Wednesday, January 01, 2025
ESSAY - A NEW YEAR'S "TOAST" TO 2025
It's January 1, 2025, and, for those who can get their eyes open, I give you a toast.Grandma Blue in her kitchen
No, not the one you did last night, but bread, buttered and browned.
When I was a wee lad, my mom made toast in the oven, in the broiler pan. Gas range, real flames above the buttered bread. Had to light it with one of the kitchen matches we kept beside the stove.That's the toast I grew up with.
You would butter the bread first, then arrange the slices on the rack, and slide it under the flames. Every few minutes you would open the door and pull the rack out, checking to see if the toast was done.
Of course, "done" had different meanings to each family member, and mom wasn't always worried about whose expectations were being met.
Eventually, I achieved an age and leveled up (as they say these days in video games), to the point where I could be entrusted to oversee the making of toast.
Everybody got what I liked. Yellow and buttery in the middle, golden brown along the edges with streaks of delicious, buttered, crunchiness running to the middle in spots.
Toast was not only my first cooking experience but, in a way, my first exposure to art. MY toast was not only functional and factual, but it was fantastic in appearance as well.
Disclaimer here; I said "buttery"... actually, Mom used oleo, margarine... artificial stuff. I loved it.
My maternal grandmother lived in Atlanta, Georgia, 330 miles away from our home in Pensacola, Florida. We only got to visit her every other year or so, but, when we did, I was introduced to something strange... a toaster AND real butter.
Although I held my tongue, I really didn't like Grandma Blue's toast. It came out a dull, universal brown, and you smeared this pale stuff with little or no flavor on it. Still, over the years, I learned to look forward to it, because it was at Grandma's... like the steel shower from Sears in her basement.
At least at Grandma Blue's, the butter went on the toast while it was still hot from the toaster. When I went into the army, you ran the bread through a toasting machine, grabbed some butter, and hoped it would still be warm by the time you got your other food, your drink, found a seat, and settled down to eat.
But, this did not complete my toasting... New Year's or otherwise.
At a small hotel in London, they brought cold slices of toasted bread to the table in a wire rack. I would smear the cold butter on the cold toast, and it would crunch as I bit into it.
English people: I love England, and London was fantastic (even if I did nearly kill myself and others turning down the wrong way RIGHT in front of Buckingham Palace.)
Damned Americans!
Anyway, take it from a southern boy from the U.S., toast should not be served cold and brown, but, most of all, it should not CRUNCH!
I miss the toast Mama used to make, but, having traveled extensively over the more than 3/4 of a century I've been on this earth. I've learned to take my toast where, when, and how I can get it.
I forgive all of you and that's my "toast" to you on this first day of January, 2025.
Damn. Now my coffee's cold!
Will this NEVER end?
Grandma Blue in the picture, by the way. I miss her, and her toast.
I miss the toast Mama used to make, but, having traveled extensively over the more than 3/4 of a century I've been on this earth. I've learned to take my toast where, when, and how I can get it.
I forgive all of you and that's my "toast" to you on this first day of January, 2025.
Damn. Now my coffee's cold!
Will this NEVER end?
Grandma Blue in the picture, by the way. I miss her, and her toast.
Labels: donovan baldwin, essay, happy new year, humor, New Year's, toast
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
HUMOR - THE RIGHT DIRECTION
By Donovan Baldwin
I just read a story about 15-year-olds who didn't know their own address.
Made me think of a U.S. Army Platoon Sergeant I used to work with at Fort Hood, Texas.
This man was the most "squared away" soldier you could imagine, but, his whole life was the Army. He knew, could perform, or teach just about any soldier skill.
Take him blindfolded into the field, turn him loose, and he could find his way back.
One morning, he called me up, "My car's won't start. Can you pick me up on your way in?"
Me, "Sure, Dave, where do you live?"
Then he started telling me to turn at this store, go so many blocks, turn right, go some more blocks, turn at the big bush, etc....
I was losing track of all the turns, so, I said, "Just give me your address. I know that part of town."
He said, "No" and started over with the turn-by-turn directions.
Again, I stopped him and just asked for the address.
He refused and started on the directions again.
Again, I asked for the address.
Finally, he exploded, "I don't KNOW my damned address!!! I'll have to go ask my wife."
...Which he did, and I found his house no problem.
Got a couple more Dave stories... maybe another time, like the time he didn't follow my instructions and turn left at the brown cow, and got our platoon lost.
Made me think of a U.S. Army Platoon Sergeant I used to work with at Fort Hood, Texas.
This man was the most "squared away" soldier you could imagine, but, his whole life was the Army. He knew, could perform, or teach just about any soldier skill.
Take him blindfolded into the field, turn him loose, and he could find his way back.
One morning, he called me up, "My car's won't start. Can you pick me up on your way in?"
Me, "Sure, Dave, where do you live?"
Then he started telling me to turn at this store, go so many blocks, turn right, go some more blocks, turn at the big bush, etc....
I was losing track of all the turns, so, I said, "Just give me your address. I know that part of town."
He said, "No" and started over with the turn-by-turn directions.
Again, I stopped him and just asked for the address.
