borrowing a meme – dumb shit i did when i was young

Yesterday I commented on a blog post by Ryoku861 entitled “Dumb Shit I did When I was Young.” Her post was funny as hell, and she asked readers to comment on their dumb shit moments. You’d hope this would be relatively difficult, you’d think you didn’t really do too much dumb shit, you’d think even if you did some dumb shit you wouldn’t want to brag about it. You think you’d have wiped those dumb shit moments from your memory. Judging by how many replies she got and how quickly I could think of so many I had trouble picking one you’d be thinking wrong.

And… Coming off a long Christmas vacation no longer a burnt out corporate drone I was looking for a spur back into blogging, and commenting on her post was fun, so let’s see how long I last this time. In the meantime, here’s the short version of the story I posted on her blog “Me, Myself, and I.” As did most of my adventures with brother Mikie, the long version entails so much juvenile violence, profanity, sibling rivalry, animal cruelty (the ants, the ants, chill out PETA members), parental perception, and overall stupidity it deserves a post of its’ own someday. In the meantime thanks Ryoku861 for the prod, and here’s my reply to her post.

We had a tree stump in the back yard that had been taken over by red ants, which sucked because when you got too close they attacked and man they stung! Before the ants showed up that stump was 3rd base in our wiffle ball field, and we wanted it back as spring was getting really close, and with it wiffle ball season. We’d heard my father say we’d have to burn the ants out so we figured we’d help him out. We borrowed the new power mower gas can from the garage and soaked that sucker down!. Brother Mikie had some matches, we got up real close to make sure we could flick a lit match INTO the stump and FWOOOOPH!!!… or something like that….. 10 foot fireball . Luckily we had planned ahead and the garden hose was close by… but we hadn’t turned on the water. After a short fight about whose fault this one was gonna be one of us, I can’t remember which, turned on the water and we managed to keep the fire from spreading. Killed all the damn ants though.

Thought we had it made til we went in the house for supper and Mom and Dad just sat there staring at us. We had no idea why til my father, eyes narrowed in suspicion looked at me, looked at my mother, looked at brother Mikie, looked at my mother, looked at both of us together and quietly and ominously said…”the two a ya’s, what the hell happened to your eyebrows?” Singed em all clean off!

taylor ham, isn’t that something like bologna?

Do you realize the easiest way to find a blog related to New Jersey is to Google “taylor ham”?  The term “new jersey” will bring back millions of hits, but if you’re looking for blogs about the Garden State “taylor ham” will get you there faster. And almost every one of those hits will say something like “exclusive to NJ” or “Jersey’s secret” or “a delicacy found only in New Jersey.” Seems our favorite breakfast food isn’t much appreciated beyond the reaches of the turnpike.

When I first left moved away from Jersey I searched in vain for a Jersey Special sandwich. Up and down the east coast, the west coast, the midwest, and the south, no one had even heard of Taylor Ham. I made special side trips across the river when I had business in NYC. I made my parents bring the deli sized 5 lb roll when they came to visit. I doubt you can get that through airport security these days. When I settled in the southland I tried to find an alternative: spam, fried bologna, my wife tried to get me to eat liver pudding (don’t ask). No luck. So I became resigned to looking forward to those rare occasions when I actually visited New  Jersey, making sure we made plans to hit up a diner for breakfast at least one morning for a fix.

Then a strange thing began to happen. As more and more Jersey natives began to migrate to the southland they began asking the grocery store and deli managers where the Taylor Ham was. Usually the request was met with a blank stare of ignorance. But over time a small candle flickered to life.

While shopping for groceries in our small SC town I noticed a little red box in the refrigerated meats section. 8 slices of “Taylor Ham” for $4.00. Steep yes, but way cheaper than a plane ticket. There were 3 boxes on the shelf, an experiment to see if there was any demand. I grabbed them all, trying to make sure they’d get more. We had eggs and cheese, all that was missing was the hard roll. Turns out you can’t get them here either, but you make do with what you can. A toasted bagel turned out to be workable. I took it home, started to fry it up for lunch, and made some extra for my wife to try. While I was in ecstasy with my bagel sandwich my wife’s response? – “it tastes like fried bologna”. I was enjoying myself too much to try and set her straight.

Since that day I see it more and more easily available. At least 2 southern supermarket chains carry it in the deli section, sliced to order. Or you can  buy a small one pound roll, wrapped in the traditional beige cloth and plastic and slice it yourself. There’s still a long way to go though. I don’t know about northern grocery stores, but here when you order cold cuts and specify how to slice it whoever is working the deli will slice off a test cut and hold it up so you can make sure you get what you want. More often than not they’ll offer you that slice as a sample. The first time I got a chance at taylor ham I ordered a pound, sliced about 1 ounce per slice, this being the preferred thickness so it cooks properly, neither too thin so it’s too crispy, nor too thick which makes it hard to cook it uniformly. The nice southern woman sliced off a couple test slices til she got the thickness right, and when I told her she had it she smiled, held out the slice, and asked “would you like this as a sample?”  I explained that Taylor Ham had to be cooked to be eaten and a very confused look crossed her face – “looks like bologna to me” she said and all I could do was shake my head.

