Sizzling up some Eats

Sizzling up some Eats

For a while during College and the immediate aftermath of my dropping out of higher education I worked as a cook at a local steakhouse in town.

It was a wonderful job.  I not only learned a tremendous amount about preparing and cooking food, but I got to eat steak every day for free.  And as a 19/20 year old male, it didn’t get much better than eating steak every day, unless it would be spending time with, and flirting with, very pretty young women; known in the steakhouse trade as waitresses and cashiers.

The work day consisted mostly of basic food preparation such as; chopping dozens of heads of lettuce for salads; slicing boxes of tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions; shredding cheese; melting butter and cheese with garlic and seasonings for griddle bread; cleaning and wrapping potatoes for baking, making salad dressings, and preparing pasta and potato salads while cooking soups.

Those preparation periods were actually relaxing and allowed for a great deal of comradery with the rest of the staff.  While the preparation work was going on there was always a low level of open grill work as the odd individual wandered in “off-rush” to order something to eat.

Now it wasn’t all fun and games.  When the rush periods began things quickly got very hectic.  When you get a house filled with 85 to 150 people all wanting a different meal, prepared in a different manner, it can get overwhelming for a small cook staff.  During rushes, ours typically consisted of my good friend Jim and I.

Jim got me the job there, and so when we began working together, he was running the show and handling the meat grill while I was handling the plating and peripherals (toast, fries, batter-fried fish and shrimp).  Jim was amazing at keeping the orders straight in his head, and running up to 20 square feet of grill with several different temperature sections.

The Steakhouse used warmed metal plates to serve meals on and so also had wooden planks for underneath the metal plates so that they could be carried out to tables by the servers.  The metal plates were above the grill in front of Jim and I being warmed.  The wooden planks were on a shelf behind where I worked.

Jim would be lucky to hit 5’-7”.

I topped out at 6”-2.

It didn’t take long before we switched positions and I became the lead griller and Jim took over backing me up.  Yes it took a while until I got as good as Jim at telling how cooked a steak was simply by poking it.  Yes, it took a couple weeks for me to get a handle on timing various cuts of meats to be cooked to different levels of doneness and have them all be ready at the same time.

Neither of those were why we changed though.

We changed because, when Jim was grilling, once in a while when the rush was in full swing, if Jim could spare a moment, he would reach back behind me and grab 2-3 wooden planks to pull forward to help me out.

Invariably as he whipped them forward, no matter how hard he tried to raise his arm high enough, he would inevitably clip me right in the back of the head setting off stars and driving me forward onto the hot griddle.


Several months later, Jim had moved on to another job and I broke my right big toe (see Bad Week for a Big Toe part II).  The doctor at the hospital decided that the thing that needed to be done was to put my right leg in a walking cast from just below the knee to just past the ball of the foot, leaving all the toes “hanging” out in space in front of the cast and about 2.5” off the ground.  That way, for 4-5 weeks the big toe would not be able to be used to push down against anything and the knuckle would be able to heal.

I wasn’t supposed to work.  But, I was able to convince the restaurant owner that it would be ok to put me back to work even with the cast.  I convinced him that I could get by without a right shoe.  And that I could walk fine on the single 2” x 2” rubber pad embedded beneath the right heal.  I even convinced him that as long as I used a heavy woolen boot sock to cover my toes, there wouldn’t be any health code violations.

Looking back, I think he really wanted to be convinced, because on a full weekend rush, I could handle the entire 30 square feet of grill space, more than twice the grill of any other cook he had.

One night, in the rush to get the restaurant cleaned up after closing, I shut off the deep fryer oil and started to clean the grill and griddle while waiting for the oil to begin to cool down enough to carry.  As normal, my then partner Jon was cleaning up the back and mopping the concrete floors.

I was in a hurry that night and grabbed decided to empty the oil too soon.  I grabbed a towel and hoisted the 7-8 gallon vat of still 300 degree fryer oil out of the fryer and headed towards the back of the restaurant to poor it in the waste oil drum.  As I turned the corner out of the kitchen, I placed all of my weight on the 2” square rubber pad under my right heal which was planted none too firmly on soapy wet, painted, smooth concrete floor.

As my left foot came up, I started to slide sideways, holding that still popping 60 pounds of fryer oil out at near arm’s length in front of me.

I couldn’t put my left foot down for fear of stopping too fast and sloshing that stuff all over my bare forearms.

I couldn’t let go and drop the vat for fear of deep frying my sock covered toes.

I slide ten feet struggling to keep my balance; ten feet that I vividly recall to this day some 38 years later.
Even after my toe healed and was safely re-encased in a heavy leather boot, I never again picked up that vat of oil until it had fully cooled down.


There was a cashier who worked there that was Claudine Longet’s doppleganger; same eyes, same hair, same quiet voice.  I was unquestionably smitten.  But she was a bit older than I, and had a daughter, so while smitten, she wasn’t on my radar screen.  One day a group of cowboys wandered in for lunch and she dashed back into the prep area to gush over one of the handsome guys and laugh about what she’d do to him in a dark car somewhere.

When he and his buddies walked up to order she rushed out to take care of them.  I wandered out as much to watch the fun as to be ready to cook whatever they ordered.

She was all big brown cow eyes, he really didn’t seem to be paying attention until she tried to be too “Breakfast at Tiffany’s Hepburn” on him and flubbed her line; becoming so embarrassed that she rushed out of the building while he and his friends laughed.

Her error?, the similarity in sound between the word “condiments” for the tomatoes, onions, and pickles, and the drug store item she wanted for that dark car.  As she handed him his burger, she directed him over to where the “condoms” were, stuttered, turned a most brilliant shade of red, and fled the scene.


