The Crab Chronicles

Celebrity Encounters

I am always fascinated by how celebrities act when they are out in public, and whether or not they are nice to their fans. To me, if you're lucky enough to have fame and fortune you should always be gracious to the people who pay their hard earned money to see you in concert or in a movie or TV show. In general, country music stars have always been traditionally gracious to their fans.

When I was a kid my father got free tickets to country music concerts in Knoxville because he worked at a local bank and the bank bought blocks of tickets. I was taken to a slew of those shows and at the end of their sets many of the artists signed autographs for fans, including Loretta Lynn. She signed an autograph for me and my brother and was really sweet, and chatted with the fans. I've always had the greatest respect for her as a result, and I was sad when she died last year. She was incredibly talented and yet very down to earth.

When I was a senior in high school I was in the all state chorus and we had a concert in Nashville. My parents took me over and we stayed a night or two at the Hyatt, which of course had those wonderful glass elevators and the open lobby. We were staying on a floor about 6 or 8 stories up, and my mom and I got on the elevator to ride down, went down one floor, and an older lady and man got in. The lady was tall and elegant in an expensive looking track suit, and she had a lovely smile. When we got to the bottom and got out my mother said that lady was Minnie Pearl! I was flabbergasted. Of course, she wasn't dressed in her usual costume. I was reminded of that when I read Sean Dietrich's column this morning, about seeing her at the Grand Old Opry.

Years ago when I was in my 20's and lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I grew up, I ran into actor David Keith. He is best known for his supporting role in An Officer and a Gentleman. He's not that well known outside Knoxville because he's a character actor but in Knoxville, he's a big deal. My parents had taken me to a play at UT's Clarence Brown Theater called Celebration, when David Keith was a student at UT, and I remembered that when I saw him in Blockbuster, sometime in the late 1980's. He was buying a copy of every James Bond movie in the store. I immediately recognized him, and went up and introduced myself and just said something like "I really like your work." I also pointed out that we had mutual friends because I knew a lot of people who were in the theater program at UT. We chatted for a solid 5 minutes and he was really gracious. I didn't ask for an autograph or a photo.

I saw boxing champ Evander Holyfield here in Atlanta in 1999, when I was eating lunch with friends at a restaurant in Buckhead. I came out of the bathroom at the same time he did and I walked right behind him as he went back to his large table where there were many people. He was shorter than I had imagined but even wearing normal clothes you could tell he was just incredibly muscular and fit, and he moved like some kind of lion or something, just very much an energy and a presence. I have always been a boxing fan. I was blown away, but I didn't try to talk to him or get an autograph.

A few years later, I was taking a Russian class at a local language school, preparing for the adoption of my daughter from Russia. The class was at kind of a nondescript language school in an ordinary shopping center in Dunwoody, nothing special. I went in there for class one afternoon and there was a really gorgeous young black woman waiting in the lobby with a toddler. The teacher of my class told me the young woman was the wife or girlfriend of Evander Holyfield and the child was his son. They had signed up a 3 year old to take Russian, Japanese, and another language. Of course, he was a TODDLER, so the time was mostly just babysitting him. My teacher said it was a waste of her time, as the child was way too young to start learning a new language. He showed no interest or aptitude for it. She had been tasked with trying to teach him some basic Russian.

When I was a senior in college the famous beat poet Allen Ginsberg came to our campus for a reading, and he visited my group, the Zeitgeist Literary Society and read our poetry and gave individual critiques to us. He was incredibly nice. He was a teeny tiny little man. I am 5'3 and I was looking him in the eye. There was a party afterwards, and he sat and played bongos all evening and wouldn't drink or smoke pot. I remember talking to him but I don't recall what he said.

Celebrities are just human beings in extraordinary jobs. Remember that next time you run into one.

#lorettalynn, #davidkeith, #evanderholyfield, #minniepearl, #allenginsberg

Michael Thompson Artist

My son Michael is an incredible artist and I wanted to share some of his art with you. He is a perfectionist and never thinks anything he does is good enough but he is wrong:

The City of the Future

When I was a kid I was rather shy and I didn't have many friends. To stay busy, I participated in as many school activities possible. I was in the spelling bee. I sang in the chorus. I wrote for the team magazine. I participated in speech contests. I took piano lessons. I did plays. I was always busy. My middle school years, 5th through 8th grade, were particularly difficult because I was bullied mercilessly for being fat. I wasn't horribly obese but I was a it chubby, and worse, I looked several years older than my peers. I had boobs before anyone else. It was a time filled with anxiety.

