Stuff I learned, volume I...

I’ve had a couple of job interviews in the last few weeks.  Nothing Earth shattering but opportunities I am none the less very excited about.  One is a teaching opportunity – something on the side – and the other is an opportunity to do basically the same job I am doing now but in a different area of my present employer.  During both interviews, the topic of my education came up.  I was astonished to realize that until I surpass 48 years of age, I will be able to say, counting everything, I have spent more than half my life in school.

That’s not a boast – trust me – perhaps if I had spent more than a good portion of that time inventing something or writing the next great American novel, I wouldn’t be interviewing for a second job or driving a mini-van as my primary means of transportation.  (My Ferrari is in the shop, getting wider seats installed).

No, the really significant thing about the amount of time I spent in school is how much I learned when I wasn’t in school. Some examples:

1)  For the last ten days or so we were dog-sitting my sister’s adorable, cartoon like pug puppy, “Beans.”  I have written here before that we are a cat family.  We are.  So the advent of a dog in our home was thrilling for everyone, myself included.  Thus it was understandable when it came time to take Beans home that there were long faces among the children.  In trying to comfort my daughter, after we said our good-byes to Beandiggity, I snuggled her up and asked her if she was going to dream of him that night.  She yawned, shook her head gently and said to me, sleepily “probably going to be rocket-shoes tonight, Dad.”

So – one thing I learned that never showed up in any of my classes is that four year olds dream of rocket-shoes. At some point we grown-ups stop dreaming of rocket-shoes.

2)  Fifth grade is hard.  Fourth grade was hard.  I don’t know if kids these days are doing more work than when I was in school, but I am constantly amazed by how much work my oldest is doing at school – and the subjects he is studying.  So far we have had physics and algebra, geometry and all kinds of really terrific history lessons.  My fear is that, at this rate, by the time he hits high school he will have surpassed all of my abilities and be completely on his own.  I am sure he too is looking forward to the day when his parents can’t help him with his homework. 

So – a second thing I have learned, and it took me leaving school, having kids, and having those kids go off to school themselves –is that I had incredible public school teachers.  I cannot believe how much of this stuff I remember.  But more than that, I can literally in my mind hear them talking to me about different topics.  So – to my teachers – many of whom are likely shaking their heads that this kid ever graduated college, let alone grad school and law school, I say “Thanks!” and remind them that their efforts were neither wasted nor taken for granted.

3)  My mother is in cahoots with some powerful and dark forces to have worked such magic as she has in the curse she put on me.  I was not a terrific kid.  It all began for me when I read this book entitled “Peck’s bad boy.”  I read it when I was in around the fourth grade and found it so funny that it forever changed my life.  I went from being this sweet little kid to the kind of kid who would shoot out windows with a bb gun, put salt in his great aunt’s bed, and warm up flat root beer and serve it to my dad as coffee.  It is a miracle I was not sold into servitude on some kind of commercial vessel before I ever hit puberty.

So – what I learned is that my mom’s curse “I hope someday you have a kid just like you” is a really interesting one.  Because both of my kids are way way way better kids than I ever was and both of them are an absolute handful when they want to be.  You could also add to this topic that I learned to pay a lot of attention to the kinds of books my kids are reading and that for every year I age, my mom gets about 10 times smarter than I thought she was (and I always thought she was pretty smart).

4)  Kill it and grill it – lastly I will share with you here a secret of terrific grilling for steaks. Some of you, dear friends, may be vegetarians or vegans.  More power to you – you are welcome to stop by any night and I will make sure your steak finds an appreciative home.  Mine is a carnivore’s habitat – no apologies there.  If God didn’t wanted us to eat cows then why did he make them so delicious?

I never learned this while I was in college nor while I was working in any one of four or five different restaurants along the way.  And I have come to realize there all kinds of spices you can use on a cowboy cut rib eye depending on your taste.  Some might use butter and kosher salt; some use a kind of bullion powder with garlic salt and some, those who also might put a paper umbrella and lime in their beer, might use a store bought marinade.  Whatever – it’s up to you.  But the one thing you must do with any decent steak is to let the meat come up to room temperature before you grill it.  This might be counterintuitive to everything you ever learned about food safety, but trust me.  Take that steak out of the fridge and cover it loosely with Saran Wrap for an hour or so before you cook it on a grill that is as hot as you can get it.

Any germs you were worried about by letting the meat sit out will not survive the Armageddon of your grill and the meat will be as tender as you can possibly imagine – especially if you buy a good cut.

So – the thing I learned was this – sometimes the thing you have to do to get the desired result is the exact opposite of the thing that you are inclined to.  Try it and see if a different approach yields better results.

Those are my thoughts for today.  Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Wherever you are, whoever you are with, I hope your childlike spirit is intact enough so that tonight, if you try hard enough, you can find the joy of dreaming of rocket-shoes.

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com