Pickled American Individuality?

Pickled Individuality?

Hardly surprising that the University of Iowa landing in a top spot on a party school list is causing consternation in has official circles. U. of I. isn’t our only drinking problem—the new head of the U. of Northern Iowa discontinued Veesha as a near occasion of bingeing, rowdiness, property destruction, even death. Universities nationwide on the hot seat because of the problem of rape that has grown out of drinking. Last week, a U. of I. official was listing the “tools” he had to deal with the problem: 1) organizing alternative activities, 2) manipulating the hours/policies of bars around campuses, 3) alcohol education.

            Whenever I see these silly machinations, I can’t help thinking of my Paris friends’ little boy, age 11 then. We were walking down the street in Montparnasse one time and I said to him, “Pierre, Let’s get a glass of wine.” He ordered hot chocolate, and when I asked him, he confided he had drunk a bottle of champagne at his sister’s wedding. “But I didn’t get drunk,” he emphasized forcefully. Now, his boy had already internalized the French alcohol ethic: drink as much as you can or want, but do not lose your dignity.

            Someone with a more critical eye than mine is going to have to explain how in this the ostensible land of the individual we have surrendered individual volition to officials rather than teaching young people to manage themselves and protect their own dignity.

           

Testing, Testing, Testing 1-2-3

Testing, Testing, Testing 1-2-3

Best thanks to my niece B, who has been helping me get pix from my camera onto this blog. Earlier in the summer I took a great pic of a Dutch windmill, which has been imported to Fulton, Illinois and actually functions. However, it has taken me most of the summer to intersect with B and figure out how to reliably post it here.  Not that I have that much use for pix, most of these posts are ideas, but an occasional cat is nice, so here's Mutt, the sickly runt of a wild litter, who is doing so much better than he can harass me by crawling up and into a frond basket.

Summer Pride

      The other morning a school called me to sub for the day. I bathed, changed and made myself a lunch of potato salad with with onions, potatoes and banana peppers, all of which I grew. While I did not make the mayonnaise or lay the egg in it, the cucumbers and red peppers in the hot dog relish in it were from last year's garden.

      Likewise, the carrots in second salad—a Turkish thing with sliced carrots in vinegar and oil dressing--a multicolor carrot variety that flourished  this year. And though I did not grow the olive oil, I did press and make the apple cider vinegar.

Though the carrots are a bit of too much of good thing, I got a critical eye on a carrot cake.

The Consolations of Fall

      Summer's almost gone, winter's coming on, and it feels like fall. A time of nostalgia for the people who are gone—Mom, Dad, Funky Uncle Francis, Outrageous Aunt Delores, and Patrician Uncle Walter. Or are so far away I too seldom see them—Frau Welters in Berlin, my friends in Paris.

     Fall arrived early this year with the death of someone I didn't know well and could by no stretch of the imagination be considered close to. Au contraire, there was a touch of immortality about him, a twinge invincibility that is also gone. I suspect, precisely the lesson of fall: remind us of our immortality. So we are left to find our minor consolations—a good onion crop and a funny runty kitten.