My best memory though from that job happened one Saturday just as the main lunch rush was settling down and while the restaurant was still filled with people happily chowing down.  My “syllable-challenged” cashier was taking orders when a guy staggered over from the bar next door to get some lunch.  After working to focus on the menu for a bit he decided to order a ½ pound hamburger with fries.

Apparently he though he wanted it really rare.

Because as he ordered it he became louder and louder until he was literally screaming, complete with spittle flying and hand gestures.  He was yelling at the cashier; “I want it rare, and God Dammit it when I say rare, I mean RARE, do you know what fucking RARE means?”

As he began to scream; “Well do you?” I reached behind me and pulled a burger patty from the walk-in.

That patty may have touched the grill, but surely never rested there.  As soon as I let go to drop it I scooped up my spatula, flipped it, and plated it on a bun with some cold uncooked French fries.

The meat was still red.  The grill marks hadn’t even really turned gray yet, much less charred; you could feel the cool flowing off of that thing when I handed it to him.

He shut up, trailing off immediately with a weak sounding “youuuu”.

He looked at the burger plate, and then up at me.  I just locked eyes with him and smiled.

He looked back to the burger plate and then behind him at the hushed dining room where scores of people were looking at him, then back to me.

I have to give him credit, he understood the situation immediately, alcohol fog or not.

He meekly slurred: “If I apologize to the lil’ lady, would you cook this thing a little bit longer for me?

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Crooked Tooth Cure?

While driving to work this morning I was listening to the local “all-news” station on the radio when I heard a Public Service Announcement concerning “Do-it-yourself teeth straightening”.

The announcement droned on for a full minute starting with how DIY was all the rage these days and how the internet was making wonderful information available to everyone, but that some things simply shouldn’t be attempted at home.

And went on to explain that tooth and jaw repositioning was a medical procedure and really needed to be performed by a licensed medical professional;  and that when done incorrectly it could cause loss of teeth, gum damage, jaw miss-alignment, and a whole list of other problems.

And finished with a tag-line “brought to you by” some Orthodontist non-profit advisory group.


I had several immediate thoughts.

“Do-it-yourself” may be all the “rage” these days, but there sure is a heck of a lot less of it now than there was when I was a kid.  Heck, back then there wasn’t even a term “do-it-yourself”.  And every backyard and garage was filled with projects.  I never knew anyone growing up whose garage was sheet-rocked.  But everywhere kids had bikes turned upside-down greasing bearings, cars had transmissions dropped and being torn down, and skeletal structures of bird coops, rabbit runs, and fences were being built.  We never considered any of that “do it yourself”.  We didn’t even consider it, we just got it done.

And then came; “Why is some portion of my taxes being used to pay six-figure salaries to a bunch of thugs with the FCC who are extorting the local radio station to give free air time in exchange for their transmitting license so some ‘for profit’ doctor’s group can effectively have free advertising for their business?”  When I was a kid, the dentists and orthodontists all lived in the better parts of the country clubs and prices are a lot higher today than they were back then.  Let them pay for their own advertising I say.

Then, there’s the question; “Are there really so many people out there who are doing their own ill-advised teeth straightening that we need a public service announcement spewing forth to millions of people telling them not to do something this stupid?”

Paired with the question; “And even if there are, are any of those idiots listening to an all-news channel?”

Then of course the really dismal; “Damn it, ‘fix my own buck-toothers’ vote in state and federal elections.”  And while that may well explain recent election outcomes, it’s still a disturbing thought.


Then, a moment of crystalline awareness settled on me.

If “tooth and jaw relocation” was a medical procedure and could only be performed by a health care professional….

I could sue my brothers for malpractice, for several specific incidences of it in fact.  And, I might even be able to create a class action lawsuit if I could get my teeth to be treated individually.

I smugly smiled to myself for a mile or two, until I realized that if I won, whatever I won, I would likely loose in the countersuits to follow.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Guilt by Association

As a boy, I suffered from a significantly debilitating disease.

So much so that in truth it is just short of a miracle that I was ever able to take my proper place in society and be accepted as a leader of the community.  That disease is seldom heard of today due to significant efforts made medically, societally, and politically to eradicate it; especially by the apologetically elite.  But as is often the case, the cure can be worse than the disease.

Known as “GBA” this disease crippled people by the tens of thousands, limiting their performance, income, success, and happiness; my symptoms began with a breakout rash the September after my 9th birthday as I attended my first day of Fourth grade.

Every teacher, while slowly calling roll alphabetically, ultimately got down to the “V’s”.

I watched, period after period, as they reread my name before calling it out.  I watched adam’s apples bob, beads of sweat break out on foreheads, and heard muttered epitaphs.  All right before a “Marty Vandermolen?, Do you have a brother named….”

Yep, GBA: Guilt by Association.

It turns out that this disease is rather similar to leprosy and incites many of the same societal responses; isolation, derision, and burning torches in the hands of mobs at night with the odd animal sacrifice or obscure occult protection ritual thrown in.


And often times it places unreasonable demands on those who suffer from it as well.


Such as when on my first day of high school my eldest brother who was a senior and middle brother who was a junior, came up to me and said: “No matter what happens, don’t ever turn in a note with Mom’s signature on it to anyone at the high school”.

My unsophisticated innocent self immediately objected.  I mean what about notes for doctors, or illnesses, or field trips, or lab fees?  “No, never”, I was told

 But what about driver’s ed classes and authorization to try out for the football team? Again, I was told “never”.

“You see”, Barry and Jeff went on to explain, “While the school has lots of notes for doctor’s appointments, sick days, missed days, and what not; no one at the high school has ever seen Mom’s signature.  And if they ever do, since we’ve never been able to sign like her, they will know that all those other notes were forged; just bring it to one of us and we will sign whatever you want.”  


Or the time when we were bike riding and Jeff cut in front of some old bag, er, I mean nice middle-aged woman who immediately gave chase in her car.  Up and down the streets, around corners and over curbs and through parks we went to keep from being caught.  Finally frustrated that gal played the “ultimate trump card” by jumping out of her car and yelling “Come back here, I know your mother”.

