Nilla Banana Pudding, The Sweetest Sin

First published in the July 25, 1990 issue of The Camden Chronicle

Mark Twain told a story of a maiden lady who became ill. The doctor was called and after an examination declared that tobacco was the culprit.

"If you give up snuff dipping," he said, "I can almost guarantee a complete recovery."

The lady protested, "I am a clean, fastidious woman. I have never used tobacco in my life."

"Is drinking your problem?" the doctor asked. "Perhaps if you gave up the bottle, your health would improve."

Again, the patient took issue. "I am," she said, "the daughter of a long line of teetotalers. If I put a glass of the Devil's brew to my lips, Heaven would split open and Satan would cackle from his hellish throne. Never, under any circumstances, would I partake of spirits."

"Well, then," the doctor opined, "it must be your social life. If you will give up some of your gentlemen friends and live a more sedate life, your health will improve dramatically."

The lady became agitated, "Doctor! I am a lifelong spinster! The only man I have been alone with in my adult life is Deacon Waverly, and even then there is always three feet of space and a pair of overalls between us. You are barking up the wrong tree. My life is as pure as the driven snow."

"Too bad, then," said the doctor. "You have no bad habits or shortcomings to give up in order to get well. It looks like you're a goner. Good day, madam."

I posed this question to the woman I consort with: If you were suddenly taken ill and had to give up some lifelong or beloved habit to improve your health, what would it be?

"That's easy," she said. "I would give up cornbread. That's the only way I would give up cornbread -- if my life was threatened. And, if that did not work to improve my health, I would made the supreme sacrifice: I would give up porch swinging. Life without cornbread and porch swinging would hardly be worth living, anyway. A just God would not overlook such a sacrifice on my part. I feel confident that the Almighty will honor those offerings laid at his feet."

While I pondered her answer, I wondered what I would do in like circumstances. I gave up smoking long ago. I never was much of a drinker. At my age, an overactive social life would probably be more dangerous to my health than anything nature could contrive.

The only over indulgence that plagues my life is vanilla wafers. That will attest to the dullest of existences. If Mark Twain were here, I wonder how he would feel about my plight.

Back of the Box Recipes, click here

Editor's note:

The Mark Twain story that Jim cites appears to be in "Following the Equator: A Journey Around The World" and is often referred to as the "Moral Pauper." Twain's version isn't quite like Jim's, but you know how storytellers embellish. One of Jim's favorite quotes from his mother was "I know that story's the truth 'cause I made it up myself." 

It's true about those dang bland cookies. There was always a box of Nabisco Vanilla Wafers in the house and there was nothing Jim loved more than the Banana Pudding recipe on the box.

The Art of the Deal - Southern Style

First published in the August 9, 1990 issue of The Camden Chronicle

I can remember exactly when and where it happened, when I acquired an affluent feeling, when I felt like I had left the common herd and had taken my place among the CEOs of this life. Until then, the only claim I had on the upper echelon-ship of everyday comings and goings was as a trustee in the church.

Being a church trustee requires no great amount of talent or training. All you have to do is show up at most meetings, say a short prayer if you are asked, keep your pledge more or less current, and speak well of the pastor in public. I could say something about what it takes to be a deacon or song leader, but I have digressed too much already.

There was this man who owed me a small sum of money. He came by my house while the workmen were building a new garage to replace the old one that was nearly rotted to the ground.  As he stood beside me watching the workmen perform, he explained that ready cash was still in short supply around his house and it would be a while before he could return the loan in the currency of the land.

"By Golly!" he exploded, his eyes lighting up. "I've just come into possession of a new garage door opener!" He gave the brand name and motor horsepower.

"It would sure be the thing to open the door on your new garage! I'll give you the opener and help you install it in lieu of the debt!"

Since I held no collateral on the loan and the amount was not a great lot, the idea appealed to me, but the clincher was his offer to help with the installation. I knew my debtor was skilled in things mechanical and the installation of the door opener would be a snap for him, while the removal and replacement of a light bulb sometimes taxes my engineering abilities.

