong dose of antibiotics in his system.

At this point, I resumed my normal breathing and heart rate.  Dan took some soup when we got home, and went to bed immediately.  He had a good night's rest, and this morning appears to be on the mend altogether.  At this point, while Dan sleeps in the other room, I am contemplating the discussion that follows when he gets up.

As a parent, how do I explain to him how serious this could have been?  This is a reminder that our children our always at risk and require our vigilance even from afar.

As Dan's doctor explained, meningitis strikes fear for good reason—those who are lucky enough to survive it often do so without their limbs! Last year Dan and Will's scout friend Jeremy died from meningitis after a rapid onset.

I am thankful to Michigan State for their proactive communication blitz, and their health mobilization efforts.  I am thankful Dan appears to be better already.  I am thankful that mission work in a third world country proved to be a fortuitous and good thing for other reasons.  I am thankful I don't have to amplify another word about risks.  We've encountered and addressed risk together first hand.

We're aware of the reality of how fragile our health can be, and down the road, I may even smile at the picture Dan asked me to take of him while we waited for the doctor with that mask on.

But not just yet!

 

The Case for a Good Funeral: The View from This Side of Heaven

I think there is a benefit that has accrued to me by virtue of attending way more funerals than most people have in their lifetime.  At first glance this might seem counter-intuitive.  Funerals are to be dreaded.  They are sad, sorrowful affairs, with lots of crying, a ton of emotion, and in many cases, they are also occasions for more than a fair share of drama. 

I especially dread the ones with open caskets.  There is something deeply unsettling about seeing someone laid out “in state.”  I remember when my mother was interred, the first time we saw her, the undertaker had attempted to make her lips look less drawn by over-reaching with her lipstick, and the odd result was that she looked like she had the pasted-on smile of the “Joker” on the famous Batman series.  When my father died, it was after a week or so of extended hospital care on a ventilator, so he had hadn’t shaved.  Despite all the photos I had provided the funeral director, we showed up for the first family viewing to see him presented “in state” with a full mustache.  I had never seen my father sporting any kind of facial hair in his entire life, and the effect was startling.  He looked like he could pass for Tony Soprano’s older brother Sal.  Very unsettling. 

Funerals are further made awkward when relatives press their hands into your arm and whisper, “she/he looks good.”  I’m not sure why people say that, and whether it’s really true under the circumstances.  Even in a hospital bed my mother looked better—she was alive.  You get my point. 

The more funerals you attend, the more you also begin to see that they fall into a clear hierarchy.  Those of the elderly are small, orderly affairs.  In many cases only a few relatives and friends remain.  My mother said you could always tell how old someone was by the length of their funeral procession.  Given the tragic way my grandmother Vicki died, that proved to be a very prophetic commentary.  After all, she was taken from us prematurely, and despite that she was 85, her funeral procession stretched for almost a mile.  She was obviously young at heart and adored by throngs of admirers.  

For the truly observant, funerals also represent an opportunity for reflection; for looking back and for taking account of things.  It is almost impossible to sit at a wake while someone is reciting a decade of the Rosary, and not have your mind wander off in zillion different directions.  Thinking about your relationship to the deceased, thinking about your proximity to their circumstances.  It isn’t too long before it’s all about you—when might I be next?

My friend Brian Martinuzzi’s funeral these past few days offered me just such an opportunity to be observant and reflective, and a good many things came of this experience.  First of all, it is actually wonderful to see a great family at the funeral of an immediate loved one.  Good families seem to keep the press of drama to a minimum, or at least out of the public view, and they also rally.  They display themselves for who they are—just honest, caring, decent people you’d love to have living next door to you.  Families you’d love to spend more time with.  I can’t help but think it would be great to be part of one of the Martinuzzi’s intimate holiday gatherings, to watch the sibling dynamics, the inner family chemistry and repartee.  The traditions, the simple joys, seeing who brings the food, who shows up perennially late.  Just speaking with any of them, you get a sense that the quick and incisive wit that surely finds itself on display at their family affairs was probably shaped and crafted at spirited family dinners. 

