Lemon Bars, A Tale of Misspent Youth

My wife asked me a while ago how I was doing. It was a beautiful summer day and I was at the grill flipping burger and cooking brats. I didn't put a lot of thought into my answer but I meant what I said.

"Baby, as long as there aren't wheels on my house or crackers in my burger, I'm good."

That sums up my view of success. I want to make sure my children are never hungry and they have a stable home with stairs on the inside and no wheels on the outside.

After my parents divorced, my dad moved to the south side of town and we moved to a trailer court on the north end of the lake. My mom knew that she would be trapped working crap jobs the rest of her life unless she got a degree, so she went back to school. She also worked a crappy job. I was a latchkey kid at 12 before I'd ever heard the term.

Money was very tight. Paydays happened, as they often do, every two weeks. By the end of those two weeks, there were times when the cupboards were bare and the fridge was empty. We were around $5,000 under the poverty line and one day my mom sat me down and asked me if I thought we should take welfare. We could get money and food stamps. I could tell that she hated the idea and even though I was not quite a teenager, I had been raised by a man that didn't believe in asking for help to do things you could do for yourself. I told her no. I told her I could work and she seemed relieved. She also told me it would be hard. She was right.

There were two exceptions to our decision not to take a hand out. The first was free lunches at school. I got a pink meal card instead of the blue ones other families bought with cash. During the school year, that one meal made a huge difference and I would often stay late and take advantage of the seconds that were offered at the end of mealtime. Most often these seconds were burgers or pizza, and on rare magical days, there were pizza burgers.

The other exception was butter and cheese. This was a program started by Reagan. The cheese came in five-pound blocks, and the butter in one-pound squares. Each family that qualified got one of each per month. I would like to believe that their choice of distribution locations was unconscious. I would like to but I just can't. They handed out the free cheese and butter at a building right next to Paul and Babe. We waited in a long line that stretched into the parking lot next to the main road that ran north and south through the town. People that didn’t need the free dairy handout would stare and sometimes honk, pointing. I hated that line, but I loved the cheese. I still have occasional cravings.

For those of you that are too young to remember, the recession back in the late 70's and early 80's was a real ball buster. We also had gas shortages and a long line of cars at the gas station was a common site, even in Bemidji. Those were scary times in America and the first major wake up call we'd had since before WWII.

That summer, I got my first job. It was at a restaurant washing dishes. I started off working mostly weekends, but got up to forty hours a week by the time I was fifteen. They didn't have a machine, and all dishes had to go through three large stainless steal sinks, the first with a harsh cleanser, then a rinse and finally plain water. My hands peeled down to the meat from the cleanser and I always smelled like a combination of detergent and grease. I would get a meal and minimum wage, which wasn't too shabby.  Still, there were times, especially during the week in the summers, were food got a bit scarce.

Those were the days when I would visit Bill's house around lunchtime. Bill's was a regular hang out regardless of the time of day and I don't remember ever making a conscious choice to go to Bill's in hopes of being fed. It wasn't a plan or a strategy. Or perhaps, I just wouldn’t admit it even to myself at the time.

There were no wheels on their house. It even had stairs, both up and down. That vision of "home", has stayed with me for the rest of my life and it is what I have tried to replicate for my family. We fall short of course, we aren't like Bill's mom, but even close is good enough. Bill's mother is one of the kindness, most generous women I have ever met. Her house was always meticulous and the overall sensation of her home was like being wrapped in a warm blanket of love. In retrospect, it's obvious that she knew about my situation. There are no secrets in a town like Bemidji, but she never let on that she knew and I'm pretty sure she never said anything to Bill.

It seemed that she was always baking or had just finished baking. There were always leftovers in the fridge along with fruit, snacks, cold cuts and Cranapple drink. The pantry was stuffed full of pasta, soups, crackers, cookies and chips. Bill's mom was always smiling, always welcoming and always offering me something to eat, especially her world famous lemon bars.