For the Social Studies Fair in 6th grade I made a poster and called it City of the Future. I wish I had taken a photo of that poster, but back then photos were not easily taken. Dad controlled the camera and film and as he often said, picture developing cost money. Back then, kids, you took a bunch of photos, rewound the film, popped it out and took it to the drugstore or camera store, and waited a week or two. Then, the shots might be great or they might all be blurry. Nobody could make a photo with a phone -- to suggest such a thing would have provoked snickers or derisive laughter. Photography was mysterious and it required patience. 

I digressed.

The City of the Future, as suggested by my poster, was basically a shopping mall with apartments on the top floor. In 6th grade the cool kids went to the mall all the time.

I was not a cool kid. I rarely went to the mall.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 1970's the cool kids hung out at West Town Mall. I can close my eyes right now and tell you where every store was located in that mall. My mom liked shopping at JCPenneys, where she had a charge account. There was also a department store called Millers, where the merchandise was a bit more expensive than Penneys. I knew when I found empty Millers bags around the house before Christmas that I was getting some nice stuff and my heart leapt with excitement.

Now, if you really had some money you bought stuff at Proffitts. We rarely ever bought anything there because my dad was tight-fisted when it came to money.

In my daydreams [remember those? they were how we entertained ourselves before smartphones, kids] we lived in a fabulous apartment just above the mall, which was awesome because:

1. We could leave home and walk downstairs and be in the mall, the mecca to every middle-schooler in Knoxville. There, we could get snacks at Orange Julius, and giggle at all the naughty merchandise at Spencer's, and if we needed anything from the drugstore, Walgreens was right there.
2. We could roller skate everywhere in the mall! Roller skating was a very important social ritual. If you didn't roller skate on Saturday you were a social nobody. Skatetown USA was one of my favorite places, and I could do the hokey pokey all day long and not fall, which was important. I could also skate backwards. Unfortunately, I never got to skate with a boyfriend, in semidarkness, under the great twinkling disco ball, while the sound system boomed out a classic tune like the Bee Gees How Deep Is Your Love? [I can still sing all the words to that one]
3. No more yard work!! No more pulling weeds, or getting green feet from walking in newly-mown grass, or cleaning out the garage. I hated yard work with a passion. There were no "lawn services" back then, there were dads and kids.
4. In my fabulous City of the Future the mall roof would be our playground and garden where we could all shoot hoops, play tennis, maybe even swim, in an egalitarian space where we could dash home and use the bathroom very easily. There could even be concerts there, and we could hang out with friends, unsupervised!
5. We could have dance parties on the roof and dance to great tunes like September, by Earth Wind and Fire.

In thinking about my adolescent dream of the future, I realize that I was chasing a dream of nobody judging me for the size of my house or the neighborhood, or even my clothes. I would be able to check out all the sales at the coolest store ever, Merry Go Round, and dress cool.

I only ever achieved cool in my shoes and clothing a few times, as a child. Dad took me shoe shopping once when Mom was sick, and we bought shoes at Baker's Shoes. We came home with brown suede platform shoes that made me 3 glorious inches taller. I was beside myself with 1970's joy. I wore them to school, fell and sprained my ankle. My mother said I could never wear them again. Great anguish! I put them in the closet where they remained for years. Below, a photo I made a couple of years ago when I cleaned out a closet preparing to move. When you never wear shoes they stay pretty nice.

Below right, me in 8th grade. I was starting to worry less about being a cool kid.

Ironically, I have now lived for years a very short distance from what was once a very nice mall here in Atlanta, Northlake Mall. I went there many times, over the years. I haven't been there recently, though, because now I buy pretty much everything online. The mall is being converted to office space for Emory. I don't want to live in an apartment at the mall any more. I don't worry about being cool.

I know I am getting old, though, because in my mind, I see those kids just like they were back in middle school -- and a lot of those kids are now my friends on Facebook. The cool kids have grandchildren, many of them. I like music like D-35 by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Maybe one day I will have a grandchild to love and spoil --  and that's the epitome of cool, to me, now...