He refused and started on the directions again.
Again, I asked for the address.
Finally, he exploded, "I don't KNOW my damned address!!! I'll have to go ask my wife."
...Which he did, and I found his house no problem.
Got a couple more Dave stories... maybe another time, like the time he didn't follow my instructions and turn left at the brown cow, and got our platoon lost.
Labels: donovan baldwin, humor
Tuesday, December 03, 2024
HUMOR - VINCE'S ALARM
By Donovan Baldwin
I'm watching something on TV and it reminds me of one of my first days at Florida State University (FSU) in 1965.
My roommate turned out to be a friendly guy named Vince. We had a couple of days before classes started, so, we got up when we felt like it. Then came the evening before our first day of classes.
We both had to get up early and I told Vince I would set my alarm but I was worried about oversleeping. He told me not to worry about it because there was no way we could sleep through his alarm.
So, we went to sleep with his alarm set.
The way these dorm rooms, in Kellum Hall, were designed, one side had an elevated bunk with a bookcase and desk below it. The other bunk, on the other side of the room, was built to fit under the upper bunk in the next room.
I was in the lower bunk.
It should be mentioned that Vince warned me that he was very hard to wake up, and that's why he had such a good alarm.
My roommate turned out to be a friendly guy named Vince. We had a couple of days before classes started, so, we got up when we felt like it. Then came the evening before our first day of classes.
We both had to get up early and I told Vince I would set my alarm but I was worried about oversleeping. He told me not to worry about it because there was no way we could sleep through his alarm.
So, we went to sleep with his alarm set.
The way these dorm rooms, in Kellum Hall, were designed, one side had an elevated bunk with a bookcase and desk below it. The other bunk, on the other side of the room, was built to fit under the upper bunk in the next room.
I was in the lower bunk.
It should be mentioned that Vince warned me that he was very hard to wake up, and that's why he had such a good alarm.
I use the word "good" very loosely.
At the appointed time in the morning, Nazi rockets began exploding in London...or...to put it another way, Vince's alarm on the window sill went off.
I woke up in the air with my face and body inches from the panel above my bunk. I had made a convulsive leap as a result of the horror that had been unleashed on the room.
The alarm continued to ring.
Eventually, I saw an arm fall over the side of the upper bunk and grope blindly for the still-screaming alarm. As you might have guessed by now, the waving hand knocked the alarm off the window sill and onto the tile floor which helped project the sound upward and outward, filling the room, and my head, with pain.
I saw Vince's leg, drape over the edge of the bunk and feel for the step down. He virtually "fell" out of bed, winding up on hands and knees on the floor where he crawled under the table, found the alarm, and, after a couple of attempts, managed to shut it off.
It wasn't until the alarm was off that I realized my heart was still pounding from the shock and awe of Vince's alarm.
Eventually, I learned to wake up without defying gravity, but, I have a suspicion that some of my hearing loss in later years might be traced to Vince's alarm.
At the appointed time in the morning, Nazi rockets began exploding in London...or...to put it another way, Vince's alarm on the window sill went off.
I woke up in the air with my face and body inches from the panel above my bunk. I had made a convulsive leap as a result of the horror that had been unleashed on the room.
The alarm continued to ring.
Eventually, I saw an arm fall over the side of the upper bunk and grope blindly for the still-screaming alarm. As you might have guessed by now, the waving hand knocked the alarm off the window sill and onto the tile floor which helped project the sound upward and outward, filling the room, and my head, with pain.
I saw Vince's leg, drape over the edge of the bunk and feel for the step down. He virtually "fell" out of bed, winding up on hands and knees on the floor where he crawled under the table, found the alarm, and, after a couple of attempts, managed to shut it off.
It wasn't until the alarm was off that I realized my heart was still pounding from the shock and awe of Vince's alarm.
Eventually, I learned to wake up without defying gravity, but, I have a suspicion that some of my hearing loss in later years might be traced to Vince's alarm.
Labels: alarm clock, donovan baldwin, Florida State University, humor, Kellum
Sunday, August 19, 2018
I Write Poetry... At Least I Claim I Do
By: Donovan Baldwin
I write poetry.
At least I claim I do.
Sometimes it appears as philosophy, commentary, sometimes humor, sometimes just a feeling which must be let out upon the unsuspecting world... or, at least, out of the captivity of my mind.
Most people "get" the fact that poems, poetry, may be whimsy, may even bending, sometimes, like fantasy, breaking the bonds and bounds of reality.
It's about the words, the flow, the rhythm, the feelings, sometimes deep, sometimes fleeting and hard to identify, the thought behind the thought, the image, the statement of, or misstatement of, the "facts".
In a poem, the "facts" are what the poet sees, or imagines seeing, who, like an impressionist, may "see" an image, not as others see it, but, as it appears to the poet... which can sometimes be damned impossible to put into words.
But, we try. That attempt is poetry, a poem, even incomplete or just a few lines of the initial thought (of which I have several notebooks and pieces of paper) just as some brush strokes on a canvas, or chisel marks on a block of stone are a painting or sculpture... which, though conceived, might not have been born... yet.
