Nantucket Reds!!!

Oh yes, my friends...the Memorial Day holiday is behind us and Summer is HERE. The longer days give us the perfect opportunity for at least the appearance of relaxation. This is the time to break out the NANTUCKET REDS. I read about these great trousers in a blog a couple of years ago and finally scored a perfect pair on Ebay last spring. Just in time to give everyone at work the impression that I was headed off to my [hypothetical but assumed by them] beach house every Friday afternoon!! Try changing into THESE babies at lunch on a summer Friday! The real item can only be procured [new, anyhow] from Murray's Toggery in Nantucket.

The only thing to put with my Nantucket Reds is a great embroidered belt. I love nautical flag belts, and this one from Murray's is said to translate to "Dark and Stormy". I had to have it. For Trad summer drinking, it is the only thing. Even if it doesn't really say that.

Another great place for a great belt to go with my NR's is Tucker Blair, which sells the [soon to be] famous "champagne and bow ties" belt [for early evening ocean side deck cocktail party wear]:
...as well as my favorite...the "bottles and drunk crabs"...

I don't usually dress as colorfully as this. But what the heck? It IS summer, after all. We need some colorful sense of humor these days. And as for the somewhat pinkish hue of the Nantucket "Reds", it is guaranteed to fade to a fantastic pale, pale shade after repeated washings, guaranteed to horrify even a Future Rock Star 12 year old son, and guaranteed to put you in a vacation mood even if you are not going to a beach house for the weekend. Combined with a festive belt, Epic sartorial options, indeed.

It is Friday....now where did I put that key to my beach house?

The FRS At Twelve

Our little pony-tail boy
grown up to be a man
Now he's gone in the blink of an eye
-From "Suds in The Bucket", with apologies to Billy Montana, Tammy Wagoner and Sara Evans.

Most people have them. An old photo or two of a birthday party when they were twelve or thirteen. When you next look at them, examine the expressions on your parents' faces. Proud. Happy. Weary, perhaps, depending on the nature and length of the birthday festivities. But behind their eyes may lie another look. Born of the knowledge that their child is growing and preparing to go. To High School. Or wherever. Away. Resignation to that natural fact. And sadness.

My son, the Future Rock Star, turned twelve last week. I was younger at twelve than he is. Much younger. My future as a child was still reasonably long at twelve. Unlike his. I think next year he will turn thirty. I am immensely proud of him. Excited at his milestone. Accepting of the natural fact of his ultimate departure from home. But now, I am the one with that look in his eye. And I don't like it one little bit.

As I moped about this, I realized that having the FRS's birthday close upon Memorial Day gave me an Epic gift of appreciation. I felt sorry for myself because my son is growing up and preparing himself to leave me. But on this particular Monday of the American year, we pay our respects to all the sons and daughters that won't be with their families again. We appreciate them and give thanks for their sacrifice, made for us. And we should also appreciate and be so very thankful for all the sons and daughters still with us. Whether or not they still live at home. In this light, the experience of watching your child grow and mature, sad as it may be at times, is a privilege of this highest order. To be cherished and enjoyed. Every moment.

A Painting From Frank's House

Some days, things just break your way. I was cruising Ebay in a Sinatra sort of mood. All of a sudden, I came upon a charity auction for an animal shelter in California. One of the items was a painting from Frank's house in Palm Springs!! I had no chance of winning it of course. But, as the Chairman would say "why not toss the cubes and see what number comes up?" A couple of days later, I was the proud owner of the painting by "Luce" shown above.

What ensued was a period of anxious waiting reminiscent of my boyhood when each day waiting for some trinket to arrive in the mail was sheer torture. Or later, when it seemed the new issue of Playboy would just NOT arrive. A few days after my winning bid, the package arrived at my home and I was the proud owner of something that had been Sinatra's. Along with a very nice letter from the current owner of Sinatra's home attesting to the fact that when she bought it from his estate [fully furnished] the painting was in it. I am proud of my house, but it isn't close to Frank's place...






But my house is a little bit closer to Palm Springs now. I put the painting up at home near my bar. Where it should be. Put "Come Fly With Me" on the stereo and made a Stoli martini. To welcome this small painting to its new home in appropriate style. It may just be my imagination, but the cocktail parties I have had since then have had more "ring a ding ding". As he would have said. And I think perhaps, for a moment, the Chairman of the Board glanced my way and gave just the slightest of approving nods.

Heavy Restaurant Silver

Another evening away. A rather late evening, at that. The waiter brought me one of my favorite dishes. Grilled Pompano with shrimp and scallops, all delicately laced with dill. As I enjoyed the aroma of the food, my glass was refilled with Sancerre from a bottle in the damp silver bucket at my elbow. Despite my surroundings, I was exhausted after a long day and more than a little aware that nobody else was sitting at my table.