She acted like she thought that would work, and sure, maybe with any normal kid who didn’t suffer from GBA it would have, and they would have stopped and ridden back to her in an effort to stay out of trouble.

Not so in our case.  Jeff replied in “teenage sign language” just in case the distance was too great for clear verbal communication; while Barry and I pedaled off figuring, what the heck, if she really did know mom, we were in for a world of hurt either way.


And don’t even get me started on the whole Catholic Church catastrophe.


Or the time when we had gone out for a hike around town and through the arroyo behind College Avenue.  It was a day that threatened rain, so we were all carrying our backpacking ponchos.

Now, I’m not talking about one of these wimpy saran-wrap ponchos like they sell these days, nope, those buggers we had back then were made of rubberized canvas, with brass grommets in the corners and metal snaps up the sides.  They weighed in at close to 5 pounds each.

Part way through the walk we were wandering through the local grocery store parking lot, mostly taking up the entire auto lane I suspect as teenagers are wont to do.  And pretending to be totally oblivious to the gal who was driving a Galaxie 500 that wanted to get by.

She leaned on her horn to express her displeasure.  Barry’s grip slipped a bit and as we stepped aside and she began to drive past, Barry swung his poncho against her right rear fender.

There was a pleasing resounding “thump”.

Jeff immediately threw up his hands, spun around and collapsed on the ground as if she had hit him.

The gal’s eyes grew saucer sized in her rearview mirror.

After a moment’s indecision, she stomped on the gas and tore off, leaving Jeff writhing on the asphalt and Barry and I doubled over laughing.


And how can I not mention the fact that Jeff was anything other than conciliatory when he led a Boy Scout patrol.  And while there are quite a number of prescribed and suggested methods in the leadership training courses to help the youth leader keep younger boys focused and in control, I have yet to find any reference to a 35 foot lariat or the liberal application of a fully charged cattle prod.  

Yep, GBA; Guilty by Association.

Is it any wonder then that I grew up shooting paperclips at the geometric shaped mobiles in geometry class whenever the teacher’s back was turned?; or that I glued a remote controlled music box movement to the bottom of an empty metal desk in Chemistry class?; was known to walk around middle school lighting stick matches on my blue jeans?; and milled gun barrels in shop class; or openly ignored various high school teachers and walked out of class to go to the snack bar?


It was nearly impossible for a sweet, gentle soul such as I to even hold my head up around town all in all what with knowing that I was always going to be considered the youngest of “those Vandermolen boys”.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Biking Barry over the Years

The other day Barry took a bike ride up Mount Hamilton to the Lick Observatory.

Mount Hamilton is in the Diablo Mountain Range east of San Jose California.  Built in 1876 the Lick Observatory began with a 12” refracting telescope.  The complete construction cost what today would be $25 Million dollars, all privately donated by James Lick who built his wealth building pianos.  This was back in the day when wealthy men used their own wealth to better society, instead of using their notoriety to call for the use of the lesser wealth of others to better society.  In 1888 a 36” refracting telescope was installed, which for 10 years was the largest operational telescope in the world.  
Barry posted some pictures on Facebook; the observatory, he in his brightly colored riding togs, and landscapes.

I was brought to consider Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1374 utterance; “as an ook cometh of a little spyr” (which loosely would be old English for “great oaks from little acorns” a 14th century proverb.

You see, I know from whence this bicyclist came from, and another way to say that would be: “From such inauspicious beginnings”.


As boys we walked everywhere, at least until we owned bikes.  Then we biked everywhere we went (at least without a backpack) until we could drive.  And in fact, we biked a lot for transportation even after we could drive.  I know that Barry biked to work and back (at least on and off) until after he got out of the Navy.

It has been interesting watching the devolution of my post-retirement brother back to one of the mainstay activities of his youth.  He has obviously embraced it with the same passion that he had when he was younger and time was more plentiful.  Oh, he has better equipment today, and more of it too, but the pure joy has obviously returned.

And why not?  Riding a bike is a wonderful activity. It is good for the heart, the lungs, and the muscles.  It is even better for the mind and relaxation.  There is little that is more enjoyable than flowing through the countryside with the breeze bringing the scent of wildflowers and the sounds of the birds, and the glimpse of a deer, fox, or even a squirrel now and then.

And I am confident that along with being vastly safer, those fluorescent colored riding togs he wears are also a great improvement for comfort over riding in blue jeans as we used to do.  No jeans-seam saddle sores, and less chaffing as well.  No matter how much abuse we used to ladle on colorful clad cyclists back in the day.

Yep, riding a bike is a delight, at least when you are doing it right.


But I’d have to say, that Barry has not always done it right.

I’ll leave the serious road rash in San Diego for him to tell someday, because I wasn’t there and can’t do it justice.  But there are a couple three tales I can tell.


In 1968 an earthen dam was built outside of Livermore in the hills south of town across a small creek called Arroyo del Valle.  A couple years later, the local area Park District laid some sod, poured some asphalt parking areas, staked down a few redwood picnic tables, and started charging money to swim, sail, boat, and fish at the lake that had backed up behind that dam.  The three of us boys decided the summer it opened to ride our bikes out to the lake to go swimming one day.

Now it’s a 10 mile ride from town, out South Livermore Avenue, to Mines Road, out past Barry’s future wife’s house and then up and over Mendenhall grade and down into the park.  And while 10 miles isn’t far for a good road bike these days, we were all riding old Schwinn bikes that with our paper racks and all weighted in at a good 50 pounds and so Mendenhall was steep, and long.  To make things worse Mendenhall was exposed to the morning sunshine so you have to sweat all the way up that hill.  And did I mention steep?  Steep enough that even weaving back and forth across both lanes and the shoulders wasn’t enough and we had to get off and push the bikes part way up.

