Meatloaf Did Him In

“He stopped loving her today, they placed a wreath upon his door, soon they’ll carry him away, he stopped loving her today.” George T. Jones. A classic obituary.

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My wife and I are having dinner. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, spinach and biscuits. The Heinz ketchup bottle sits upside down. What more could any Southern man want?

The 7:00 news is over. Conversation lags. She picks up the newspaper, reads the obituaries. I think it strange. I give it little more than mild curiosity. Who needs chatter with such delicious vittles? …Until she speaks.

Out of the blue she says, “How shall I announce your passing?”

“Passing what? You want me to pass you some more meatloaf?”

“No. I just want something more creative to announce your demise.”

My demise? I stop chewing. The mouthful of meatloaf suddenly becomes mush. She looks at me and smiles. “Obituaries are so dull. Listen, it reads, ‘He died, she passed away, he met his Lord.’ So dreary. How would you like yours to read?”

Strange thoughts flash through my mind. Do you know how easy it’d be to kill someone with meatloaf? Who knows what’s inside of it. Besides, Southern men don’t even chew meatloaf. They’re like dogs. It’s over the lips, across the tongue, lookout tummy, here it come. Teeth are useless.

Meatloaves are so large they can disguise all sorts of deadly toxins or lethal devices. Meatloaf is never served in prison for this reason. Baked inside might be nails, tacks, needles, nuts and bolts, roaches, dirt, glass shards, anything, even fertilizer. I suddenly feel sick.

I try to shake it off. “Haven’t thought much about it. Why do you ask?” She rolls her eyes. I notice she’s only eating potatoes and spinach.

“Oh, just wondering. These announcements have no life.”

“Life? These folks are dead,” I say.

“They’re so somber. Who’d want to attend a funeral for someone who had simply ‘passed?’ Nobody. When you go, I want it to be a big event. It’s gonna be hard enough as it is to find pallbearers.”

She says, “Let’s concoct some good ones for you. It’ll be too late to think about it when you’re gone. I might be playing bridge! Or it might interfere with Downton Abbey.”

“Look, I’m feeling great. I don’t wanna think about dying. Why are you in such a rush? Why aren’t you eating your meatloaf?”

“Lost my appetite. I see you’re not finishing yours either. Eat up,” she says.

I suddenly feel ill. Maybe I should not have had the third helping. Men are gluttonous.

She continues. “Time is short. You’re a hack. Embellish yourself for the final day. It’s coming. Make up some creative opening lines for your send-off. I have some suggestions.”

She asks, “How about, ‘He changed addresses?’ Or maybe, ‘Left us in a rush?’ Since you’re in the real estate business, how about, ‘His loan came due,’ or maybe, ‘He was into dirt, still is’”?

My death is not a laughing matter. It demands more respect than this. Then I remember Marvin, a funeral director friend of mine. He once told me about someone’s interment. A large easel with a chalk board stood next to the red-dirt hole. On the coffin was a pink princess phone. The message read, “Jesus called!”

She doesn’t let up. “How about, ‘He lost his lease’, or maybe, ‘Closed his last deal?’” She looks at her watch, then glances at the cold meatloaf left on my plate. My stomach growls.

I remember a lawyer friend. His read, ‘He found no loophole.’ I decide to chime in. Don’t want it to be the last opportunity to glorify myself. I suggest, ‘He defied gravity.’ She shakes her head. I continue, ‘He dropped like a dead fly.’ She ignores it.

She says, “I like, ‘He left us hanging.’” I cringe, thinking it might be the case. I want to say, ‘He had enough.’ But the meatloaf is still in my mouth.

Ron, a preacher friend, once told me he preferred, ‘He was reassigned.’ I don’t want to copy Rodney Dangerfield’s tombstone, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’

“You’re looking pale,” she says. I feel my pulse, opt for the peach cobbler while there’s time. She says, “You deserve it. It’ll probably your last.” What a way to go.