True to our agreement, the next day my friend brought over the electric door opener and installed it in short order. Debt paid. We shook hands, agreed that both had made a great bargain and parted friends. He promised to keep me in mind if he needed to borrow money again. I thanked him and said I would certainly mention his name if anyone inquired about a garage door installer.

That night, after things had settled down and the woman I consort with was watching television in another part of the house, I stood at the kitchen window with the garage door remote. I pressed the button and watched the door quietly slide up and down. What a feeling of power!

"I am no longer a small time country boy," I told myself. "I have arrived." An automatic garage door opener is the difference between feeling influentially stable and just hanging on with crowd.

The editor (Connie Parker Harrison) beneath the Influentially Stable Garage Door Opener,
August 1986, with Kevin Cornett and friends.

Father's Day, 1990

First published in The Camden Chronicle June 13, 1990

Parker Family 1953
From left, back row: John Moses, Walter, Polly, Jim (author of the blog), JoAnn, Larry
Seated: John Wyly ("Dad") and Bertha Sterling

To the anti-tobacco crowd he would be an ogre and to a clean air freak, he would be a Mount St. Helen's disaster, but my father was one of the few totally honest men I ever met. He didn't rule his home like a dictator or an emperor. His rule was more benevolent, like the Speaker of the House. When possible, all family members had a say in any decisions made. He was a kind, soft-spoken man, seldom raising his voice even when angry. He could usually find some humor in all but the rankest disregard of household rules.

In the daytime during working hours, he either chewed tobacco or dipped snuff. In the evening, he enjoyed filling his pipe with tobacco strong enough to tote a mule across Harmon's Creek. He would lean back in his chair and fill the room with a smoke cloud as thick as fog in the Smoky Mountains.

I saw him cry twice. Once, when he gave my eldest sister to be a wife. In those days, expensive church weddings were out of the question. The loving couple usually went to a nearby marriage parlor in Mississippi, quietly married and that was the extent of the ceremony. After my sister and her betrothed drove away from our house, I saw dad wiping tears. The other time he cried was when my youngest sister was bitten by a rabid dog and he feared for the life of one he loved.

The Director of Life miscast dad for the role he played. Dad was a farmer, but he had no talent or desire for the role. The only natural trait he ever showed around the farm was an affinity with animals. All of his animals loved him. Horses and mules obeyed him like children. Cows would relax and produce more milk when he was around. A certain cow we owned that never missed a chance to impale me on her spike-like horns would snuggle those same horns under my father's arms and croon like a lovesick partridge when he stroked her neck.

Dad died broke. When he realized the end was near, true to form, he called a friend who was a retired funeral director to make arrangements for his last service. It was his way of relieving his wife and children of that unpleasant task. His death was a shock to me. It just seems some people should never die.

For The Love Of Books And Libraries

First published in The Camden Chronicle February 21, 1990. Picked up by The Dearborn Press and Guide and The Dearborn Times -Herald. 

Terry and the Pirates Vol. 2: 1937-1938

by Milton Caniff

Fifty years ago at Liberty School, Herman Presson taught me how to read. Then he taught me why I should read. Finally, through his Friday afternoon storytelling sessions, he showed me how to enjoy reading. Mr. Presson could get more action, excitement and pure romance from a book than anyone I've met since I left his care. If books were as compelling and stories were as amazing as Mr. Herman convinced me they were, I couldn't wait 'til I could read and understand books for myself.

Alex Raymond's Jungle Jim (November 26, 1939)

I have not been disappointed. Books have long been my main source of relaxation and learning. My early reading was made up mostly of comic books. Some the the lads read Captain Marvel and Superman, but my taste ran more towards Jungle Jim and Terry and the Pirates. Somehow the supernatural antics of the Superman type stories never appealed to me.

Then came the "Big Little" books. Anyone old enough to remember when the Dixie Theatre sat smack in the middle of the block on the east side of the Court House in Camden will recall these marvels of literature. On one page were printed words and on the next page was a picture pertaining to the story. They were just the right size to fit in your hip pocket and were always handy to fend off loneliness. They were also nice to have in your pocket in case your old man or teacher decided to correct your attitude.

