Peculiar Skepticism

The year I made donuts, night shift, at an independent Donut Shoppe near campus, I met a great many police persons. They got free coffee and donuts and we never got robbed. A nice bunch of people that I got to know fairly well, one of them became a friend. A couple of the older cops were great at reading tells and I became a much better poker player after knowing them. Running on fumes and those various forms of speed that were being prescribed for weight loss. Rehearsing Shakespeare at night and taking a full course-load during the day. As was to be case for years, I slept in the aisles of theaters, or, if there was a bedroom in the set, on stage. There's a fair amount of sex, on stage, after hours; and for years I was the guy who locked up. A couple of times I got a few free drinks at our local bar (The Playhouse owned a bar) while an assignation transpired. For several years a few of us would stay on, after the season, living in the dressing rooms, and building scenery to be trucked in off Broadway (non-union), or fucking around with recording incredibly discordant music. A steady diet of free seafood, and already then, some great homebrew. Fritz was a master brewer. I seem to remember him malting barley on a tarp, after season, living in the bar. I mistrust most of what I remember. Not just cops in uniforms, but detectives and such, undercover guys and snitches, that FBI agent that carries his gun, openly displayed, when we should be eating seafood. Leviticus. One of those Popes, there were two or three then, said it was ok to eat fetal rabbits. One thing you learn, hoeing beans, is to never trust people in embroidered white outfits. Not even a guayabera. Leaf fall continues, a rain of them when the last little storm moved through. Clear, severe clear, this morning, and I walked out to the graveyard. Most of the graves are just marked with two rocks, but there have been a plat down at the old church (gone now) because a few of the graves have cheap concrete headstones (recent) with names and dates. I found a couple of nice ginseng plants, but I don't harvest them, I already have my year's supply, I do pick the seeds and poke them into the ground nearby. Later I walked down to get the mail and there is quite a bit of blue along the road, chicory, and I make a note to self to harvest some, to roast and grind. Several hours today reading about chocolate. It's a complex process, involving fermentation, drying, and roasting, and it's like the complex process of turning cassava into tapioca. Not to mention living on acorn meal and oysters. One thing that's brought us to the odd position we find ourselves, is that protein isn't water soluble, which means you can wash off a lot of crap and still retain some food value. Farming, domestication, is all about getting through next winter. I've been working on a skillet cornbread that I can make with powdered eggs and milk powder. I figured with the beans and canned tuna I'd be ok. Raising sprouts in a jar near the woodstove. If I can get out, I can always buy some greens, pigweed is fairly hardy. In the forties last night, and the thirties tomorrow night occasioned the most wonderful sensory event in recent history. I was at the Goodwill, buying some books and I noticed a couple of sweaters and bought one that was cashmere and a bit too small for me. Think of it as long underwear. It feels quite nice on a cool morning. Two bucks. Made another creamed sweet corn and seafood stew. Chunks of cod. Better with oysters. Fall, and I don't quite panic. I have a lot to do, but it can be done. I mucked out the outhouse, turned over the compost heap, knocked down the crap in the stovepipe and spent an hour cleaning ash from the smoke-chase that heats the oven in the stove. I'm looking forward to having an oven again, cornbread cake as opposed to pone, certain meals that require cooking forever in a cast iron Dutch-oven, and I bake macaroni-and-cheese, with breadcrumbs and butter, that is so good it should be criminal.