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Hard to say which hyperbole she might choose for her own announcement. If I have a say, hers will read, ‘She quit cooking.’


Bud Hearn
February 28, 2014

By Bread Alone

The ecclesiastical canons have approved the words, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” But like many things, written or otherwise, words are open for interpretation. Theorems thrive, strange as they may be.

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The operative word in this statement is, of course, live. And there’s no denial that to attempt to live a life without bread, especially bread glazed with sugar, is not only unthinkable, it’s downright savage. Abstinence is impossible. Avoidance is more torturous than having to survive on the popular monastic diet of soggy saltines and an entrée of red clay with ketchup.

Wander any quiet Paris street. Gaze into the window of a Patisserie. Your saliva glands ooze. You drool. The very sight of the vast selection of confections creates an uncontrollable craving. Palmiers, macaroons, galettes, croissants, cream horns, chocolate éclairs…an intense but inconsolable urge rages. Your tongue licks the very air.

You bolt inside, shove your way to the counter. You buy this, you buy that, you buy everything. The Tempter laughs hideously inside your brain. You curse the notion of living without bread.

We Southerners love bread. Just look at our girths. What are they saying? Avoid bread? Look, we bought the corn-pone franchise from the Indians before we confiscated their lands. It’s our staff of life.

We covet steaming-hot, baseball-sized biscuits that ooze butter, soaking with cane syrup on cold mornings. Imagine the ecstasy of biting into one. Especially one that’s holding a hunk of ham or slab of sausage. It’s the last-supper food of choice for most condemned prisoners.

Life consists in biscuits saturated with white chicken gravy or slathered with blackberry jelly. What good is a meal of fried chicken without it? Without Aunt Jemima, an entire industry of chicken farmers would vanish.

But wait…an evil beats on the door. Somebody’s trying to crash the bread pudding party. You can spot them slinking around in food stores, reading labels. It’s the Gluten-free Cult. Its adherents are anorexic holdovers from the ancient transient slaves who migrated from Egypt eons ago. They mostly live in Washington and Hollywood now.

This disgruntled crowd got fed up with manna-bread while wandering aimlessly around the Sinai Peninsula. They were looking for a land flowing with milk and honey. Why? Because they lusted for a perpetual source of sweetener to lather on their fig rolls, which, according to tradition, were forerunners of Fig Newtons. The Egyptians are still chasing them and suing for recipe infringement. Their hostilities never seem to end.

After forty years of itinerancy, they finally found a patch of parched earth to pitch their tents on. Unfortunately, others want to pitch tents there also. The Mort Mountebank tribe escaped and made off with the secret manna-bread formula. They became millionaires by cooking up Wonder Bread, which also has a forty year shelf-life. Even rats starve on it.

The gluten-free groups have unionized and receive federal aid. It’s a malevolent movement. The hoax is reminiscent of the dire global warming warnings of the minor prophet Gore. Where’re those disciples now? Under fifteen feet of snow in Minnesota. So much for imposters and swindlers.

A friend just had his seventieth birthday. I ask him how he feels. Be careful what you ask a 70 year old man.

“Never better,” he says.

“What’s your secret of longevity?”

“Bread,” he says. “Lots of bread. Forget the gluten scare.”

I remind him the Ancients warned that a man can’t live by bread alone.

“Rubbish,” he says. “Look, I’m a student of Scriptures. I follow them to the letter…Ecclesiastes 10:19, Leviticus 26:26, to be precise.”

Being forgetful of obscure Holy Writs, I ask him to explain.

“Remember our hippie days when ‘bread’ was also equated with money?"

“Vaguely,” I say. “What’s the point?”

“The point is money will buy a lot of bread, chefs and a lot more than you can imagine.” He whips out his Good Book and reads, “Money answers all things.”

Then he quotes Levi: “…ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight, and you shall eat.…”

**********

Such conceptualized nonsense shatters the foundations of common sense. But one thing is certain: 10 women cooks, 1 man and 1 oven make for a horrific disaster. Now, that would be news!