As I picked up my fork, the burnished silver of it caught my eye. Not new. Not in a very long time. The entire silver service at this wonderful establishment had the glow of history. A history of good and happy use.

Funny how a simple fork can reverse the course of an otherwise solitary evening and turn it joyful if you look at it in the right way. The cycle of use, tarnishing, polishing and reuse had placed this implement of memory right in my hand. The good things have a way of doing that. They do not have to be expensive to have this effect. Just good. I let my mind wander, no doubt assisted by the Sancerre, to the wedding proposals, birthdays, anniversaries, victory celebrations and perhaps even a wake or two in which this silver service had no doubt been a silent participant over the years. I thought of the direct transmission of those events and of the people participating in them from their time to mine, to me, via the utensil I was holding. In the place of a modestly attended mid-week dining room, glasses clinked and ladies and gentlemen quietly laughed with their faces close together while corks popped.

Aristotle wrote that everything grows old under the power of time and is forgotten. I would beg to disagree. Certainly time ages everything. That is what the passage of time is for. But everything is not forgotten. Timeless things remain, sometimes right before us. Things that can bring us at least a little of the loveliness of times past to brighten our days. Or our nights. Some of those things are around you right now. Look about and see.

I took a bite of my food. Toasted Aristotle. And smiled. Warmed by the fine company in which I was dining.

An Espiegle Look

Every morning it happens. I get a new dose of the English language. Delivered to my email inbox. And it never fails to divert and delight me. If you love words, as I do, you should subscribe to the "word of the day" from Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com. They will teach you new things about words and their derivations. And you never know when a new word or two will come in handy. For example...

It was only a moment. Occurring years ago. I was dallying after a long luncheon. Ambling down the sidewalk after leaving Fouquet's. The lingering taste of raspberries and a respectable VSOP causing the faintest of smiles to cross my lips. She walked past me, the brisk transporter of a yellow and white Fendi shopping bag. She tossed her hair in my direction along with a sideways espiegle look. That caught my cognac tinted breath and made it reverse course. For a fraction of a second, I considered catching her. Making my best introduction in broken one semester French. Changing the course of our lives. Mais, non. Instead, I went on my way, a man of stately embonpoint, as she continued her coruscating walk without me.

The look of the coruscant woman above is considerably espiegle. Most days, these email gems contain words I have not known before. Every day, they stimulate my imagination. And provide me with moments of joy. They are free. But they are priceless.

Firebird Dreams

You can check out any time you like

But you can never leave.

The Eagles, "Hotel California"

When I moved South years ago I was just starting my junior year in High School. My dad put his finger on a map and I found myself in Panama City, Florida. I tell people that if you can find a Funk & Wagnall's encyclopedia from 1975, my photo is in it under the listing for "culture shock". Coming as I did from a town of 300 people in the North Woods. My new High School in Florida had 3000 people in it. At least there is a military facility in Panama City so I was not the only person with a "northern" accent.

I came to love a lot of things about the South after moving. Southern girls. Bar-b-que. Bourbon [eventually]. Much later, summer humidity. Southern rock bands like Skynyrd, Atlanta Rhythm Section, and The Allman Brothers. And Pontiac Trans-Ams.

The Trans-Am was THE car that all the top guys drove in my High School. All five of them. Gloss black. Gold Firebird hood treatment. Shaker hood scoop. Gold and black honeycomb wheels. 6.6 litre engine that would HOWL. Special exhaust package. Dual T-Tops. And the best thing....the gold tinted, brushed chrome dash. In which was deployed the best Eight Track tape system in the auto industry. You see youngsters, once upon a time they put music on magnetic TAPE. And they put the tape into hard plastic cases [as big as half a dozen Ipods] that you would plug into the TAPE PLAYER in your car. All the top guys had one. All five of them. Let me tell you, when you shoved that Eagles "Hotel California" tape in the dash and turned it WAY up, "Life In the Fast Lane" had a whole new meaning. You felt like Stevie Nicks was going to walk right up and get in that car at the next stop light. See, there used to be another band called Fleetwood Mac. And the lead singer was this amazing woman named Stevie Nicks...oh never mind. If I have to explain it...boys in High School in 1976 don't need any explanation of Stevie Nicks' power over us. For the rest of you...

Stevie Nicks, from her web site The Nicks Fix.

At least all this would happen in my imagination. I didn't own a Trans-Am and I never had the chance to ride in one until years later. When a pal let me drive his. He bought it on Ebay. Along with the "Hotel California" eight track tape. But the magic was still there. The sound system still worked. The 6.6 still howled. The sunlight still glinted off that gold dashboard.

Yesterday I read that Pontiac will be no more. Actually, for me, Pontiac has been gone a long time. Ever since they quit making the version of the Trans-Am I fell in love with in the mid-seventies. Now I spend my time in swankier surroundings than hanging out in a parking lot looking at other guys' cars. But every so often, late at night, in some hotel or another, I check out the 1975-77 Trans-Ams for sale on Ebay. And the dream remains...