As I grew, I read almost all of Zane Grey's books, then I moved on to Jack London's "White Fang" and "Martin Eden." After reading Grey and London, comic books and the Big Little Books were too light for me.

The people in Camden and Benton County are lucky. You have a well stocked library to borrow from. I know because two years ago I spent the best part of an afternoon there just browsing through the books on the shelves and visiting with the volunteer librarian on duty.

These winter months are the perfect time for anyone to read, but especially so for retirees and people on Disability. Go down to the library. Get yourself a library card, if you don't already have one, then check out some good books. Don't look for books that are easy to read. Get the ones with words that will send you mumbling and cursing to the dictionary to figure out what the author is saying. Find some books on subjects that will have you groping through the encyclopedia. Reading might as well be fun and fun might as well be learning. I believe books are man's greatest invention. If nothing else, they will give your TV set a rest.

Editor's Note:
Jim's love of literature has been a major influence in my life. I wrote about it in a post, "Marketing Books To Boys" at The Bookshop Blog. 

When The Brain Shifts Into Neutral

First published in The Camden Chronicle December 27, 1989

Why is it that when the human body is placed in a state of enforced idleness, the human brain belonging to that body insists on going into neutral also? In the eight weeks since a heart attack and a subsequent bypass operation rendered me more slothful than an inchworm crawling on a mulberry leaf, my mind seems to think it has every right to a period of recuperation, too.

I mentioned this to my sister. She says the answer is simple: when the body is idle, the brain has no reason to do anything other than idle along with the rest of the crowd. She may be right. When I was working, it seemed like every day two or three ideas would bang inside my head without any effort on my part. Not all were good ideas, certainly not all were original, but they kept bumping around against each other inside my mind, sorting themselves out, until finally, at the end of the day, they would settle down into one pretty good thought to ponder and write about.

A few days ago, after the woman I consort with made her way to work, I sat alone at the kitchen table gazing out the window watching a small flock of birds gather around the chimney stack on the roof of a neighbor's house to keep warm. They reminded me of  how the kids in my family used to flock around the wood stove in our living room on a cold morning, first warming one side, then the other. Moving in and out, occasionally squabbling about who had the better position.

At the table, on my second cup of decaf, it seemed like the perfect place and time to grope for new ideas, so I gave myself an assignment: sit at the table for 30 minutes or until an idea I'd never thought of came to mind.

"Don't read, don't ponder, don't even answer the phone if it rings. Come up with one thought that is original."

In 30 minutes I could not. Oh!! It occurred to me to research the reason Chinese people like rice and Irishmen prefer potatoes, why our fingernails grow as long as we live but our teeth do not, why God made some birds that can fly and some that cannot -- is it because He has a sense of humor after all? You might want to take this up with your doctor or your preacher or even your hair-dresser.

Maybe I'm just in a slump, but it seems to me that the body's action begets brain action. That's why I'm looking forward to the time I can do more than walk five or six blocks a day. I want to go among the people to, as the big time writers say, interact and inter-relate. My body is healing, but my mind is atrophying. I'll sure be glad when I can get them working on the same level.

In the Liberty Column of the next issue was a comment from Andrea Madden, whose husband, Walt, was Jim's cousin.

"A message to Jim Parker in Michigan. We really did enjoy your article in last week's paper, about the 'brain' going on a leave of absence during the months after surgery. Don't worry not fret, just let Norma do your 'thinking' and everything will be OK. My better half says he went through the same feelings of 'limbo' in 1984 and here it is 1990 and not much improvement, so don't worry about such minor details!!! Just knowing that friends and family are there to guide you along will help." 

Affairs of the Heart

First published in The Camden Chronicle November 15, 1989

If I have been abnormally quiet lately, it is because of affairs of the heart. No!! Not that kind of affairs of the heart. I'm still living at the same address, still consorting with the same woman.

The heart affairs I'm talking about are the kind that wake you up in the middle of the night with pains in the chest. There's a quick ride to a nearby hospital where they do an EKG, compare it with one taken last year during a regular check up and announce there have been changes in the graph. Then, on to Intensive Care for 72 hours.

After this, I'm transferred to another hospital where a four-way heart bypass operation* is performed. Oh, the wonders of modern science!