As a kid I had some exposure to life at the Martinuzzi table.  With 7 kids, it was spirited for sure.  Pure chaos might be a more accurate description.  There was the time I was there for one of Joan’s meals, and Kurt had put Lisa on the Lazy Susan that spun the food around the circular table in the center of the kitchen.  Everyone except Lisa thought it was quite funny and highly entertaining to watch her spin, with her long hair flailing, until she finally screamed to be let off the improvised merry-go-round, and ran off crying into the bathroom where she promptly threw up. 

Watching the Martinuzzi family at the wake of their “number one son” was a sight to behold.  For all their differences, you can’t help but be envious of the entire clan.  The deadpan funny, tough-as-nails Massachusetts matriarch Joan, the graceful Anne, the scrappy boys from Brian, Kurt, Neil to the rough and tumble younger two, Eric and Peter.  And of course the ever adorable youngest one, Lisa.  Each of them pursuing life on it’s own unique terms.  It brings back memories of their dad, Eddie.  With his broad smirk and earnest demeanor, and his close-cropped hair, shorn as if to limit any display of his well-defined Italian hair and features, Eddie was clearly a patriarch well suited to the strong matriarch sitting across the table.  

Listening to Lisa, Neil and Kurt speak about Brian in the past tense was both mesmerizing and intense, bittersweet and telling.  I have to be honest.  As I approached Brian’s wake, I felt a powerful reaction, a ton of raw unchecked emotion.  Part of it, I concluded, was a consequence of the announcement.  I had received the news about Brian from Kurt via a group email.  My first reaction was “here goes” as I saw Kurt move into his all-too-familiar distant, detached doctor mode.  He offered us telling tribute, sanguine medical prognosis and logistical details all in one matter of fact missive written like an auto-repair manual, something I’m sure Brian would have actually appreciated, given his penchant for exacting detail.  At the same time, Kurt shared how much he was already missing his frequent phone calls with Brian, and it hurt my heart to hear him say that.  Clearly Kurt was feeling the loss, and unlike Eddie’s funeral where Kurt spent much of his time in the choir loft, observing events from a distance, he was clearly participating fully in an exercise of communal caring and grief.

Part of my strong reaction to Brian’s passing also had something to do with our proximity in age.  It is hard to see someone you’ve grown up with since the days of boy scouts die so suddenly.  In real terms, Brian’s six-month illness was a rapid fast transition, made more stunning by the fact that it came out of nowhere.  One minute he had left the law firm and was in a job transition.  The next minute he was seeing a doctor for some unexplained symptoms, and in another nanosecond he had a terminal diagnosis, and was headed into surgery.  Of course, part of my reaction was the deep sadness I felt thinking of Joan.  I know too well from my own past family experience how hard it is to watch a parent bury one of their children.  As a parent, you cannot imagine anything worse.  There is good reason for that.  Nothing is worse.

I also may have been looking at Brian from my bias as a married man with a family.  Brian, after all, was a bachelor without children.  There was something I kept thinking—Brian was such a nice, caring, good man.  It felt a little like he had not benefited fully in the rewards such virtues certainly entitled him—that is to say, a good wife, and the blessing of children. But after listening to his siblings talk about him at length, I think I had that part of Brian’s story wrong.  Brian lived a rich and fulfilling life through others.  He was a dedicated uncle, brother, son and friend, relationships that stop us from otherwise worrying needlessly that he had somehow missed out.  

The redeeming part of attending funerals for people like Brian is that they confirm our faith in a higher order.  It is so easy to look back on his life, and fret about the question “Why?” until suddenly it hits you like the sudden revelation that it is.  There is a reason why good people leave this planet way to soon.  It happens all the time.  If you were God, wouldn’t you be stacking the skies above with the best and the brightest?  When you were contemplating spending an eternity of time with someone, wouldn’t people like Brian be among those first to come to mind?