Bud Hearn
February 24, 2014

High School…a Return to the Cellblock

Deadlines…cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on writers by editors. Mine calls. By tomorrow, she says. What’s the theme, I ask? Fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ invasion, she says. Write about how their advent influenced high school students.

I remind her that my high school days ended before the mop-haired Brits arrived. Well, she says, write about high school. Who wants to revisit those days, I say? It was prison. We were inmates, teachers were guards, coaches were yard bosses and the principal was the warden. He carried a bludgeon for protection. Nobody escaped unscathed. Lives were ruined. Many remained janitors and librarians.

Were you cool, a nerd or geek, she asks? I tell her James Dean was cool. He wasn’t in my class. My crowd was the zit kids. We bought Clearasil by the gallons and drank Listerine by the quarts. Bad breath was everywhere. Never wanted to miss a kissing opportunity. None arrived.

We ran in packs like wild dogs, gangs-on-bikes going nowhere, terrorizing the town. Mechanical vehicles, mainly tractors, remained on the farm, driven only by the FFA clod busters.

She asks if I played football. Football? Honey, I’m still replacing joints I didn’t know existed. She wanted to see the scars for confirmation. Look, my nose remains an oddity, skewed to a right angle, the result of tackling fullbacks with my face. “Son, use your head,” the coach would say. He should have said “brain,” although it would have made little difference. Mine rattled like nuts and bolts in an empty can. PTSD remains a possibility.

I lost my teeth braces fifteen times. My daddy worked three jobs to pay the six-digit orthodontist’s bill. We got no respect from the football coach. Once, after a humiliating loss he said, “Boys, bus leaves in 15 minutes…be under it.”

Why didn’t you play in the band, she asks? I’m incredulous. Are you nuts? What, parade around in cast-off Salvation Army uniforms for public humiliation? Wear used Shriner’s hats with plumage and tassels? No way. Besides, our halftime shows always consisted of a cross. It usually prophesied our demise. Band was dangerous. Often, after “Nearer My God to Thee,” the clarinet section would get confused, wander off in a swoon. Some were never seen again.

Well, just write about the music of your era, she says. I tell her the Beatles had timing. We were at the end of our glory days. Jerry Lee and Chuck had joined AA and were blacklisted. Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, RIP, left us tragically in an Iowa blizzard. Elvis enlisted in the army and lost his hair. The music business was in turmoil.

Then the Beatles appear, fill the void, setting the stage for the Hippie Generation with the tune, “All My Loving.” They hit the South Georgia sweet spot with, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Holding hands was a big deal, the first step to back-seat escapades, which rarely happened. We dreamed a lot in high school.

My first attempt at romance was while watching a Tarzan movie with my date. Tarzan is wrestling a gorilla, protecting Jane and Boy. They’re wearing loin cloths, an exciting idea at the time. My date is tense. She squirms, grips the seat. Our fingers touch. The gorilla growls. So do I. She grasps my wrist. Tarzan grabs a vine, swings into the jungle with Jane and Boy.

We saw that movie five times. The last time my arm found its way around her shoulder. From that moment on we became Tarzan and Jane. I thought a lot about Boy after that.

Summarize your experiences, she says. Well, mostly music, I say, the ultimate escape from reality. We enshrined our era’s tunes: Jerry Lee’s “Whole Lot of Shaking;” Bopper’s “White Lightning;” Berry’s “Maybellene;” and Elvis’ “Hunk of Burning Love.”

We missed the Beatles, but if I had to choose a song that would have fit our predicament, it would have been, “Can’t Buy Me Love.”

Come back to earth, she says. Clean it up; get it to me by noon tomorrow. She’s tough to the end.

I thought about it. High school years are pregnant with promise. Who can summarize them? I’m no longer Tarzan. My Jane moved to Alabama and there was no Boy. Sometimes we all get lucky.