Once you got to the top and started down into the valley the lake is in, there are a couple things you needed to know.  It’s steep, and fast, and fun; and there are two places where the cross wind blows so hard and sudden that if you aren’t ready for it, it about blows the bike right out from under you, and ready or not, you will be changing lanes.

And while it may not have made it any faster, we would rise up off the seat, lean forward to get our shoulders and sternum in front of the handlebars, clench our knees together through the bike frame to control the wobble and hurdle down that hill.

This position had the added benefit of making the bike less stable in the cross wind, adding to the excitement.  Spelled p·a·n·i·c.

 That first trip down the hill Barry was far out in front of me, both of us on the far side of the true definition of control, when on rounding a curve Barry saw a cattle guard across the road ahead.

For those of you who have grown up city bound.  A cattle guard works like a gate to keep cattle inside a fence line.  But unlike a gate, the cattle guard doesn’t need to be opened or closed to go through the fence.  It consists of a shallow trench that extends completely across the road with a number of pieces of pipe that serve as a “road base” to keep tires from falling through, but leaving cattle afraid of crossing because their hooves tilt and slip on the pipes.

Of course the tires that won’t fall through are car tires, not thin bike tires.

So, Barry sees this cattle guard way up ahead but is moving so fast that he thinks he is going to hit it and crash.  So he slams on his brakes.  And I do mean slams.  In fact, having owned the same bike, with the same cast brake handles, I have no idea how it is that he didn’t snap off a brake lever.  And in all my days since, I have never again seen smoke come off a bike’s brakes.

His bike immediately began to slow down.

I immediately had to swerve to keep from ploughing into his rear tire and was thus occupied when my bike flashed by him, and smoothly rolled over the cattle guard.

Barry realized that it is a fake cattle guard painted across the asphalt.  But it had worked on him as well as it apparently worked on cows.  I won’t make any intelligence level comparisons.

When we stopped at the park ranger entrance station about a ½ mile further down, we had to peel melted brake pad material off of Barry’s chrome tire rims before we could go on to the lake to swim.


Sometimes, instead of heading out to the lake itself, we would ride out South “L” Street across the bridge over Arroyo Mocho where the road changed names to become Arroyo Road.  That old car bridge was narrow and had a separate wooden walkway pinned to its side.  Unusual for a bridge, it had both a bend in the middle, and a serious bump in the pathway at the same point.  The walkway was narrow too and negotiating that bend and bump while on a speeding bike took a fair amount of concentration and skill.  We boys always shot our bikes across that walkway.

Several miles out Arroyo Road past the cattle ranches and old vineyards the VA hospital had been built in the shade where the creek twisted and turned this way and that near the base of the dam.  There in the shade of several big old cottonwoods Arroyo del Valle slowed to languid pools.  We would fish, swim, and swing on ropes hung from the trees out over the water.  When hungry we would light a few sticks in the BBQ pits to warm a can of pork-n-beans or cook up a few hot dogs.  And we could always dream of fur trapping while we chased the poor muskrat family that lived in the pools.

On the return trip, if we had a few extra coins in our pockets, we would stop at the miniature golf course near town and buy a bottle of soda from one of those old soda coolers with a row of bottles behind a narrow glass door.

One day, after returning to our ride, pop bottle in his left hand and right hand steering the bike, Barry misjudged that bridge walkway and the left side of his handlebars clipped the concrete car/walkway divider wrenching Barry’s front wheel 90 degrees to the left.  The front of the tire hit the concrete wall and stopped.  The rest of the bike kept going, rear wheel pitching up towards the leaning palm fronds from the old church grounds on the far side of the arroyo and launching Barry off of that bike like an arrow off a bow.

He turned a complete forward summersault while in flight.

But since gravity is a constant and soon regained control of Barry, he slammed down onto the railroad tie walkway with a resounding thump.  Grinning all the time, because through it all; launch, somersault, rump-first recovery; as amazing as it might seem, he didn’t spill a single drop of soda from that bottle.


And then of course our tales wouldn’t be complete without the story about how it all began.

Dad didn’t believe in training wheels for bicycles.  I always figured it was because he figured if we were so flawed that we couldn’t balance, he might as well know right away while he could still replace us.

So the day came for Barry to learn to ride his bike.  And Dad made two strategic errors.

First, he started Barry off on the sidewalk there on Kennedy Street.  That sidewalk had a distinct grade because Kennedy Street sloped downhill from Lee Avenue to Enos Way.  Now, I am going to give dad the benefit of the doubt that he figured that this would help Barry balance by keeping the bike rolling forward.  But it could also have been that whole “if he can’t get it right, better to have to replace him now” thing.

And second, Dad picked the sidewalk right there on Kennedy Street by the house, not only increasing the probability of whatever might go wrong damaging something Dad owned, but also assuring that Mom would see anything that did go wrong, and precluding Dad from making up a good story/excuse.

Dad and Barry walked up to the end of the block and Dad held the bike while Barry got on and balanced.  Then bent-over, Dad started jogging forward while Barry tried to keep his balance, pedal, and steer.  If you’ve ever tried to bend at the waste and run, downhill, while keeping your toes from being either run over, or caught up in spinning spokes, you can’t exactly blame Dad for the end results.

He stumbled and had to let go to make sure he didn’t pull Barry off of his precarious balance.

Barry shot forward, gaining speed with every revolution.

One hundred feet farther along, just as Barry was approaching the family driveway, he lost control, veered right, and plowed his bike into one of two freshly planted, spindly flowering plum trees that were Mom’s pride and joy.

“Were” begin the operative term because Barry and that bike clean sheared that first tree off right at ground level in the resulting crash.

After all the tears were dried, Barry’s and Mom’s, Dad convinced Barry to give it another try.  So, back up to the top of the hill, poised on the same sidewalk, preliminary balance was achieved, and the bent over running shuffle dance was retried.