There is also something very revealing about watching other people at funerals.  Members within close families sometimes take exception to the distant relative or friend who shows up at a funeral and cries excessively, in the same way they decry the person who seems to display no emotional register when the circumstance certainly warrants it. But grief is an entirely personal pursuit, and in truth, mourning is not an indication of character.  Rather, it simply reveals it. 

I was sitting next to my friend Gil’s dad, Mr. B, during the service, and watched him tear up during the eulogy.  He said afterward, he didn’t really know Brian or the family all that well, but there is something truly virtuous about a guy who registers strong emotions when he clearly sees something.  Mr. B immediately sensed that herein lived someone who truly made a difference in the lives of others. He said after, “I had heard all the stories about the Martinuzzi kids back in the day when someone was always in trouble.  What a great family. I only wish I knew him better.”  Isn't that what we’d all like to have said of us in the end?  It was so heartening to see Mr. B shed tears upon hearing the other side of the Martinuzzi family chronicle, that story for which a good funeral is necessary. 

That’s the stuff that really makes a funeral worthwhile.  It’s on this side of heaven, right up close to death’s door that we are reminded of better days, and a more complete picture of a person emerges, their unique worth ultimately revealed to us.  This got me thinking about the other display of emotion that always grabs me about Mr. B.  Whenever he sees any of his boys, he always hugs them and kisses them openly.  For men of his generation, this is an uncharacteristic display of affection.  But by God, seeing both of these sides of him, his ability to show real affection and grief, is an inspiration to be the guy that stand-up guys like Brian would want us to be.  And the fact is, we need more guys like Mr. B. and Brian, Neil and Kurt, to remind us that these emotions are not reserved for weddings and funerals, but available and ready for wear every day in the most common way, in the midst of life’s minor miracles and daily milestones.     

We can’t possibly sustain a saccharine-sweet life with all bliss, and beauty, blue skies and babies.  With pain, suffering and life’s ultimate impermanence facing us squarely in the face, we must come to appreciate that without some exposure to Death’s sting, and illness’ bitter rough edge, life’s most important victories and joys would be lost on us, taken for granted, cast off as ordinary.  Without others on hand to laugh, cry and grieve, we would simply wither into that isolation that our blessed connection with others prevents.

In Kurt’s tribute to Brian, he mentioned the two opposing life views held in the palm of his hand.  In one hand, was a note saying, “I am but a speck of dust.”  In the other hand, the note said “The world is all for me.”  If not for a good cry at a sad and bittersweet funeral of a dear and wonderful soul lost to us, where would such reminders of the truths grasped in both his hands greet us? 

As I completed writing this, I learned that a former colleague was killed this morning on the side of I-696 awaiting assistance on the way to work.  I re-read the email Dennis had sent me three days earlier talking about the blessings of the New Year.  There but for the grace of God, go us. 

Living well, I rest thee in the thought.

Why We Write

Once a thing is known, it can never be unknown.  It can only be forgotten…It is wiser, in every circumstance to forget, to cultivate the art of forgetting.  To remember is to face the enemy.  The truth lies in remembering. 

Anita Brookner, from Look at Me

I'm pretty sure I'm remembering it correctly, that my childhood yearning to become a writer re-appeared years later as a lofty desire to write great fiction when I declared my major as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.  But I stopped short.  Apart from a clichéd ending to a passionate co-ed romance, I really felt I had no life experience upon which to tap the arsenal of a writer's imagination. Or so I thought.

And as many typical slacking twenty-somethings trying to chart their course in life, I never summoned the discipline to write every day, to write anyway, to write on every scrap available to me at every free turn.  That is, apart from all the compulsory writing that comes from being a liberal arts student. Even after college, I couldn't seem to get my writing act together, this despite the fact that I entered the field of publishing successfully right out of college, and ended up in New York fairly quickly as an acquisitions editor with a major publishing house, Macmillan.  I was reading and evaluating other people's writing all day, (not fiction, but college business books) but I couldn't summon the wherewithal to get my own writing underway.