As Jerseyans continue their southward migration it gets easier and easier to get Taylor Ham in the store. You still won’t find it on a breakfast menu anywhere down here, though even that may be ready to change. There’s a NY Deli in Calabash NC that has a Jersey Special on the breakfast menu. For $3.00 you get taylor ham, 2 fried eggs, and cheese on a fresh baked hard roll with coffee and orange juice. Last Saturday morning I heard a “Jersey Special” ordered in a classic southern accent. I thought that was pretty cool til the woman looked down at her feet while explaining – “it’s for my daughter in law, she’s visiting from NJ. I don’t know what that stuff is, is it like bologna?”

ugly new jersey

We from New Jersey always wonder why we’ve got such a bad rep outside of our lovely home state. Today I was reminded that it only takes one to ruin it for the rest of us.

I’m down the shore for a couple of weeks, working and relaxing. Earlier I was over at one of our property owners’ pools, just trying to relax before the new wave of vacationing touristas checked in and loosed their screaming hordes of children on our otherwise quiet little community. Because of past damage done by that screaming horde we now have pool monitors at each of our pools, ostensibly to make sure only property owners and their guests use the facility, renters go to the renters’ facilities, and no vandalism occurs. These pool monitors are residents, usually retired folks or their spouses. For 8 bucks an hour they sit and sweat in the sun from June to September and try to control other people’s children, who for some reason think that just because they’re on vacation they can do whatever they want (I’m talking about the parents, not the kids). The pool monitor this morning was an extremely nice guy named Bob (names have been changed protect the unknowing).

Bob is by nature a very gregarious guy, and he introduces himself this way… “Hi, I’m Bob, nice to see you. I’m a head trauma survivor and I have a speech impediment, I’m not drunk or anything.” Bob says this because he barely survived a car crash with a drunken driver when he was 21, and if you didn’t know about his injuries you’d swear he was drunk because of how he speaks. And right after his introduction Bob starts asking questions – where are you from, how long you staying, don’t you like our weather, pretty much anything to start a conversation.

There were a lot of early birds around the pool this morning, and one of the corner tables was taken by some renters. It’s easy to tell the renters from the residents – the renters haul in a 30 gallon cooler full of 2 or 3 days worth of drinks and food, baskets full of newly purchased pool toys for their kids, and even this late in the season they’re usually pasty white from not having been out in the sun since last year’s vacation.  Along with the cooler they carry a  beach bag containing a couple iPods, 4 cameras, at least one phone each, 12 magazines, 3 books, 4 drink coozies, a 2 gallon bottle of SPF 50 sun screen, some bug spray, and a couple of those god awful “sun hats” they sell in the souvenir stores. I’ve seen them take 2 or 3 trips back and forth to the car to get it all. Residents come with a bottle of water, a baggie with a sandwich or some fruit, a book, a towel, and a 4 oz tube of Coppertone, SPF15.

As the 4 parents were starting to unpack Bob walked over to help them with setting up the table umbrella. As he usually does he introduced himself and asked where they were from. When they answered “New Jersey, about 45 minutes from Philly airport” Bob perked up. Bob’s from close to the same area, just on the PA side of the state line. A seemingly warm conversation struck up as they zeroed in on places they all knew or had spent time. At one point Bob said something one of the guys didn’t understand and he looked at Bob and said “what’dusay?” Bob repeated his answer a little more slowly, taking care to speak as clearly as he could. He then started to explain about his speech problem again, and as he started to say “I’m a head trauma survivor..” the guy who asked turned to the others and loudly asked “So waddawe got, two packs of hot dogs for supper? Am I cooking two packs or what?” He continued to talk about buns, onions, condiments, whatever he could to deliberately ignore and dismiss Bob. It was 11 am by the way, and their lunch was safely packed away in their 30 gallon cooler under the table.

Bob has a speech problem, he’s not impaired. Besides, you’d have to be dead not to recognize how crass that was. Still, Bob excused himself, telling the dickhead that if they needed any help or information on local restaurants or whatever they should just ask him, he’d be there til 3. He then continued on around the pool, straightening the deck furniture til he got around to the stairs into the pool. Bob got in the pool acting like nothing happened while I stood not far from him in the water just pissed as hell at how rude that was. And I was thinking that THIS is why people from Jersey get such a bad rap, because of guys like that one. Yeah, as a group we’re loud, we’re crude, we’re judgmental, aloof, arrogant, and pushy. I’ve been married to a southern woman for 25 years and my in-laws will still only admit to being “used to him”. I recognize, embrace, and try to smooth my rough edges, but I earned them in the Garden State and they can only be polished so much. But I’m not and I don’t know many of us who are so deliberately rude and belittling. Unfortunately, everyone else that was around that pool this morning went home thinking that people from New Jersey are nothing but rude obnoxious jerks. Between guys like this, and the trash that is “Jersey Shore” what are they supposed to think.

BTW, lest you think I was eavesdropping – the pool area isn’t that big and everyone there heard and saw the entire incident. And Bob? Bob and I were in the pool, and as he walked past me he glanced at me and said “do you believe that asshole?”. He said it quietly, but I noticed the elderly women sitting 2 tables down from the cafone (Urban Dictionary, def #1) burst out laughing.  So did I.