Often, when we ARE finished,.. and we never TRULY are, we can look at our creation and see pretty clearly our "message" or madness, whatever it was we were trying to "paint", but, sometimes the reader just does not, CANNOT, "see" what we do... as a viewer in a museum may turn their head partly upside down trying to see what the painter was trying to "draw".
Problem with painters and poets, we don't always "see" things as they "really" are... or, do we?
Read more of my poetry at http://ravensong.mysite.com or find my articles at http://ezinearticles.com/expert/Donovan_Baldwin/19345.
I write poetry.
At least I claim I do.
Sometimes it appears as philosophy, commentary, sometimes humor, sometimes just a feeling which must be let out upon the unsuspecting world... or, at least, out of the captivity of my mind.
Most people "get" the fact that poems, poetry, may be whimsy, may even bending, sometimes, like fantasy, breaking the bonds and bounds of reality.
It's about the words, the flow, the rhythm, the feelings, sometimes deep, sometimes fleeting and hard to identify, the thought behind the thought, the image, the statement of, or misstatement of, the "facts".
In a poem, the "facts" are what the poet sees, or imagines seeing, who, like an impressionist, may "see" an image, not as others see it, but, as it appears to the poet... which can sometimes be damned impossible to put into words.
But, we try. That attempt is poetry, a poem, even incomplete or just a few lines of the initial thought (of which I have several notebooks and pieces of paper) just as some brush strokes on a canvas, or chisel marks on a block of stone are a painting or sculpture... which, though conceived, might not have been born... yet.
Often, when we ARE finished,.. and we never TRULY are, we can look at our creation and see pretty clearly our "message" or madness, whatever it was we were trying to "paint", but, sometimes the reader just does not, CANNOT, "see" what we do... as a viewer in a museum may turn their head partly upside down trying to see what the painter was trying to "draw".
Problem with painters and poets, we don't always "see" things as they "really" are... or, do we?
Read more of my poetry at http://ravensong.mysite.com or find my articles at http://ezinearticles.com/expert/Donovan_Baldwin/19345.
Labels: art, commentary, donovan baldwin, humor, impressionist, philosophy, poem, poet, poetry, writing poetry
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Knowing The Facts or The Secret Of Kevin's Glasses
By: Donovan Baldwin
When I used to teach truck driving, Monday of the first week was spent doing paperwork, and giving some orientation on company policies, what would be happening, and some basic classes to prepare students for their in-truck training.
We in-truck instructors would meet our assigned students, two or three to an instructor, on Tuesday. We instructors would walk in the classroom, identify our students, and take them down to the cafeteria for a little conversation before leading them out to the truck for training.
Students were nervous, even afraid, some terrified, and we all had different methods for relaxing them and breaking the ice.
One instructor, Kevin, had found and old pair of exceedingly thick glasses. When we entered the room, he would be wearing them, holding on to the wall for guidance, and being "helped" by the other instructors.
The students, most of whom were already at some level of terror, and not knowing really what to expect from a bunch of "truck drivers" would get the most horrified looks on their faces, wondering who was going to get the, apparently, nearly blind instructor.
We would let the joke run until Kevin picked his students, and then, after letting them "stew" for a moment, and the other students breathe a sigh of relief, we would reveal the truth. Usually got a good laugh...especially from Kevin's students.
Often in life, even if we are not happy with everything that's going on in our lives, at least knowing the truth can make us feel a little better. It's easier to deal with most things when we have the facts.
So much non-fact information is made available in our world today. Instead of just getting angrier and more terrified, maybe taking the time to check facts might help us remain a bit calmer.
Anyway, it's easier to cope with, and, make decisions about, a situation when you know the facts rather than acting on uncertain information.
I guess, in a way, Kevin's thick glasses made some things a bit clearer.
We in-truck instructors would meet our assigned students, two or three to an instructor, on Tuesday. We instructors would walk in the classroom, identify our students, and take them down to the cafeteria for a little conversation before leading them out to the truck for training.
Students were nervous, even afraid, some terrified, and we all had different methods for relaxing them and breaking the ice.
One instructor, Kevin, had found and old pair of exceedingly thick glasses. When we entered the room, he would be wearing them, holding on to the wall for guidance, and being "helped" by the other instructors.
The students, most of whom were already at some level of terror, and not knowing really what to expect from a bunch of "truck drivers" would get the most horrified looks on their faces, wondering who was going to get the, apparently, nearly blind instructor.
We would let the joke run until Kevin picked his students, and then, after letting them "stew" for a moment, and the other students breathe a sigh of relief, we would reveal the truth. Usually got a good laugh...especially from Kevin's students.
Often in life, even if we are not happy with everything that's going on in our lives, at least knowing the truth can make us feel a little better. It's easier to deal with most things when we have the facts.
So much non-fact information is made available in our world today. Instead of just getting angrier and more terrified, maybe taking the time to check facts might help us remain a bit calmer.
Anyway, it's easier to cope with, and, make decisions about, a situation when you know the facts rather than acting on uncertain information.
I guess, in a way, Kevin's thick glasses made some things a bit clearer.
Labels: donovan baldwin, humor, truck, truck driving, truck driving instruction