Whenever I sat down to write, nothing good ever seemed to come of it.  I felt like that recovering reprobate who has a brilliant epiphany late in the dorm one night, and awakens the next day to find some lame over-written result on a cocktail napkin that seemed uniquely brilliant at the time, and in the light of day is exposed as anything but revelatory.

So what changed for me?

Life happened. And life happened suddenly and unexpectedly and tragically.  Life steered itself off course in an unexpected direction, and veered instantly way past my meager imagination. Strangely, in the span of an instant, the truth in my life became more telling than any fiction I could have created or crafted.  That's the way truth often reveals itself: it suddenly becomes infinitely far stranger, and at turns, uglier and more absorbing than any fiction.

Writers were tagging along with cops through the cities of Detroit, Los Angeles and Toledo to capture the noir feeling of an urban crime scene.  Suddenly, I didn't need to do that.  I had my own crime scene to sort out. 

Because right in the middle of my mildly interesting middle class life I woke up in the middle of my worst nightmare. Instantly, I was no longer a bystander on the sidelines of life, I had a ringside seat.   Unfortunately, no one really looks to garner that center seat in a horror story that promises no chapter breaks from the live action.

But there I was, one minute kissing my wife Kay goodbye, as I headed off to the airport to attend a sales conference.  I had spent a good part of that day at a baby shower my parents hosted for our first-born, who was a mere three months away.  The next minute I was in Minneapolis, returning to my hotel from dinner.  Only as soon as I entered my room, I realized something was horribly wrong.

I knew it the instant I walked into the room.  The red light on the hotel phone was blinking.

There was a message for me. But who could possibly have known I was even here? It had to be Kay.  And Kay never called me on the road.  Not ever. As it turned out, nothing in my sometimes over-reaching imagination could have prepared me for the ultimate discoveries that followed from that phone call.  Or the media circus that attempted to tell the story, albeit from the vantage point of those interested in the headline, the sound bite, and the gripping, gruesome page-turning details.

Years later I would find myself writing about the murder in my family that day.  For some time, the words were as pained and difficult to write as the story itself.  And while there is certainly a strong argument to be made for writing as catharsis, I was driven now in a different way to write, to keep writing.

Sometimes we are compelled to write because we have no choice.  Despite the difficulty of the task at hand, we must create a record of something we've learned through life's hard lessons is worth preserving.  We are honor bound, and nothing including an agent's misgivings or an editor's rejection will hinder us, short of finishing the job.

My story began to take form as memoir.  There is no way I could take liberties with the bold bare facts.  Rough and brazen, it is a story I became obsessed about writing. Adversity didn't inspire virtue, it simply revealed it.  

Why?

Given the difficulty in re-examining the painful forensic evidence and facts, and re-visiting the stomach turning events of the day, I wasn't sure I could answer that question, much less give it the justice only good writing could.  Finally, the answer came while I was in a writer's workshop with novelist and UM professor, Laura Kaschiscke.  I had been leading classmates and readers along the path of that day's events throughout our semester of work shopping. On the last day of class, convinced that by leaving out any foreshadowing of the murder, I could create for my readers the same experience that befell me, my main character, I was ready to share what actually happened that day.

So that last night of class, last among my peers, I read the passage that revealed what I had such difficulty talking about, much less writing about.  I began with a scene that opened in my grandma Vicki's kitchen.  I was sitting at her table, and she was going on about how hard it is for people to get along, all the fighting, violence and misunderstanding.  "We need to just bury them hatchets. Let bygones be bygones," she said in her blunt-spoken broken English. Weeks of earlier passages I had shared with the class revealed Vicki as a character akin to an immigrant version of Edith Bunker from the All in the Family series, with similar housedresses and a Polish accent.  From their reviews, it was clear many classmates were developing a strong affection for Vicki’s character as weeks of readings followed; her baffling simplicity, her brazen honesty and forthrightness.

On this evening, I took a turn with my readers, and led them from that simple scene in the kitchen to a passage called, The Witness Statement.

