For All The Aqua Velva Men

Once upon a tantrum, I decided to take a parenting class.

            The leader of our class, a local minister, started the session by asking us to describe our happiest memory with our parents. After listening to several stories about camping, and one peculiar retelling of a family chore day that involved beheading chickens, it was my turn. Although it is hard these days to remember where I put my coffee cup, it is always easy to remember my best family memory – dancing with my dad in our living room to the music of Lawrence Welk.  Every Sunday night, we would push the furniture out of the way and dance to accordion classics while my mom gave dancing instructions from the couch.  One dance routine that involved a dip sent my dad to the chiropractor.

            On Father’s Day great memories about Lyle Brown are easily sparked and rekindled. When I was little, while my father would sit at the kitchen table behind the omnipresent open newspaper, I would slide behind his chair, slip his glasses off and say, “You’re my Aqua Velva Man.”

            He had nick-names for me – Dolly, Little Dolly and Dolly-O. Our song was “Hello Dolly.”  Always loyal to the kids on our block, he became the permanent pitcher in our backyard baseball games. When my friends said they were quitting the Fairy Club because they didn’t believe in fairies, he marched across the street – at my urging -- and told seven-year-old Patti Jo Cordes that fairies do exist.  Soon afterward the Cordes’s garage door fell off its hinges with a slam heard round the block. I took that as a sign from above that people should not question the Fairy Club.

            A materials inspector for the Michigan Highway Department, my dad really did know our state like the back of his hand.  Our trips criss-crossed the state like a shoelace from The Bridge to Battle Creek and from Copemish to Flint. My dad would stop and read every historical marker and show us lakes and landscapes that few people have seen. In fact,  I have climbed on top of the rock that gave Big Rock, Michigan its name.

            I told my mom once that I thought I was getting whiplash from Dad’s sudden stops on the side of the road. He would brake suddenly, usually on M-32, scattering gravel in all directions. Without a word of explanation, Dad would stride into the weeds and cattails. While my mom and I sat in the Chevy, wondering if he had lost his mind, my dad would raise his prize over his head, like an Olympic trophy.

            “What is it?” I asked my mom.

            “The lid of a Styrofoam cooler.”

            My dad could make a pack rat look like it had OCD. He collected newspapers, campaign buttons, Petoskey stones, driftwood, arrowheads, old bottles and interesting pieces of Styrofoam.

            My father was the only person who was sad when the Great Depression ended. Not only was he happy with simple things, he seemed downright disappointed that the vacuum cleaner was ever invented.

            In the mid-60s my dad reported corruption in the highway department before whistle blower protection laws were even a glimmer in Sen. Carl Levin’s eyes. At an early age I learned that honesty and integrity are more important than job security.  My dad taught me that not voting in elections was still a vote. In addition to his words of wisdom,  he remembered and told hilarious jokes at the dinner table.

            He loved the suspense and excitement of finding something new – like the Styrofoam in the ditch. Once at our cottage in Copemish, near the Betsie River, he told me to come outside and see what he had found. I thought it might have been snake skin or the skull of a deer. We crossed a creek, stepped over pine knots, and there it was, hanging on a tree.

            “What is it?”

            “It’s a weather balloon,” he said.

            The balloon and its weather gear had floated from Green Bay, Wisc., over Lake Michigan and dropped into our woods – snagged on a cedar tree. My dad and I had a great time reading the enclosed directions for finders, wrapping it up, and addressing the package to the weather service in my dad’s neat handwriting. For my dad, everything was an adventure.

            So go forth. Don’t just cherish the memories – make the memories. And to all the Aqua Velva men out there – have a wonderful Father’s Day.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

As a born and bred goody two-shoes, and a perpetual Honor Roll student with a decade-long career as a Girl Scout of the United States of America, I NEVER asked or needed an adult to buy alcohol for me.

          But as a middle-aged woman I am always on the lookout for an adult who knows how to pick out a good steak. I know my Pick of the Chix and I can spot from three aisles away the green label of the ground beef that is laced with neither fat nor antibiotics. But when I had to host the AAUW gourmet party I needed help because I wouldn’t know a beef tenderloin if it slapped me across the face!

          This happens every time I need a pot roast because I can never remember the kind of meat that makes the best pot roast. So I hang around the meat section until someone comes by who looks like they have been around the block a few times with a side of beef. Once I made the embarrassing mistake of asking the meat man at Wal Mart for advice on finding flank steak. He was wearing a white coat, sunglasses and carried a clip board and pen.

          “Do you have flank steak?” I asked. The guy just stared at me through his aviators. And then I realized. He was the meat man from Village Market! “Oh, I’m sorry! You’re a spy aren’t you?”

          For advice on tenderloin I called tender friends. I ran up to Meijer’s. Now I am one of the few shoppers who has the phone number to the Meijer’s meat department. And then I called my husband’s cousin at Bob’s Processing. YES!! Of course they had beef tenderloin! I ran out there, chatted with my husband’s second cousin while the meat man ducked into the freezer. And there it was -- the beef tenderloin. When he told me the price I acted very nonchalant, like I was not shocked that a piece of meat can cost the same as a computer printer. Plus, like a 21-year-old buying booze for the first time, I wanted to act very savvy in front of my in-laws, so I wrote the check like I was writing it for a Scholastic Book order. I was so cool.

          About 24 hours later, after thawing it and caring for it gently like a three-pound pet that’s been out in the cold for too long, I snapped into PEOPLE ARE COMING OVER action! First that means yelling at my kids to get up off the couch, get off the computer, turn off the TV and FOR GOD’S SAKE HELP ME! (For more information, watch the rerun of 60 Minutes in which Mentally Disabled Parents are Raised by Above Average Children.)

          “PEOPLE! HELP ME OUT!” I yelled, “HOW MANY CUPS ARE IN A QUART?”

          “PUT THE TABLECLOTH ON THE TABLE!”

          “It doesn’t fit.”

          “GO GET THE QUILT OFF OUR BED!”

          “Couldn’t we just use a fitted sheet?”

          “NO!”

          “YOU GUYS, SET THE TABLE AND I WANT IT DONE PROPERLY. FORK ON THE LEFT, KNIFE ON THE RI --- “

          “’Knife on the right, because knife rhymes with right.’ And that is such a LIE mother! Knife and right do NOT rhyme.”

Like Rory Kennedy going to Appalachia to film how the other half lives, the company came. They ate. They laughed. We drank mint juleps made by a husband who brought all the ingredients including the glasses. That meant I did not have to rewash any of my glasses which are all crusted with a film of mysterious sediment from a General Electric dishwasher that needs to be taken out into the backyard and shot. They offered to help with the dishes and I said, “No, I’ll get them next week.” Then they left.

           And after they left I walked to the sink to get rid of the bloody plastic wrap that had lingered in the sink for hours. I picked up a mint leaf, let the pink juice and water drip off the plastic, and there on the label were two words that explain why I need an adult to buy my meat.

Filet Mignon.