11,218. RUDIMENTS, pt 463

RUDIMENTS, pt. 463

(denny's hits avenel?)

It's all just in how you

want to live. I had no

special treasures, and

made no special claims.

And goodness, if I did,

I would not have stuck

around there (Avenel).

Hey! Wait a minute,

I didn't. Had I been

born a muleskinner

(whatever that is

anyway), Avenel could

not have been more

foreign or alienating to

me, past a certain point :

a nice cradle, but once

one learns to walk, not

good for much. I admit,

things have changed :

40 years ago the local

fire-whistle blew nightly

at 7pm. Now it blows

nightly at 6:55. The

world has changed?

-

I like to study, and learn.

There are lots of fun things

to take from everywhere,

but most people remain

too busy being serious to

take the advantage it

affords. James Joyce's

father, Simon, portrayed

in the fictional accounts

and mentioned and

described often, as

sometimes antagonist,

other times a foil, has

been shown to have had

some wit, actually : late

in life, presented in old

age with Brancusi's (an

artist) 'portrait' of his son,

which consisted of three

parallel lines and a whorl,

he's recorded as having

remarked, 'The boy seems

to have changed a great

deal.'

-

Well, anyway, that's fun

stuff. And why shouldn't

it be? I get really tired

of those who can't jerk

around, laugh or make

light. Remember, wasn't

that the first thing

God made?

-

The other day I asked my

wife  -  who likes cooking

and recipes and all that  - 

why we couldn't just eat

chips all the time and forget

all that crud about meal

preparation and recipes 

and all that stuff. I've 

never been a food guy, 

in fact, I detest eating.

It all gets wasted on me,

which is too bad, because

she really and truly enjoys

savoring tastes and textures

and flavors. We're quite

mis-matched. To me, any

expenditure of time or 

effort in food preparation 

isn't really defensible. Which

is a problem, because I also

refuse to eat food prepared

by 'commerce.' Food for

profit enrages me. You

simply know that after

maybe one week of their

best, most-pretentious

effort, any restaurant in

the world begins skimping 

where they can so as to

advance the bottom line.

Commercial food, and 

fast food, I consider as 

government poison  -  a 

spectacular effort underway

by a business and government

combine to poison and destroy

the populace with fats and 

greases and oils and unholy 

combinations of additives, 

growth hormones, filth 

and slop. Let alone the

pity due to the animal

kingdom for what is done

to it so humans can fart.

Anyway, I asked why 'they'

(whoever they would end up

being, probably the people

who poison us slowly 

anyway) couldn't just take

those ingredients 'good' for

and turn them into chips.

In the next few days I got

my answer, in the form of

chips she started buying :

vegetable chips, grouped

or singly by vegetable.

I kind of liked them all,

but I do guess it would get

boring, and salty too. But,

still, it's an option?

-

This happened to me twice 

before too  -  in the early 

80's I critiqued a food a

bit too hard and blurted

out, 'I don't know why you

go through all this trouble.

I could survive just as well

on Dinty Moore.' Uh oh!!

That was all I got for about

a month, until I was like 

to gag if I had another. She

won. And it also happened

with cereal. Bad move. So,

I do reluctantly eat, small

doses, an she's my dietitian,

strictly. Me and food just

never cared too much for

each other.

- 

I remember, in Avenel, which

through my early days had

been, if anything at all, a diner

town - a highway stop with a

few diners (mostly it always

seemed for already-fat people,

who, I thought, could as easily

for sure skipped the stop if

they had any will-power. 

Eating is all habit anyway). 

It's certainly not necessary 

every day, MOST certainly 

not three times a day, and

whatever or whoever came

up with all that crap about

three balanced meals and the

(changeable) food pyramid,

was full of it, and was probably

calorie-fat too. Easily, eating

can be frugally done as an

every-other-day rigor, but no

one owns up to that because

of addiction. The rest is the

propaganda of those poisoning 

you, who, of course, stand to

gain....ANYWAY, as I was

starting to say, I remember

how startled I was the first

time a national-name food

eatery hit town. Of course,

there had been Howard 

Johnson's, for years, where

the Cadillac dealer is now, and

across the highway from that,

Stanley's Diner, which was

truly local. Howard Johnson's

was not, though the local

family franchising it, Peter

Cetera, as I recall, was. It

wasn't until later that there

was a Chock Full O'Nuts

on Route One, 50 yards

south of Howard Johnson's,

and then yes, of course, the

swarm of McDonald's hit.
(Actually, it's hard not to 
type that casually and have 
'McDonald's hit' appear to
me as 'McDonald's shit.)' 

But the one, I'd have to say,

that really blew me away,

long about 1978, was when

Denny's moved in, and right

across from St. George Press.

It was all fake and frozen,

crap food, and everyone knew

that, but (to me) the fact

was that the only other times

I'd seen Denny's restaurants

were adjacent to airports and

hotels, and of course all over

California. It was about as

local as International Spit,

but when Denny's came to

Avenel, man what a  wake-up 

that was. I'm not saying it

was good for anyone's health

and well-being, mental or

for dietary reasons, but

there it was.