I did not write the statement.  It is a small, but stunning piece of writing that looms large.  The Witness Statement captures the unedited confession of a 14-year-old boy who admits to having murdered Vicki after a romantic encounter gone horribly wrong.  The class was stunned, beyond the graphic description told in the oddly candid, cryptic voice of a teenager.  Students finally began to speak, at first haltingly.  Several cried.  One student, in particular, felt betrayed.  She had come to love Vicki, revealed in my earlier pieces, and was having a hard time reconciling that portrait of Vicki, with the woman whom she had just heard had led on her killer, and was complicit in her own murder.

I couldn’t have been more stunned.  I never imagined a more startling example of how powerful writing can be.  The fact that The Witness Statement betrayed a false fashioning of the facts was clearly lost on this student.  The student took something as fact solely because it had been written: that somehow my 85-year-old Polish grandmother had seduced a 14-year-old boy into killing her as their "misguided romance" unraveled.  Wow. 

Leaving class that day, it felt as if my private horror would continue forever, until I realized my writing had been summoned for a higher purpose.  I simply needed to tell it right.  After all, Vicki was more than just my grandmother, she was my komuschka, and more, a companion and friend, a pani from the old country, a friend and komuschka to her friends, and all these words meant everything to the story yet to be told.

My relationship with Vicki provided a cogent formula for writing not as catharsis, not as vengeance for wrongful deeds committed, but rather as testament to truth and something far more everlasting than life. It was not a chronicle of Vicki’s rape and murder, but a story about who I had become because of her. 

I remembered Vicki's words, spoken only weeks before her murder.  "Bury them hatchets. Let bygones be bygones." In a final irony, I was now haunted by the compulsion to capture in words how Vicki would have viewed her own murder in that small frame house in the old neighborhood, through the lives of those she loved.  If I face another thousand rejections on my way to publishing My Last Dance with Vicki, it won't matter.  The Witness Statement serves as but one part of the story. 

Ultimately, we are redeemed in life by the women who love us. The rest of this story, by virtue of my written words, must necessarily follow. 

A Bravura Performance: The Season Finale

Today provided a sad excuse for taking the day off.

Sad on so many levels, as it spelled the end of the sailing season. In some respects, the 20 knot winds and pounding rain didn't leave me feeling as though I wanted to stick around the marina very long today.  So we motored Tres Joli to its winter resting place at 9:16 a.m. where it will go mast up into hibernation until April, and get covered and bundled up as soon as the weather breaks.

A number of missed opportunities this year, where we didn't get out there with some of you because of crazy schedules.  Next year certainly!  We will be back with a vengeance.

But we did welcome some newcomers to sailing and without any major nautical mishaps hope to see you back out on the water again next spring.  We welcomed guests from Denver Colorado, Montreal, Austin Texas, Amman Jordan, Columbus Ohio, Chicago Illinois, Lexington Kentucky, Charlevois Michigan and Boston Massachusetts.

We celebrated our god son Ernie's graduation from WMU on board, and practiced hat overboard maneuvers with our godson Colin, affectionately known as "The Cheese." We also managed cruises with nephews Tyler and Jacob, and nieces Meg, Alex and Emma.  All of them said in a word what I long to hear from everyone who ventures aboard-- more!

We did manage a few new milestones this year.  We survived our first gale with 70 knots of wind at the Detroit Yacht Club after securing a choice berth to view the fireworks on the Fourth of July, this after a majestic cruise up the Detroit River. We lost a pair of glasses, watched a massive amount of property damage unravel around us, but never lost our nerve or cookies.

We managed our first storm sail on a 5 hour return trip from West Sister Island in 30+ winds with 6' seas, after having the most amazing gourmet dinner in the harbor the night before, compliments of Chef Daniel.  Which reminds me of another milestone.  Tres Joli went vegetarian this year thanks to Dan.  Progress.  All I can say is thank god vodka is distilled from potatoes (still considered a vegetable).  