Predictably, Dad had to let go.

Predictably, Barry wobbled forward gaining speed.

Unpredictably, Barry didn’t lose control because he wobbled too far off balance.

However, he did lose control because he turned around to gleefully yell to Dad “I’m doing it, I’m doing it”; which was all the time he had before he veered right and sheared off Mom’s remaining flowering plumb tree.


But in life, it isn’t the inauspicious beginnings that count, its what you do and how you grow afterwards that’s important.

The other day, it was Mount Hamilton.

Tomorrow, the Death Ride.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen   

Spread the Joy

Like most people, my life seems filled with getting up every morning and going to work.  Rising, showering, shaving, rushing breakfast, commute hassle, timeclocks, e-mails, calls, problems, frustrations, quick lunches, more of the same, back home, dinner, sleep.  Five days a week, sometimes more.  And on my days off it is only marginally different.  Maybe no commute hassle, unless I need to go to the store for supplies, but weeds, paint, stopped drains, worn shingles, squeaky bearings, retaining walls, and non-working lights.

And perhaps because of the pace of my life and all of the “have-to-dos” in my world, it became apparent to me just out of school that I needed to find ways to recapture my joy for living.  I needed a way to recharge, reset, and resharpen.  Otherwise, as a rock that is constantly dripped upon by water, I would ultimately wear away to nothing.


When I was a boy that recharge came from skipping rocks, gigging frogs, swimming in the rock quarries, and camping under the stars.  Or by flying bikes down steep hills, building marble cannons, throwing water balloons, and backpacking.  And lazy times in the sun, sliding down grassy slopes, climbing trees, and carving toy wooden boats.

But my job has often keep me from camping often enough, while my weight and stiff back has kept me from climbing trees, and law enforcement prefers that I don’t make and shoot marble cannons.

Leaving my optimism, inspiration, hope, and desires drained.

Over the years I have supported Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H, the United Way and Chidren’s Miracle Network.

When Bryan and Allison were younger, I sang campfire songs.  Silly, foolish, simple songs that were better because of enthusiasm, not talent.  Spent summer weeks, weekends, and evening creating experiences for kids, and I’ve told many a campfire stories about the interesting, foolish, and unusual things my brothers and I did growing up.

One day I bought an old 1970 VW pickup truck.  And over the years that has morphed into Santa’s sleigh from Thanksgiving until New Years, and a Star Spangled patriotic display during June and July.  A 1973 VW bus is morphing into a surf-mobile in my driveway.

All of these activities help me remain energetic.  Then one day, I stumbled on the best of the bunch.

Literally.


A few years back I had made time one day to get out and do some pig hunting.  I was wandering around out in the vast BLM lands around the earthquake capitol of the world.  Trudging along a hard packed game trail in the sun baked hills along the San Andreas Fault line on my way back to the truck when I saw a partially buried old glass bottle.  And as I have never understood how a bottle, can, or package can be light enough to carry in full, but too heavy to carry out empty; I stopped to dig it up planning to drop it in the recycle when I got home.

It turned out to be an old RC Cola bottle.  Now Royal Crown Cola has not been particularly popular in California any time during my life span, and this bottle was certainly vintage.  The label (paint) was significantly faded, but still discernable as the old yellow and red RC bottle label from the early 1950’s.  There were a few scratches, and the inside was almost filled with dirt, but that bottle came out of the ground whole.

While driving home I passed by Point Lobos where Robert Lewis Stevenson used to sit on calm days and write while working on what became his book Treasure Island.

Ol’ Robert’s spirit must haunt those rocky inlets still.

Cause by the time I had gotten home, instead of throwing the bottle in the recycle tote, I submerged it in a bucket of water to get the dirt out.

Then I sat down and shaped a wooden plug to fit the bottle.

And scrounged up some old candle stubs.

And hunted up a stray crow feather up on the back hill.

And found several colors of paint.

And a small piece of old leather about paper size.

Some of you are likely ahead of me by now.  But what I did next was to sit down and draw up a treasure map on that old piece of leather.  The map had to be specific enough that it could be of almost anywhere, and yet general enough that nowhere could be excluded.  Then some rubbing and smudging, a bit of concentrated tea to stain it, and some red berries too.

Then I rolled it up, slipped it into the bottle, set the wooden plug in place, set the neck upside down in the melted wax to assure that the wooden plug was soaked well and the gaps filled completely and thus sealed the bottle with meted wax.

I tested the seal by submerging the bottle in a bucket for several days.

Then I carried that dream down to the sea and set it free in the ocean waters off Moss Landing while the tide was running out fast and hard.  The last I saw it was westward bound out past the channel marker buoy.


Now, that bottle may never be found, and that map might never have been seen again.  Perhaps it broke on a rocky shore, or washed up on an isolated beach to be covered with sand, or began to leak and sunk.  

But what if……

What if some young boy or girl found it on a beach somewhere.  Maybe in California, maybe in Mexico, Maybe in Chile.  And what if they had never seen the ocean before.
What if it was found by an old retired couple wandering the shoreline in the fading light of life?

Or a troubled in need of a dream to brace them against the world’s callowness?

Oh, there are a million “what ifs”.

And while none of them may ever come to pass, that simple act of launching a dream, inspiring a hope, and setting a possibility loose inspires my imagination and reignites the fire of life within me.

That RC bottle was the first.

But it was not the last.

Since then I have constantly been on the hunt for old bottles in my travels.  Some with labels faded and old, some without labels at all.  Clear, brown, green.  The only requirement is that they are old.  Old enough to look it.  Old enough to not have threads, nor cap rings.  Old enough to be a treasure in the imagination of whomever finds them.