There was one small problem. Bill was not exactly appreciative of his friends coming over and eating his food. You see I wasn't the only one. Jason would also show up at opportune times. We seemed to be able to sense or perhaps we could smell the lemon bars from miles away.  Bill loved those bars more than life itself, as did we all. Resentment began to build, though it was never malevolent. Bill's mom insisted that he be a generous host even if she wasn't around, but she never said he couldn't play dirty. We all loved games, war games especially, and at some point, Bill invented his own game. The goal was simple. Find something that Jason and I didn’t like to eat. This wasn't a fast game, oh no. This was a strategy game that spanned years.

While he mounted his campaign to find food we would refuse, he tried to achieve smaller victories, some that succeeded and some that failed. It was common for him, to hide the tray of lemon bars. Like bloodhounds though, Jason and I could track the scent and find the tray. His love for Cranapple drink was legendary, and there was always a gallon jug in the refrigerator and a back up in the pantry.  His mom made it clear that he couldn't refuse our requests to share the tasty beverage, but she wasn't always in the room with us, and on those occasions, he would pull out a juice glass so small, that it was just the next size up from a shot glass. Then he would fill it just over halfway.

In the larger campaign, Jason was the first to fall. His Achilles heal was Raman noodles. Bill was not put off by his earlier failures. Instead, he evolved his tactics. He read the ingredients to Jason. They included pig intestine. Jason said "No thanks." And Bill smiled. Every time Jason came over near a mealtime after that, Bill made Raman noodles. He'd won his first round and I could tell by the look on his face the next time I showed up that he was sure he had the magic bullet to take me down too. I hadn't heard about Bill's victory and came over while he was preparing the noodles. He asked if I would like some.

"Sure."

He smiled and read the ingredients.

"Sounds yummy, serve em up."

It was a small loss, but he took it well, sure he was only one or two food choices away from finding my weakness. Two years later, and it was the summer after our senior year. I'd forgotten about the game and my mom and I were doing better financially. We still qualified for welfare, but we had figured out how to make ends meet and how to stretch the food budget. Our meals were basic, with cod and rice being a staple. When we splurged on burger, it was what is now called 80/20 with a higher fat count and even then only when it was on special. Those were also the days of cheaper generic brands and our house was filled with them, which is one of the reasons I love the 1984 movie Repo Man. A half-pound of burger, mixed with a lot of generic brand crackers, stretches into a pounds worth in size if not actually by weight or substance.

The point was, that I had made a tactical mistake in a strategy game that had lasted more than five years. I literally wasn't as hungry for victory and I'd gotten lazy to the point where I believed I’d already won the game and it was over. But it was never over for Bill. It was a day much like other days, except that I had about a month before I went off to basic training. It was lunchtime and with a resigned sigh, Bill offered to share his tomato soup with me.

"No thanks, I can't stand tomato soup."

He smiled, and there was a look in his eyes that I didn’t recognize. That is until I came over two days later. He offered me some lunch as a gracious host does, as his mother insisted that he always did. He offered to share, his tomato soup. The look was there and this time I recognized it. It was victory.

He'd bested me at last, and just in time. He savored his victory as much as he savored his soup that he ate with brand name crackers. Right then, in that kitchen a month before basic training, I knew.

Most times we don’t appreciate what we have when we have it, especially in our youth. I was as guilty as everyone else for most of my youth, but at that moment in time I knew I would miss that kitchen. I would miss the love and the smells and the comfort. I would miss watching Bill practice the piano while I waited impatiently to hang out. I would miss listening to Garrison Keillor and The Doctor Demento show on the radio. I would miss his basement and the games of chess, miss making his normally reserved father laugh out loud and miss his mother's beautiful smile. I would miss feeling like I had a brother and was part of a family where the mom and dad were still married.

And I would miss the lemon bars.

Fork You, My Beef with Mr. Hammer

This is a tale of my misspent youth.

I had a beef with my former teacher, Mr. Hammer. I say had because I think I’m finally over it.

Mr. Hammer was my social studies teacher in the 9^th grade. He’s been dead now for almost twenty years.  I think it’s time to forgive and forget.

There was no particular incident that caused the rift. It was more of an understanding. We took an instant dislike to each other and we both did things to reinforce that dislike as time went on. Up until now, only one other person knew the whole story, my best friend, Dan Barter. But it’s time I lanced this wound and moved on.