In a major milestone, this was also our first season without once touching bottom-- no groundings! A testament to the sailing gods, a new GPS map chip and attentive crew.  (Though it was never a culprit, the blackberry moratorium imposed by Will and Dan helped!)

We met new boaters on the water at DYC, Grosse Isle, Grosse Pointe, and Jefferson Beach.  Before you say it, much less think it, not all the sailors on Grosse Isle are over 80!  We even kept the boat on a sufficiently even keel to keep Kay smiling throughout the season, and even suggesting she was enjoying herself aboard.  She even indulged us on a robust sail one Sunday afternoon in 25 knots of wind without blushing.  Her indulgence of my nautical excesses (okay a range of excesses!) made it to Boat US Magazine, where it's now a matter of public record that our shared adventure of sailing is a testament to her good judgment but also a triumph of hope over our experience.

Some new developments during the season for those who follow us:

• Mumm became the official champagne of Tres Joli
• Porter Family Vineyards became the official Cabernet of Tres Joli
• Capn Crunch became the official cereal of Tres Joli
• Crunch n Munch became the official popcorn of Tres Joli (after Gil conducted numerous taste tests with its much vaunted rival, Fiddle Faddle)
• And Titos became the official vodka of Tres Joli

As a tribute to the original Polish Mariner, Geno, we continue to proselytize, preaching the gospel of nautical ecumenism-- we are after all just a bunch of profligate Pollacks cruising aboard a snooty French vessel, drinking Mexican beer, Russian vodka, and Kentucky bourbon. I wonder what would have captured Geno's fancy this season?

The sight of a small terrier perched on the bow of Tres Joli as we take sail? The sight of Will immersed in a stack of books in the salon reading to his heart's content-- for leisure?  Dan's prowess maneuvering the boat in a storm so the windlass could be positioned to retrieve 200 feet of chain rode with 30 knots of wind peppering the bow?

That's not to say all the big moments of the past season happened aboard Tres Joli.  It's simply to say that the moments aboard Tres Joli spoke for themselves.  And a bravura nautical performance it turned out to be.

Let's pray for an early spring!

My View of Detroit: Diamond Resort Destination?

My View of Detroit: Diamond Resort Destination?

        

It's difficult being a native Detroiter.  Having grown up on the eastside of Detroit during the 60's, we get slammed constantly.  The headlines are riddled with reality-TV versions of the Motor City gripped by graft, decay, and greed. Most recently, Kwame and his drama have become a symbol for the worst of what Detroit represents—a grand promise gone bad, a broken record of missteps and malfeasance. But have we reached the point where there is really no hope for Detroit?  To some, this is a foregone conclusion.

No question, Detroit faces grim challenges.  But I didn't give up on the city when my grandmother Vicki was murdered here in the 90's, so I'm not giving up now.  I remember at the time mourners whispering, "She should have known better. Why didn't you move her out of Detroit?"

Truth is, Vicki would NEVER have considered abandoning Detroit.  After arriving from Poland, she hopped in a Model T with my grandfather, pointing that car toward Detroit as if it were Mecca. The automotive industry in those days possessed the force of an organized religion to new immigrants, providing new life and hope to millions.

No longer.

Over a quarter million people have left Detroit since the last census. Less than a quarter of ninth graders graduate from high school.  Upwards of 50% of adults may not be able to read and write, and until recently, Detroit was known as the murder capital of the world. That's still not to say Detroit is without assets or means.  We just need to summon our imagination to put it all together.

Throughout Detroit, treasures abound.  The DIA, the Detroit Public Library, the Science Center, the African American History Museum, Belle Isle, Chene Park and the Detroit Yacht Club.  Hang out at any one of these places and you meet interesting people, a diverse community, all refusing to give up on Detroit. I've renewed friendships on Facebook with old acquaintances, all connected by our pride and memories of Detroit. 

Anita Rutkowski still remembers the Cone Zone on Van Dyke, and picnics on Belle Isle.  She comes to Detroit each year for vacation, long after her family moved away. Vacation in Detroit?  The city as resort playground?

