Fifty Memories for Mom - Nos. 31-35

35. You brewed your unsweetened iced tea out on the sidewalk whenever it was sunny.

34. We all loved Fireside Inn, but I don’t think anyone could appreciate it quite like you did. For one week a year, you finally got to rest. You always packed a thick stack of books and a huge basket of snacks to hold us over from breakfast to dinner.

33. Your visit during the World Series, and the hijinks that ensued between you and Beth Hudson. (You two are completely insane together—and I mean that in the nicest way possible.) The greasy-spoon breakfast was one highlight of that trip.

32. On trips to the grocery store when we were young and cranky, you'd send us on missions to find this or that. Genius. And guess what? We never got kidnapped.

31. From age 28 to 53—a quarter century!—your life revolved around raising your four kids to love Jesus and love others.

Fifty Memories for Mom - Nos. 36-40

40. You smoked us out of the house with a burned, charred-solid turkey. You were a little flustered when you picked me up from middle school that afternoon, and I could sense right away that something was a bit off. Most likely, I was tipped off by the plume of smoke trailing you from the minivan into the building.

39. Your countless hours in the kitchen. I could make another list of your top 50 kitchen creations, topped by your legendary homemade granola. (The turkey a la carbon wouldn’t make the cut.)

38. You let us sign up for two days per week to buy lunch at school. The other three days, we packed. To this day I still place a high value on a well-packed lunch and remember the little notes you would sneak into our bags.

37. Having snacks ready for us when we got home from school. At least until we were old enough to raid the fridge on our own. Oh, and the flip-n-sip water bottles you stashed in the fridge door. “Refill your water bottle!”

36. With you riding shotgun and ABBA blaring, I got pulled over by a trooper on a country road in Michigan for going way too fast. (I think you secretly enjoyed it.)

Fifty Memories for Mom - Nos. 41-45

45. With the possible exception of Dan's drum set, you always encouraged the four of us to play music in the house. For a while, even you took piano lessons.

44. You always taught us to think for ourselves and to never compare ourselves to others. You had no patience for cries of “Everyone else is doing it!”

43. You always have some home-improvement or painting project going at home or at the cabin. The image that has stuck with me is you painting the guest house wearing the “Tough Old Bird” T-shirt.

42. You made five different types of macaroni and cheese for my taste-test science project in eighth grade. Not to mention the half-dozen Science Fairs you endured.

41. The mythical deer on April Fools’ Day. “There’s a deer in the front yard!” you hollered, and all four kids scrambled to the door. “It just went around to the back!” And we ran circles around the house until you cackled. You were really proud of yourself.

Fifty Memories for Mom - Nos. 46-50

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  In your honor, over the next 10 days, I am counting down my top 50 memories of you through the years.  Hope you enjoy them.


50. You gave each of your four kids a plot of land in the backyard as our own gardens. A very shrewd move—it kept us occupied; kept us outside; filled up garden space with minimal effort on your part; and even put vegetables on the table!

49. Hot cocoa breaks for us and the neighbor kids on snow days. What a cool mom.

48. Brisk morning walks around the neighborhood with you, Dad, me and the dog, and doing the same at the cabin.

47. Your taxi service anywhere and anytime—especially for my early-morning baseball workouts in high school. Of course, those same workouts compelled(?) you to take over my morning paper route, and on one icy morning you slipped and broke your arm while I ran wind sprints in a sweaty gym.

46. Your relentless teasing after my “Meijer Turn.” I took it gladly, because you could have teased me over far worse things than that. Also, we could have been killed.

R.I.P., Beard

Take a good look at the beard, because you're not going to see it much longer. I decided that with the Winter Meetings coming up this week, it was time to clean myself up...

I could go for the baseball lifer look...but it's not as convincing without flecks of gray in the fu manchu.

    

 

Making progress...

 

Perfection!

Dear Inlet Bay

This is an actual email I just sent to the managers of my apartment complex.  I'm so glad we just renewed our lease this week.

Hello,

I’m in apartment (XXX). I’m not sure there is anything that can be done (legally) about this, but a resident/neighbor of mine is flying a Confederate flag from the back of his monster truck. He’s been parked here (near building 16) for at least a week now. Needless to say, it looks very trashy and I think it reflects negatively on this apartment complex.

Sorry, I just had to say something...thanks!!

Dave

The Omelet to End All Omelets

Shadow gets friendly with a totem pole in downtown Seattle.

It was a typical September day in Seattle, Wash.  Beams of sunlight splintered through mostly-cloudy skies. The crisp air smelled of fallen rain and pine trees.

It was 2005.  I had graduated from Taylor three months prior and my old roommate, Shadow, one year before me.  We flew into Seattle to begin our road trip down the Pacific Coast and rented a car at the airport.  After a two-hour detour in downtown Seattle, we drove another 10 miles north -- with the windows down and the sun setting -- to our first real destination.  He parked on a hilly residential side street. 

Around the corner was Beth's Café.  I had read about their infamous 12-egg omelets in a book called Road Food and couldn't pass up the challenge.  It was a modest-looking restaurant, painted blue.  Inside were a wide variety of people.  Hipsters in flannel.  A retired couple.  Teenyboppers in black.  Mexicans.  The walls were covered with taped-up scraps of paper with crayon illustrations from customers.  A mellowed-out waitress with several tattoos seated us and poured me coffee. 

Giddy, we explained how we had sojourned 2,500 miles for a pair of 12-egg omelets.  I felt like I was in a Monty Python movie hunting down the holy grail.  She didn't share our enthusiasm, and threw down a fistful of crayons to keep us distracted.  Fifteen minutes later, they arrived:

They were served on a veritable mountain of hash browns.  It wasn't really my plan to conquer it all at once, but we did our best.  I ate a little more than half of my plate.  We boxed up the leftovers, dropped them in a cooler -- which didn't help much -- and finished them off over the next couple days as breakfast outside our tent.  It was the first of many adventures on that trip.  (That same night, in a tent about 50 yards away from ours, a tripped-out woman screamed through the night that her leg was broken and she needed a medic.)

Last night I was talking with Shadow on the phone and the topic turned to the Seattle leg of our trip.  Turns out, his brother tipped him off that Travel Channel's Man vs. Food featured Beth's Café and the very same "throw rug of eggs" earlier this year.  In fact, they held an eating contest between two guys to see who could finish it first.  It should be noted that their Southwestern omelets -- loaded with beef brisket chili, salsa, and sour cream -- are a slightly different animal than our more traditional plates.  (If the video below doesn't work, follow this link.)