How to Get Kids to Eat Vegetables

I was the world's pickiest eater as a kid. I only really ate two green vegetables, green beans and plain lettuce. I would also eat green peas but in my mother's eyes that didn't count. Nor did green Jello. I tried to get her to bend the rules many times when we were at a cafeteria and her command "Get at least ONE green vegetable!" seemed really harsh and unfair.

I guess I was lucky, though. I had an aunt who helped her kids' plates until they were in high school. At least we had some choice in the matter.

My mother believed kids should eat vegetables, and drink a glass of milk at dinner every night, and we should eat meat. She told us there were four food groups and it was important to cover them all, every day. The four groups were meat, dairy, grains, fruits and vegetables.

Now, if Dad was out of town or there was some special occasion going on, she would bend the rules. If fish were being fried, she was okay with us eating fried fish and hushpuppies. Pizza didn't have to have veggies on it.

My brother would cheerfully eat almost anything. He was the opposite of me.

All this is to say that I am sort of puzzled by moms today who have conniption fits about their kids eating vegetables. It's not really a hard problem to solve. I was lucky because my kids came from countries where the attitude towards fresh fruits and vegetables was: wow, what treats! They didn't have the grocery stores filled with fruits and veggies in the dead of winter.

Adults give signals to their kids all the time and if the unspoken signal is Hey I know they are horrible but you have to eat your vegetables because they are good for you, so do that chore already...

Nope nope nope. Here are 3 ways to get your kids to eat veggies.

1. Parents, act like vegetables are WONDERFUL! They are AWESOME! What a treat!

That's the first step to getting your kids to eat veggies. Treat fresh vegetables as though they are highly prized. Forget about saying things like "eat your veggies or you won't get dessert!" Say IF you are good I will bestow upon you the magic that is fresh broccoli!

2. Quit giving them a bunch of choices. At any meal, tell them they need to eat up or go to bed empty. If they don't want to eat anything say fine. See you at breakfast. Then enforce it. let them go to bed hungry. It won't kill them.

3. Make the food they get delicious. Don't just give them veggies with no seasonings! My mother tried to get me to eat boiled brussells sprouts or boiled broccoli, without any seasonings. YUCK. I wouldn't eat them then and I still won't.

Buy fresh minced garlic in a jar, and garlic salt or powder. Buy onion powder if your kids refuse to eat anything with cooked onions. Find veggie recipes that involve seasonings, butter, and cheese. Remember: almost any veggie will be scrumptious if you add bacon and cheese.

Below are some ideas.

Make dipping sauces of ranch dressing and fresh parmesan and let kids dip veggies.

Spinach -- de-stem the fresh spinach leaves and toss them with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, dried cranberries, walnuts, and blue cheese crumbles.

Cauliflower -- boil until soft then mash it up and add a cup of mayo, a spoonful of mustard, and some cheese. 

Brussells Sprouts -- halve them and saute them in olive oil after dousing them liberally with balsamic vinegar, garlic (powder or fresh) and salt and pepper.

Green beans -- cook them in a skillet and add either balsamic vinegar and garlic OR barbeque sauce OR melted cheese

Cabbage -- buy what's called coleslaw cabbage and saute it in oil, then add soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder

Pumpkin -- when fixing spaghetti or anything with tomato sauce, add a can of pumpkin puree. It will taste like tomato.

Squash -- saute in butter and throw in fresh garlic and/or chopped up bacon.

Broccoli -- see recipe below. I used to hate broccoli. I will eat this all day long.

 

Golden Broccoli Casserole

[Brenda Gantt recipe]

4 cups broccoli                                                                  1 cup mayonnaise

½ an onion, chopped                                                          1 cup grated cheese

½ - ¾ stick butter                                                             Ritz cracker crumbs [optional]

1 cup cream of mushroom soup                                           2 eggs

Steam or boil your broccoli to desired tenderness. Saute the onion in the butter until soft. When broccoli is done, drain it in a colander, then place it in a 9x13 pan or casserole dish. Add the mayo, soup, and cheese to the onion/butter mixture and stir well. I like to add minced garlic, seasoning salt, pepper, etc. Beat up eggs and stir them in carefully so they don’t cook. Mixture should just be warm. Spoon the mixture over the broccoli and cover as well as possible. Top with crushed Ritz crackers, or if you’re watching carbs you can do more grated cheese.

Bake at 350 until top is bubbly, about 30 minutes.

#freshvegetablesforkids, #veggieskidswilleat, #strategiestogetthekidstoeatvegetables, #veggierecipesforkids,