Some have been filled with maps.  Others with scrawled notes of joy, love, and wonder.  Several poems and a story or two have been loosed amongst the waves.  They have been set free up and down the California Coast, from Santa Barbara to Crescent City.

No names, no contacts, no phones, just dreams and stories and imagination.

And while I have yet to hear that any one of them has been found.

I believe.

If for no other reason than because believing keeps me alive and nourishes my imagination.


 

© Copyright 2014 Marty Vandermolen     

Surely there is a Better Way

In this Presidential election year, watching the supposed election process as it is occurring I am reminded of the time when my brothers and I decided that we needed to choose a leader.

Although I can’t tell you exactly the year we decided to pick a leader, it likely happened during one of my growth spurts when I was flexing my temporary position of power.  I certainly can’t conceive of either of my brothers willingly including me in the running to be the leader otherwise.  And we all participated in the selection process.

And in truth the process that we ultimately devised and used, while as nonsensical as our current presidential election process, was a much better process.

Not that it was any more logical, or more academic, reasonable, or considered.  But it was at least designed to only last a day, and while a few technical difficulties forced it to run long, it was still over in less than two days.


At the time we must have all been reading about the wild-west; because we knew that Native American tribes used to select their leaders based on bravery in battle, their ability as hunters, and their wisdom.  So we decided to set up a leadership challenge based on Native American customs.

I remember discussions about knife fights, war clubs, and bow and arrow duels at 10 yards; but the wisdom part took over and we settled on something less likely to mangle each other.  I had by that time in life already survived a couple near scalpings with rock rakes and so was naturally a bit leery of where this all might lead.

While I can’t remember exactly how we worked out the selection process, I do remember that those three factors (bravery, hunting ability, and wisdom) were of upmost importance and so we came up with a three part test.


Back then Dad smoked a pipe.  Most often a glass water pipe.  Not real regular, but often enough that there was loose tobacco around.  And Indian’s of course smoked pipes to prepare for their “vision-quests”, oh, and they used to prepare themselves in sweat lodges too.

We made a “sweat lodge” out back.  Easy enough to do when it is a hundred and ten degrees in the shade; all you need is a dark canvas tarp and an old fence rail in the full sun.  Lay that tarp out over the rail, clothes pin the end flaps together, and sit inside.  Last one out, would win the sweat lodge phase of the competition.

Try it sometime; you’ll be panting like a long-haired black dog running across Death Valley on a cloudless August afternoon in no time.

We all piled in.  Then set about trying to psych each other out by saying things like; “man, I wonder when it’s going to get hot in here” and “shoot, I should of left my jeans on instead of changing to cut-offs”.  We sat there while little beads of sweat broke out on our foreheads and ran stinging into our eyes, until we could feel a trickle of sweat run down our backs under our shirts, until our tee-shirts and cut-offs could have been wrung out by a 90 year old man in a coma

We sat there for all of 3 or 4 minutes before one of us bolted for the exit.  Maybe at that point a little wisdom did kick in, cause next thing you knew, we were scrambling all over each other shoving and pushing to get out.

It turns out that if you’re the last one out of a sweat lodge made of a dark green tarp in the 110 degree sun you weren’t the winner, you were actually the loser.

The sweat lodge was officially a draw.


From there we proceeded to the ceremonial smoke.  Since we didn’t dare breaking Dad’s glass water pipe, we decided to roll a cigarette.  It turns out that toilet paper doesn’t work well to wrap tobacco in.  It burns way too fast; and it sticks to your lips; even while it’s burning.

And after all, there is just something “wrong” about stuffing a piece of toilet paper in your face and lighting it with a match, even fresh off the roll.

After hunting around we settled on newspaper.  And since none of us had any skill at rolling our own cigarettes, the result looked more like the gonzo joint in a Cheech and Chong movie than it did a cigar, but, the important part was we got it rolled and ready for our vision quest smoke.

Now, I suspect that a long term habit of smoking colored newsprint wrapped tobacco probably isn’t real good for your health.  And in this day and age of the Internet, you’d think you could answer that question.  I tried.  And while I could find a few articles about lab rats unionizing, there didn’t appear to be any about the harmful effects of colored newsprint cigars.

Be that as it may, I know for a dang sure fact that short term use is downright unpleasant.

Only “visions” any of us saw from the ceremonial smoke was the bottom of a toilet bowl.

And thus, the ceremonial smoke ended in a draw as well.


The next day after our stomachs had settled down we proceeded to the “hunt and eat” portion of the leader selection challenge.

This part would better have been called the “close your eyes and swallow” part, except that chewing was required.  The challenge was to find something that the other two wouldn’t eat.

We started out with live ants.  As any self-respecting boy scout from the 60s could tell you, ants are really not that bad.  Pick a mess of Miner’s Lettuce, a sliced up fern shoot, a few berriers, and sprinkle on a couple dozen ants and you have a pretty decent salad.  Even tastes vinegary.  So, ants?  No problem all round.

Woodlice?; Otherwise known as Rolly-Polly bugs, no problem either.  They roll up when you pick them up and as long as you don’t let your mind gag you out and don’t wait so long that they begin to crawl around on your tongue, they are a quick, pop, chew, swallow.

Tomato Caterpillars?  A bit mushy.  Oh, and selected ones are very, very bitter.

Snails and slugs are a bit gooey as one would imagine.

After all of those bugs (Barry first, Jeff next, me last) had been caught and swallowed, the final cut came when Barry popped a live grass hopper in his mouth.

I don’t know about what Jeff was thinking (after-all, he had a pet rat that cleaned his teeth for him), but at that point the thought of those spikey back legs kicking and gouging my tongue and throat while I tried to get the thing lined up to be chewed was enough for me to decide that I really had no need to be the leader.  

Especially since I knew it would only last until I couldn’t beat on both of them anymore.


Okay, so maybe in the retelling it appears that the wisdom target may have been a clear miss in all three tests.


