November 21, 2018 I cannot get through a night before Thanksgiving without the memories of our Bayonne kitchen – 50th Street, not 15th Street – as my mother began her Thanksgiving cooking.

November 21, 2018

I cannot get through a night before Thanksgiving without the memories of our Bayonne kitchen – 50^th Street, not 15^th Street – as my mother began her Thanksgiving cooking. She used a 10/12-inch see-through Pyrex skillet [“see-through Pyrex skillet”?] to prepare her stuffing. It was not an old family recipe. My Mom kept a tin of drippings from previous meals on top of the stove. If you were born when Truman was President you know what I mean. If you were born when Eisenhower was creating the missile gap it was Pam for the pan before there was Pam.

Onion, celery, bacon, an odd bit of ham from the back of the fridge – “fridge”? – with some shakes from a few spice cans using the Justin Wilson measurement method. My job was simple. Some loaves of unsliced white bread would appear on Sunday and they would be opened so they could become a bit hard by Wednesday night. I had to tear them into bite size chunks so the juices from the Pyrex would be absorbed. The bread would be put into a 5-gallon pot and mixed with the stuff simmering on the stove. “Stove Top Stuffing” before there was stove top stuffing. Into the ice box – I bought a broken-down ice box in 1970 for $5. I spent about $80 getting it refinished. I sold it for $450 when I was hot-footing it out of Jersey in 1996 – along with the turkey, with the size of the turkey being decided by the number of plates at the table.

And the aroma is coming back to me. Where are the snows of yesteryear?

I grew up in a library. Thank God Andrew Carnegie made all that money. He took some of it and built a magnificent one in Bayonne, across the street from where Amy was raised. 2 things of note about 700 Avenue C: #1 – The brick, intended for the construction of Bayonne High School, somehow wound up at an empty lot. #2 – Felix Milwid, great great grandfather of my Texas ladies, gave it to their great grandmother as a wedding present. Not your typical wedding present but a story that speaks well of Bayonne.

When I left Bayonne for Orange, NJ, I was pleased to find another Carnegie library. It was a smaller version of the one in Bayonne but it was an architectural gem. [I think the ugliest public building I have ever seen is Northeast High School in Oakland Park, FL. No owned Johnny can’t read. His latent sense of the aesthete is overwhelmed by banal mediocrity.]

I mention libraries because I went to the main library in Ft, Lauderdale last March. One of the benefits of being from Bayonne is that you have a 6^th sense, an eye behind your ear, a double-helix infused feeling of what the Hell is going on. I found out that the esplanade by the front door is now Ground Zero for the homeless in Broward County. As I got to the front door, a door that was locked at 11:00AM for good reason, the personal DEW system went off. [DEW system? Does anyone else remember the string of Texas Towers in the North Atlantic?] Followed? Stalked? Who cares? I am a disable senior citizen with 3 titanium joints. Easy picking for feral vagrants. Not that day. I have an impressive cane that can be used for multi-tasking. 

I mention the above because in the almost six months since my interrupted library trip -  WARRIORBARDIT.BLOGSPOT.COM March 3, 2018 – it has gotten worse. To Hell with the mob coming to break into our country. We have one running rampant in our country!

I watched a bit of “The Great McGinty” last night. After a week of Jemima Abrams bitch about voting procedures, I turned to Hollywood for guidance. I have previously mentioned “Key Largo” where Thomas Gomez puts flesh on Joe Stalin commenting on elections. “Who cares who votes. It’s who counts the votes that matters.” Gomez says that you count them and count them and count them until you get the right number. Governor Scott went from 52,000 to 12,000 in the blink of an eye. McGinty is promised $2 for every vote he casts for Mayor Tillinghast. He earns $74 for his work that day. Director Preston Sturges served as a role model for the Coen Brothers. I get confused. Is it art imitating life or the other way around? Duval County 1948, Chicago 1960, Oregon 1998, Minnesota 2004. Row A, All the Way. Hot stoves, anyone?

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The “wine dark sea” of confusion is rising.

Trump criticizes the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Chief Justice says there are no Trump Judges, that there are no Obama Judges, and surely there are no Bush or Clinton Judges. The modern American Liberals who make up the “loony Left”, as recently retired Senator McCaskill, [D-MO] pre-election described them, have spent 8 years in true venomous snarl mode criticizing the Citizens’ United decision. Presumably, Diane Feinstein, the meaner than cat shit Senator [D-CA]who called Judge Kavanaugh a “serial rapist” because she thought his judicial temperament was beyond the pale. 2 women have told me, and since they are broads they must be believed, that she tutored Monica Lewinsky on certain interpersonal body fluid exchanges. My sources must remain confidential. “Eclectic indignation” can be a bitch sometimes.

See if you can clear this one up for me.

Walmart is evil. Chick-fil-a is Satanic. Amazon is OK, even though they treat their employees like shit, as long as Jeff Bezos keeps pissing in Trump’s soup and gets a gazillion dollars from raging Socialist Mayor DeBlasio with full support from Governor Cuomo, a Papa Francisco Socialist. Where’s Dorothy Day when you really need her?

Kevin Smith

WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

PS – Speaking of Presidents not getting along with Judges, does anyone else remember FDR trying to “pack” the Court? The idea went nowhere but the Court never ruled against him, again. Look it up. I guess “the wish of the Prince has the force of Law” still applies. How about Andy “By God” Jackson telling John Marshall to shove his writ up his ass? Look that one up also.