I want to make it clear that I was a horrible student. There are a lot of reasons, but it was no ones fault but my own. I wasn’t a victim. Sure, some of the reasons are good ones, but I could have decided to over come those set backs and become a good student. Instead, I used them as excuses and coasted through school. I never studied and never took a book home. But despite my status as a slacker, I hated bad teachers. They offended me. I was forced to be in school, a political prisoner, but they were getting paid to be there. I considered Mr. Hammer one of the worst. He wasn’t stupid like a few others; he just didn’t seem to care.

He would fill the blackboard with notes and then leave for up to 30 minutes while we were supposed to transcribe them for later study. My handwriting was and still is horrible, so even if I had been willing to study, my notes would have been of little use. He was also the first teacher to use a brand new technology to grade his tests. The computer (pause for ooo's and ahhh's). We used a #2 pencil to fill in A through D. We’d never seen this before and he was the only teacher I had in Bemidji that used it. I thought it was lazy and impersonal.

His last crime was just plain creepy. He would arrange the seats of the most attractive and well-endowed girls so they were in the second and third row and in the middle of the room. When he did grace us with his presence, he would always leave a seat in the middle of the front row open so he could sit on the desk and look down at us, but mostly down the shirts of the large breasted girls. For those of you that remember him, think hard before you dismiss this claim. I had occasion to discuss this with other classes, both ahead of us and after us, and it occurred to consistently to have been accidental.

These crimes may seem fairly benign, especially for the 80’s, but as I said, we didn’t like each other from the start. I had beef, and I did something about it. Actually, I did several things about it that I will list here for the record.

It wasn’t my idea, but I won’t rat out who thought of this. I will say I crossed the line. We would take a few blank computer cards and make up fake names and fill out fake tests. We were sure we would get busted, but the first test went by unnoticed. The names were goofy, but not obscene. When Mr. Hammer failed to notice there were 2 more tests results than he had students, my loathing for him grew. The following week we took it up a notch by choosing more risky names and making cool looking patterns with the answers. This went on for over a month until the other students started laughing out loud at the answer key with the foul names we had come up with. Finally, he noticed. He stared at me with undisguised hatred. I returned the look.

Over the next year I: Switched a cassette tape for a filmstrip (really old school tech, look it up), with a Van Halen  tape and cranked the volume, turned a film upside down and backwards, shot spitballs into his coffee cup (which he drank), took a months worth of nail clippings and put them in his desk (this is where he kept his, so I doubt he noticed), and stole all of his caulk. That is all I can remember, I’m sure I did more. It was the chalk that set him off. He couldn’t spend the first 15 minutes of class writing notes and then leaving for the next 30 without chalk. He came up and asked if I had any chalk on me. He loomed over, trying to intimidate me. I told him I had a lot of other school supplies, but I was fresh out of chalk. It was stuffed in my pants and even my socks. The man had a LOT of chalk. If he’d searched me, I would have been done. He didn’t.

The year ended and grades were sent out. I got an F in his class. He had the last laugh. Or so he thought. I was ashamed, but I never paid attention to how I did throughout the year and even though I didn’t think much of him as a teacher, it never occurred to me he would lie. Those were different times and I was naïve. I was sent to summer school to make up the credit so I could move on to my sophomore year. My mom was angry and possibly more ashamed than I was.

Bemidji is a big town as far as northern Minnesota towns go. Still, I thought I knew all of the students by sight even if I didn’t know their names. I was wrong. I didn’t know one other student in summer school, and all of them were hard cases. I always had a lot of respect for kids like Brian Lofgren. He was tough. A teacher once slapped him in 5^th grade and he just glared at her. I would have busted out crying, but he just wanted to get even. These kids were like Brian. I was out of place so I kept to myself and hoped none of them would decide I would be fun to pick on.