Somewhere out there is a 1976 Trans-Am with my name on it. And I'm seventeen. And Stevie is waiting for me on that street corner...

Milwaukee Interlude

I am a Wisconsin boy but I live far from the North woods now. As a result, I was very happy to be able to travel to Milwaukee on business earlier this year. It was a short stay and I did not have much time to explore a part of the state that was virtually unknown to me.

There is a simple reason for my lack of contact with Milwaukee [and with the only other really "urban" part of the state--Madison]. We woods dwellers could conceive of no reason why we would want to travel "down state" to the city. People go to cities and don't return. Things happen to them there. Or, in the wonderful expression I learned from my father-in-law when I moved South, I "hadn't lost anything down there". Luckily, I now have sufficient experience with urban areas that I am not intimidated by going to them. Plus, a lot of the great restaurants and almost all the great saloons are in cities. By the time I arrived in the Badger State, however, a blizzard was arriving and I was weary from consecutive weeks of winter business travel. Feeling a bit sorry for myself. You know the mind-set. To combat this fugue, I applied the Epic technique of noticing the little things. And of finding a great restaurant. Typically, these two efforts saved my trip.

The airport in Milwaukee is friendly and nice. It has very pretty brass inlays in the floors showing different parts of the state and icons signifying things about Wisconsin history. Canoes, for example. Fish. BEARS. And the really nice arrowhead shown at the head of this post.

The downtown area is similarly user-friendly. When there is snow in the air, you are on a short stay and in a fugue, only good food and drink will suffice. When this occurs in Wisconsin, only German food will do. There is a particular restaurant that I planned on visiting during my visit because it was famous even when I was a child for very good German food. Karl Ratzsch's. This place is AUTHENTIC. You can tell from the doors...

Another [unfortunately] fuzzy photo from the Epicographer...

The interior is what one would expect a Bavarian hunting lodge to look like. If one were at the lodge of a very top-drawer Bavarian. Think lots of steins. And horns. I was going to break my rule and take a photo inside the dining room but I was afraid of setting off a stampede. Hell, this may actually BE a Bavarian hunting lodge taken to pieces and reassembled in America. Do not mistake me on this. You ARE dining in an old-school German restaurant in Wisconsin. You do not expect nor want glass and chrome decor with techno-glam music in the background. The Bavarian decor adds a lot to the dining experience and to your ability to imagine yourself in the deep, snowy woods feasting during a long winter's night. Exactly what you want when dining on a selection of delectable treats like Konigsberger Klopse, meatballs in lemon caper cream sauce, [certified by a companion as as good as his grandmother's] and Beef Rouladen with potato pancakes [certified by me as fantastic]. Bring your appetite though. The "lighter fare" on the menu includes a sausage sampler. And since you are not that far from actual dark, snowy woods, the decor and cuisine combine to result in a very cozy and satisfying dining experience.

Everything I tried at Ratzsch's was very good. All washed down with multiple steins of fantastic German beer previously unfamiliar to me. This beer was also the real item and got better with each stein. An odd thing. I find that ALL beer gets better after multiple steins. Anyhow, for dessert, another diner said that the apple strudel was better than he had eaten in Munich the week before. It certainly looked good. Uncomplicated, light and fresh with lots of apples and a generous dusting of powdered sugar. The expression on this fellow's face as he was eating it confirmed his delight. The coffee was very strong and fresh. Just the thing to accompany a little glass barrel of Jagermeister.

You do not need to do much research to confirm how good Ratzsch's is. You need go no farther than to apply my fool-proof test of a great restaurant immediately upon looking at the KR menu and it would pass with flying colors. When the after dinner drink list includes the venerable but rarely seen entries Brandy Alexander, Grasshopper, Pink Lady and Golden Cadillac, you are in a great joint. Better to add a "first appetizer" course and lay in a Golden Cadillac or two. Then on to the meatballs and a "light" sausage sampler. Then a Rouladen. And a Strudel. Or a Schaum Torte.

The next morning, I was still in a gourmandine hangover when I got back to the airport on my way out of town. I felt sorry that I could not stay longer in this very welcoming city and have at least one more go at the Karl Ratzsch menu. And those Grasshoppers and Brandy Alexanders. But it was not to be. Just as I felt the gloom of a truncated visit descending, I saw a sign in the airport just past the TSA checkpoint. A sign the likes of which I have never seen before. I do not think another sign like it exists anywhere. I just stood there and laughed out loud...

Precisely what I needed. Recombobulation, indeed.

I had a marvelous visit to Milwaukee and I cannot wait for a return trip. To recombobulate in my home state. You see, my father-in-law was wrong. I had lost something in Milwaukee. And somewhere during my forty hour visit, I found it again.