Comments on: Memorial Day Dinner

By: smokey

smokey — Tue, 30 May 2006 03:39:52 +0000

I like to play baseball with whiffle balls too. But I can’t admit that to my fellow midwesterners. Here in the home of the free and the brave and the macho, most people laugh at Californians for a whole variety of reasons. Whiffleball is one of them. The word SanFrancisco is another. I’m embarrassed for all these things. But I did go along with the rest of the family–we had about thirty people. Someone baked a ham and a lot of people made pies, the usual kind of fruit ones. Mashed potatoes and peas and salads– to the playground of the school where my uncle is principal and his wife the librarian. My grandmother lives with them, and I think that she will take a turn with our family soon. I feel like I am getting younger as I write this. Back in time kind of thing. We had about fifteen people playing baseball. We played with an actual baseball. By the way no one was impressed with your Barry Bonds breaking the Babe’s record. People in this family SAW the Babe hit home runs in Tiger stadium and he didn’t have to take drugs to hit ‘em. Well, that’s what people here say. I’m sorry about that. My dad used to canoe and kayak on the Detroit river. My mother taught English in high school, but is retired now. We played baseball even after most of the adults got tired and left the kids to play. That built up another appetite for some ham sandwiches before everyone got in their cars for rides home, some as much as a hundred miles or more to Ohio and Chicago. None of them lives in Indiana. There was a scrabble game before they left. I won. We also had a ping pong game, but no one was very good. For next year’s family reunion, I’m going to try to get people to grill you steak tips. Let me know about some of your other recipes and favorite foods. I’m glad you write about food topics. I like your writing. I’m not sure what the folks here would say. But they should read it. It might bring them into this century. I think the other reason people here don’t want to come to California is they heard you don’t have fireflies.
Keep writing. I enjoy everything. I see you are getting lots of hits on your site. You should.
Smokey

By: bloglily

bloglily — Tue, 30 May 2006 02:47:42 +0000

Ping pong. A lot of ping pong. A homerun derby, in which each participant got pitched ten whiffleballs. No complaining about the quality of the pitching was tolerated. An arbitrary spot (out of the courtyard) was designated home run territory. The person who hit the most whiffleballs out of the courtyard with the large yellow plastic bat won the derby. The winner was not an adult. We did not play croquet. There isn’t really any grass to speak of where we were. We did hike — we saw a snake, a lot of rabbits, deer, cattle. As for drinks, the adults made do with wine and beer. It used to be that we went in for fancy mixed drinks before dinner. This year, we brought noticeably less food and far less structure around pre-dinner drinks. This seemed to be a good idea. I hope your midwestern Memorial Day was a fine one.

By: smokey

smokey — Tue, 30 May 2006 01:54:53 +0000

Wow! I’m going to keep these recipes for my next big family gathering. But I’ll make twice the brownies. Us Michiganders like brownies. Everything else also sounds great. What did people drink besides coca cola and iced tea, I assume? Did you play croquet or ping pong or baseball?
Smokey