Summer school was set up self-paced. We were all at different levels and grades all in one class, so we all had a set number of assignments we were supposed to complete in the 8 weeks. I didn’t know the teacher, but it was clear he was thrilled to be there. We had no homework, just the assignments. I focused on them and not my surroundings. After two weeks, I was done with eight weeks of work. The teacher was confused and suspicious. He questioned me about why I was there. The next Monday, I was sent home as soon as I showed up. My mom was home waiting for me. She’d got a call from the school apologizing. Apparently, my real grade had been a B, but Hammer had given me an F for “attitude”.

I wasn’t the only kid that disliked Mr. Hammer. I wanted to get even, and a friend who will remain nameless, came up with a brilliant idea. Now there have been recent articles about similar events occurring in the Twin Cities, but I am positive, that my nameless friend, back in 1981, was the originator of the idea to fork someone’s lawn. His reasoning was that you couldn’t rake up plastic forms, but you had to pick them up individually. We rushed to the grocery store and bought around 500 plastic forks. We picked a night, snuck over to his house, and covered his lawn.

This went on for years after. We once tried spoons, and then started spelling things with all three plastic utensils. Mr. Hammer moved, but I followed. Long after my friends had grown tired of the game, and after I got out of the Army, I forked his lawn at least once every couple of years. Judge me harshly if you want, but the last time I forked him was on his grave. Just to remind him I hadn’t forgotten.

Do you think that crossed the line? So do I in retrospect, but allow me to give you some missing back-story on why being sent to summer school hit me as hard as it did. It’s all about self-confidence, or in this case, my lack of. In elementary school, I needed tubes in my ears. My canals were small and clogged and it went on for a couple of years unnoticed until I had only 10% hearing capacity. In that time, I had slowly withdrawn from class and into myself. I also failed to learn how to pronounce hard consonants, especially R. It was the “baby” talk that finally tipped the adults off. Once I got tubes, I was put in a class for two hours a day for speech therapy and to relearn how write and try to catch up on what I had missed. I was behind at least a full year of class and missing two hours a day in fifth grade set me back farther.

In 8^th grade, they noticed my grades were barely passing. They put me through a battery of tests. It was determined I was in the 98^th percentile for intelligence. They also discovered my learning disability. It's in the area of language, which also covers math. They explained that the mylar sheath in most people builds up over time. Repetition increases the thickness of the sheath allowing people to retain what they've memorized. For me, the area of my brain dealing with math and other languages didn’t build up regardless of repetition. I was left confused. Was I really smart or was I stupid? They answered the question by putting me in a special ed class in 9^th grade. That’s right, the same year I had Hammer. If you knew me then and I seemed stressed out and sometimes avoided telling you what my next class was, now you know why.

The class was one size fits all, not specialized to meet the needs of each student. No class could help me since the learning disability I had was physical. There was nothing to over come, but it took me years to understand that. I learned near the end of my freshman year, that they had needed one more student, or the program would have lost funding. Those teachers would have lost their jobs and the kids that did need help wouldn’t have received it. I was furious at the time and felt betrayed. Whatever chance I had to my academic life back on track was mortally wounded then and the coup de grace was summer school. Now, with years of life experience and perspective, I think it was worth the shame and damage to my self-confidence to keep that course in place. 

So you see, receiving an F and being sent to summer school when I didn’t deserve it was something I couldn’t forgive. Later in life, I discovered that 98^th percentile is the minimum level to become a member of Mensa. I took their entrance test when I was 32 and have been a member every since. Being in Mensa doesn’t make me feel smarter or better than anyone else. I will always have to struggle with English grammar and I will always make stupid mistakes with contractions, synonyms, homonyms and all the other dirty little nym bastards. It’s just the way I am.

A lot of writers take pride in their command of the English language, and they should. Many rail against those who transgress. I’m guilty of many such transgressions and I do feel bad for some of the editors that have had to struggle with my mistakes. Please understand that I do care and I do try. I go though at least 10 drafts before I send a story off, but some of the mistakes are simply invisible to me. 

As for Mr. Hammer, I did have a beef with him, but finally, I’ve put those feelings to rest. I’m happy and content with who I am. It’s time I forgave Mr. Hammer and let go of my beef.

R.I.P. Mr. Hammer, we’re good.