Bud Hearn
February 14, 2014

Simple Pleasures

Clichés come cheap. The idiom currently making the rounds is, “…get my arms around it.” Expressive to the edge of overuse, it serves to make a point. Especially with the small things of life, which includes most everything.

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Recently a slick ad graced the cover of the Wall Street Journal magazine section. It was one of those studio conceits. You know, those fabrications concocted by Mad men to create needs they purport to satisfy by selling you something. The icon for the ‘something’ was a gorgeous teenage girl, or transgender boy (who can tell anymore?). Wonder what it was selling?

The model stood aloof, evocative, wearing a clingy white silk blouse, open front, with white pants. A Cote d’ Azure classic. The caption read, “Simple Pleasures.” It should have read, “Expensive Merchandise.” Getting one’s arms around a siren is difficult.

While it was pretty to look at, it was hard to envision anyone taking the ad seriously. Certainly not women. They know that the way is hard and the gate is narrow that leads to this look. It’s not simple, and surely not a pleasure. It requires a reduction of things, including age, starvation diets and avoidance of all things chocolate, all unpleasant pursuits.

Maybe the intention was to stir some smoldering, latent passion in men, especially old ones, who tire of looking at Dow Jones stock stats. The ones you see drooling at manikins in Victoria Secret windows. Finance will hold one’s attention only so long.

But moving on. There’re simple pleasures far less complicated than those pimped by provocative advertising. Take dogs, for example. Who can deny the simple pleasures derived from such loving creatures? They’re easy to get your arms around. Predictable and loving. Plus, they forget your faults.

Feed them anything, they’ll never leave. Unlike children, they’ll even feed themselves, consuming anything associated with trouble. Sometimes I think our dogs are so lazy they’d be bed ridden if served food on a tray.

Outdoor showers…now there’s a super simple pleasure. Add ambience with tropical plants, a stucco wall and enjoy the epitome of an au natural experience. Luxuriating in the sunlight under a huge shower-head is as close to heaven as one can get on this side of the grass…naked we come, naked we go. To compliment a man’s excessive hubris and narcissistic nature, add a mirror. Men are well-known for hugging themselves!

I would like to hug Mrs. Smith. She bakes cherry pies. Swimming in butter, slathered with Crisco and saturated in sugar, there’s no simpler pleasure on earth. I’ve often expressed deep devotion, my arms wrapped around a plate of her hot pie, vanilla ice cream melting on top. A sensual, epicurean delight even gastric juices applaud.

Fire pits…a primordial but simple pleasure you can get your arms around. Figuratively, of course. They’re reminiscent of romance. Conversation is superfluous. Staring into the flaming orange coals is mesmerizing. Their heat beats back the blackness of cold, lonely nights. Like love itself, hot and fiery, they pulsate, gasping for breath, consuming themselves into cold ashes. A good reminder to keep ones home fires burning.

Who can hate a rainy day? They’re ripe for simple pleasures. Find an old photo album, thumb through it, laugh at yourself, your children and the old days. Memories, like ghosts of the past, emerge from hidden cranial caverns into vivid recollections. Old polyester suits live again!

Simple pleasures are less about longevity than relevance. Remember the freedom of riding bikes on the silent dirt roads of our youth? Unmitigated delight. Try that today…you will be despised, cursed, or crushed. Avoid people. Buy a spin bike.

Unfortunately, simple pleasures, like expensive ones, are fleeting. Take songs, for example. My favorite for years was The Dance, by Garth. I lived its words and literally wore it out. Nothing lasts forever.

Come to think of it, maybe nothing beats a slow dance with your lover for simple pleasure. Bodies merge, cheeks meet, lips touch, arms encircle, hearts tingle, worries disappear, time stops. For an brief, ephemeral moment the moon will be yours.

Now, for Valentine’s Day, that’s a simple pleasure really worth getting your arms around…

Bud Hearn
February 10, 2014