In retrospect, unless our leadership challenge was the one used by the Whi’t’les Lodge of the Ni’mcompoop tribe, our challenge was not very reflective of the real challenges of leadership.

Which brings me back to this year’s Presidential campaign.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Rodeo Hang Over

I was born in Livermore California back in 1958 when there was a population of only about 14,000 people.  At that time any one of the several cattle ranches around town, both in the valley proper and in the bordering hills had many times more cattle than there were town’s folk.

Cattle came to what would become the Livermore valley back in 1797 along with grape vines for wine production both brought into the valley by the Spanish Missionaries after they established Mission San Jose in what is now the eastern foothills surrounding the San Francisco Bay.  Cattle were raised for their hides and tallow which were the only exported items in early California’s history.  The grapes were because the Father’s had a penchant for “a touch of nectar” as they said.  Subjugation of the indigenous population was the means to the economic engine that drove the Spanish Missionary period in California’s history.

Some 40 years later, an English seaman jumped ship in Monterey California and after gaining citizenship moved to the valley.  His name was Robert Livermore and had been awarded a Land Grant for most of the eastern end of the valley, building an adobe house in what is now the north central part of Livermore and began raising cattle and later making money supplying the vast numbers of “49ers” that traveled through the Livermore Valley on their way to the mining camps in the Sierras.

Cattle remained a business foundation in the Livermore Valley right up through the time my brothers and I grew up there.  While the ranches had mostly sold off all of the valley floor acreage, they still occupied the rolling hills that completely surround the valley.  Out south of town was the big N3 spread and dozens of smaller outfits, north was the Biel Cattle company surrounded by smaller brands, and east the Neisen family still ran cattle out past the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and Sandia National Labs properties.

Cowboys, real cowboys, walked our streets, shared seats in our classrooms, and hung out around the saloons, pool halls, cinemas, and swimming holes of our youth.  

It should come as no surprise then that Livermore has a long rodeo tradition (pronounced Row-Dee-Oh).  By the beginning of the 1900s cowboys had been informally testing their skills against each other at round ups and because of bar bets for over one hundred years in the Livermore area.  The formal Livermore Rodeo actually came into being as a result of events almost six thousand miles away in France.  It turns out that in World War I the Red Cross was in such dire need of funds to care for the vast number of wounded in the trenches of France that every city and town in California was assessed $ 1,200 to supply the needed support.

John McGlinchey, then president of the Livermore Stockman’s Protective Association proposed a rodeo to raise the levied funds.  Once organized, that first rodeo was held in June 1918.  The gathering was held on a ranch just north of the town near the current intersection of Interstate 580 and North Portola Avenue and was actually filmed by Universal Studios to be used in a Newsreel about how communities were rallying in support of US servicemen.

The Livermore Rodeo has been held every June since then and is now about to be held for the 98th time.  My brothers and I gloried in the shows every year.  We watched the parades, we hung up against the old post and rail corral, we hung out at the nighttime events, and dreamed of riding in the arena; we were even known to have roped and rode a stray wild cow now and then in the hills around the Valley.

The Livermore Rodeo is known as the “World’s Fastest Rodeo” and has held that title for decades.  More rides, more bucking, more competition in any one afternoon than at any other rodeo.  If a contestant is thrown from a bull, or bucked from a horse, he hasn’t even hit the ground yet before another bucking chute gate has been swung open and another rider and critter are leaping across the arena.

The Livermore Rodeo is an important rodeo on the national circuit. Competitors come from far and near to try their hand and win notoriety in their exclusive fraternity.  Seldom is a national champion in any event crowned that didn’t first win that event in Livermore.   I’d always known the Livermore event was important, but never new exactly how important until several years later.


Several years after I moved away from Livermore I found my way down to the canyon country just north of Salinas.  The first thing I noticed was that Salinas had a big week-long rodeo event; the second thing I noticed was they didn’t pronounce it Row-Dee-Oh, they pronounced it Row-Day-Oh.

At the time I was managing the Orchard Supply Hardware store in Salinas California and one of the Salinas Rodeo Association board members approached me at the store wanting to get Orchard to sponsor the “row-day-oh”.  He had a whole pitch ready, and the pitch included a breakfast get-together at the Rodeo’s main office with some other business leaders also being recruited.

Growing up, whenever Mom put food on the table, Dad would say “eat up, no telling when she’ll decide to cook again”.  So, free breakfast?  Sign me up.  And I must admit that the breakfast was outstanding.  Of course, any time you can have as much bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes as you want, it just has to be outstanding.

And the building and conference room was beautiful what with pictures of old ranches in the area, signed photos of past Rodeo Champions and Rodeo Queens, and ranch brands burned into the rich wooden wall panels.  The Rodeo Association members had a full court press on.   Slideshow and movie and pitch; filled with community leaders and Hollywood stars, and business leaders all praising the benefits of being a “row-day-oh” sponsor.  Benefits such as free tickets to the events, and a pavilion tent (though somehow the words pavilion and rodeo just don’t seem to fit together for me), and never-ending beer.

Foolishly, in an effort to “close the deal” the president of the association turned to me when the presentation was over and asked me what I thought.  What he thought was since I was the youngest of the business people there he was most likely to get the ball rolling with me.  And he was right.

Just not in the direction he expected.

I told him it all sounded like a great thing.

Encouraged, he asked me if I had any questions.

I deadpanned:
“Only one I can think of”.
“Where I come from we have “row-dee-ohs”, “I know what they are”
“But just exactly what is a “row-day-oh?”

Silence decended.
Smiles disappeared.
The room chilled.
The faces became stern.

They were all between me and the door.

Luckily for me, there was a past president of the association in the room.
He looked at me and asked: “And just exactly where do you come from?”

When I told him I was bred and born in Livermore, the room thawed back out immediately.
The past president smiled and looking at the rest of the association members said; “well, I guess we do pronounce it a little differently at that”.