Twenty years ago, I probably could have looked forward to spending the rest of my days in dull servitude to pain and shortness of breath. Instead, my surgeon tells me that in three months or less, I can go back to work.

The surgeon is a remarkable person. He breaks open the chest in much the same way that a coal miner breaks open the earth to extract ore. The surgeon and miner know exactly what they are looking for: the miner has his eyes out for a seam of coal, the surgeon is looking for the heart valves that are plugged, the ones he must pass. When he fines them, he strips a vein from the leg or other part of the body, cuts it into short pieces and sews them into the heart to bypass the blocked section.

The patient, of course, knows nothing about what is going on inside his body during the operation, which is a good thing. This patient would have died of fright if he had been aware of what was happening during surgery.

The first 48 hours after surgery, the patient is treated in much the same way as a wood cutter treats a log. There are so many pipes, valves, and wires emanating from the body, the patient looks and feels like a cut of wood before the small limbs are trimmed off.

Vital signs and bodily functions are checked constantly. Doctors gaze and grin, proud of the work they have performed. Nurses poke, prick and pluck, taking blood, smoothing bed clothes, and speaking encouraging words to prevent the patient from lapsing into a blue funk.

Therapists come three times a day to beat the patient's back. This is to keep congestion from building up in the lungs; pneumonia is always a post surgery danger with this kind of operation.

On the third day after surgery, I'm transferred to a ward with three other patients like myself. Now the monitoring becomes much less severe. I'm permitted to walk to the bathroom. This is progress. The pipes, valves, and wires have been reduced to two lines and a tube which is built on wheels and rolls with me as I walk.

After five days in the ward, I'm sent home. I slept better, felt better and thought straighter.

My doctor says he's pleased with the progress I've made so far. But it is slow at best. Patience has never been one of my virtues. There is only one word that can be used in a family newspaper to describe this confinement. That word is ORDEAL. All other descriptive words border on profane. I'm glad it's over. I'm glad I had it done. But I sincerely hope you never have to go through it.


*Editor's note:
The terminology sounds a little archaic now, but in the 80s, when the surgery was new, this was the common term for a quadruple bypass in the area of Michigan where Jim lived. 

Quick Draw McBush

First published in the Camden Chronicle August 22, 1990 

It takes seven days for a copy of the The Chronicle to reach our hearth. While I am reading last week's copy, you are reading this week's copy. I've never experienced jet lag, but the feeling I get reading seven day old news must be something near to a jet lag feeling.

Our postal system claims to be the fastest in the world. I sure am glad it's not the slowest. I just looked it up: in 1860 the Pony Express carried a message from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in just over seven days. One would think that with all the high powered equipment and educated people available to the post office, they could negotiate the distance between Camden and Dearborn a little faster. The ad that was used to recruit Pony Express riders is interesting. It read:

"Wanted... young men and boys, small in stature and wiry. Must be skilled horsemen and good shots."  Apply, etc. 

All we ask of today's postman is to be able to read, write and move. Maybe movement is too much for them.

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera,
1st aired week of January 23, 1961

By the  time you read this, it may all be over but at this moment oil laden war clouds are rising in the Middle East. Iraq has moved into Kuwait and is making threatening gestures towards the Arabian Peninsula. Mr. Bush, like a presidential Quick Draw McGraw, is yelling, "Hold on thar, Mr. Saddam Hussein!" and is rushing into the fray with his rocket tipped Kabongers to stem the tide of the world's best supply of crude. 

Meanwhile, TV and news reports are awash with middle eastern experts who tell us why Mr. Bush is right or why he is wrong. Take your choice. Which brings up a  couple of questions: What do experts do when there's nothing to expert about? And, why is someone an expert when he sees only one side of the question? 

I am enjoying Alma Oatsvall's journey into old time religion. She talks about baptizing in a creek, rather than a church baptistery. I was baptized in a creek, but I don't remember which one. It probably wouldn't be hard to find; there would still be a dirty spot in the water where my sins were washed away. 

Why doesn't someone write a letter to The Chronicle about the old time box suppers and Sunday socials? I attended a couple of these functions but was too small to participate.