Mike Happy writes a blog about our old Eastside neighborhood for the Detroit News.  A few years ago Mike started a community organization to reclaim our old childhood park, Fletcher Field.  "Friends of Fletcher Field" put in new playground equipment, removed years of detritus and debris, and cuts the grass grown wild.

Wendy Felcyn, who lived on Tappan down the street from us, reminds me of all the games we imagined for ourselves as kids, making up rules as we went along until the street lights came on. 

We all grew up under similar circumstances – i.e. in small frame houses on tiny city lots with large vegetable gardens, and big families with working class dads and stay-at-home moms. We may have lacked in material things but didn't really know that at the time.  We had a ton of imagination, an abundance of hope, and from our point of view, the best of everything.  Vernor's, Better Made Potato Chips, Sander’s, Velvet Peanut Butter, Faygo Red Pop. Sting Ray bikes with banana seats and sissy bars.

The bookmobile provided all the books we could digest.  An open fire hydrant cooled off hot summer days, and Klatt's Candy Store, Leelex's Drugs and the New Palace Bakery in Hamtramck provided sugar fixes in all shapes and sizes.  I thought about Anita's vacations in Detroit as we made plans to sail from Lake Erie to the Detroit Yacht Club.  A vacation in Detroit.  What a concept!

As we sailed past the ominous stacks of the Fermi II nuclear plant along the Erie shoreline we caught the faded signs of Boblo Island along the Detroit River near the Ambassador Bridge.  The Ren Cen rose up in the distance, factories and idled steel plants littering the view along the way. Both majestic, and maddening at turns.

It turns out, the DYC is an exceptional resort destination.  The people here are wonderful, members and guests of all ages and color. Walking around the island brought back trips to the Dossins Great Lakes Museum. Belle Isle is a Detroit gem, a refuge from the summer heat, a diamond destination. This Fourth of July included picnics, parties and the famed Cardboard Boat Regatta.

Recently, I read another Detroit story about Eric and Kim Bruce, living in Atlanta, longing to get back to the Detroit area.  They missed many things in Michigan, Velvet peanut butter among them.  They discovered, Velvet was bought out by a bigger rival, and closed a few years later.

They are rejuvenating Velvet Peanut Butter with its original slogan. Fresh, Pure Delicious.  Returning to their Michigan roots, they set their imagination in motion, already distributing Velvet to over 500+ Michigan stores. A fresh pure Michigan story.  Delicious.

I'm afraid the jobs my uncles and grandfathers held in the factories are not coming back anytime soon.  But I believe small companies can grow jobs and restore economic vitality to Detroit. We may be down, but we're clearly not out. 

We also need sustained collective social impact among community leaders, businesses and public servants to fix our schools, restore a vital library system, and critical city services.  Lots of work to be done, but Detroiters are ready and willing to work. 

Special interests are blocking the new bridge that would increase Detroit’s role as a distribution gateway to Canada, our largest trading partner, as well as the mayor’s plan to “defrag” decaying neighborhoods, turning open land into an urban farm.  In fighting continues to plague the school system.  Let’s give Roy Roberts and Dave Bing a chance, so we can turn our attention to the real casualty—the kids.  All the controversy around charter schools and re-organization plans obscure the harsh truth.  Parents in Detroit are at their wit’s end, looking for ways to get their kids what should be a right, not a privilege—a quality education.  Everyone needs to rally around the central premise that a high quality education should be the birthright of every child in Detroit, accessible to all. 

Jo Anne Mundowny, director of the Detroit Public Library, recently said to me,  “Without a vibrant library, this isn’t a vital community anymore.”  She’s right, and has the energy and vision to make this happen.  Let’s give her a chance by getting her the resources, and arresting this reality-TV inspired media coverage.  Enough. 

Remembering Detroit back in the 60's, it occurs to me that the Race riots in 1967 happened virtually in tandem with Detroit's first World Series win in years.  It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It's in these times that our imaginations need to run wild. 

Let's hope.