I still believe that if I had grown up anywhere other than Livermore, Cheyenne, or Calgary, I just might have been found hung from a tree right then.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen   

Color Me Maroon

Another year is streaming past.  Cold winter has turned to springtime which inevitably calls to mind visions of my youth, of flowers and fields, fishing holes and crawdad’n, jump shooting ducks in the local arroyo and baking in the summer sunshine. 

I grew up in a rather warm part of California.  The Livermore Valley was hard on the Maytag man.  He didn’t have much to do because clothes driers were seldom used.  You could put wet wash out on the line at 9 pm and bring it in dry before you went to bed.  The average low temperature from May through September was over 55 degrees.  The average high temperature was well over 90. 

Yep, hometown regularly hit triple digits in the summer.  And I don’t mean 101 degrees.  Nope, 109, 111, 113, and 115 marks were not unusual.  And no afternoon thundershowers to cool things off like you southwesteners get and no afternoon sea breeze either.  No nice late afternoon early evening “recovery” to enjoy.  Just plain hot.  From late May until Late September. 

 

Every June along about when the sun had really hit its stride and the valley was full dry the rodeo rolled into town.   

Cowboys and Cowgirls we had aplenty all year round as the valley was surrounded by ranches and mini-ranches.  Our high school mascot was a Cowboy after-all.  But with the Rodeo came the professionals, parades, street parties, and excitement.   

This was serious “fun” back then and likely remains so today, although I haven’t been back Livermore way for a Rodeo in over 35 years.  The Livermore Rodeo is on the National Rodeo Association’s points-circuit and that actually saved me a hiding in later years (see Rodeo versus Rodeo).  It was pretty uncommon back when I was living there that a Cowboy won any of the national titles without having won their event at Livermore first.

 

Now my early memories of the Rodeo was of a rough old weathered wooden post and rail corral out South Livermore Avenue just past the Lucky Store and along where the library and police station were later built.  Standard issue Livermore dirt and rock field stubbled with wild grasses, a tumbleweed or two, a large corral with bucking chutes and bleached out wooden bleachers, a couple of connected smaller corrals for the rodeo stock with water toughs, old worn pickups and horse trailers parked this way and that, most with a horse or two tied out under a shade cover of canvass stretched between a couple trailers. 

The cowboys mostly slept and ate scattered among the trailers. 

The rodeo kicked off with a parade right down the highway through the middle of town; Cowboys and Indians, Spanish riders and saloon girls, floats and horses, firetrucks and ambulances, contestants and locals.  Bands played, square dancers twirled, and candy was thrown.  

The parade started over on the west end of town, forming up near Pioneer Park and the hospital, moving eastward it overflowed both directions (east and west) of the highway until it swung south at the town’s tall white flagpole (there is another story there for sure).  We boys would follow the end of the parade out South Livermore Avenue to the rodeo grounds, and find a place right up against the corral rails. 

Back then, they only charged if you went up into the bleachers.   So we didn’t.  And anyway, no boy wanted to be as far away as a bleacher seat anyhow.  Any further back than the floating dust and flying sweat (animal or man) and blood (man), was just too far from the action.  And so we would squirm and elbow our way into position, giving a little ground now and then for a younger smaller kid, and watch the rodeo for free each year. 

As the years passed and I grew, the Rodeo Association was able to buy up a bunch of Ol’ man Baranus’s land after he passed away.  They set to building a brand new rodeo arena just outside the edge of town on the south side of the arroyo behind College Avenue.  They tore out our fishing pond, (which ended the era of flying rock salt in our county) and put up a big new stadium complete with aluminum bleachers and fold-down plastic chairs, sunshade roof, flush toilet bathrooms and permanent snack stands. 

 

One of my closest friends growing up was Jim.  We both lived on 4^th street and were great friends from about second grade on.  Jim grew up a ½ block east of the Catholic school and Church, I grew up a ½ block west.  He grew up Catholic, I grew up coyote (I’d say mutt, but that would imply a mixture of religions, and try as my parents did, I was a bit too wild for any of that).   

When Jim and I messed around outside of the Catholic school grounds or church in the afternoons, he had to stick around and take a lecture from those ol’ gals in the penguin suits; me, I just ran off.  But that too would be a story for another time. 

 

Jim and I decided we would head out to watch the rodeo the first year the new arena opened and pay for comfortable seats.  Thought it would be cool to live like we had money.  Rub our britches on seats that not only wouldn’t drive an old redwood sliver into a sensitive body part or two, but that weren’t sticky or gooey yet.  And of course, it wasn’t like we had any choice in the matter cause without tickets you couldn’t get within a ¼ mile of the arena.  So if we were going to go watch, we were going to have to pay.     

I was 6’2” and 185 pounds, regularly wore cowboy boots, boot cut wranglers, tee-shirts and an Australian Slouch hat back then, so I fit the crowd pretty naturally.  I was trolling for cowgirls.  To a guy like me there has always been something special about the way a cowgirl fills a pair of jeans. 

Jim on the other hand was dressed in sneakers, shorts, and a yellow fishnet shirt.  It was obvious Jim was trolling too; but he was baiting his hook for different game and I wasn’t worried about any competition.      

Jim and I got together to head down to the parade and I looked at his “attire” (my momma taught me to be polite, after a while anyway), and commented that he ought to change to something else, cause a fishnet doesn’t offer much protection.  And after all we were going to be sitting in the sun before and during the parade, and then walking in the sun out to the arena, and finally sitting in the sun until at least 4:30 pm or so until the sun had moved far enough west to start to cast a shadow on the seating. 

Jim looked at me with the expression he often used with his more foolish friends and assured me that it wasn’t a problem cause he was pure blood Portuguese and his brown skin just simply didn’t burn.  I wasn’t convinced. But, heck, “no skin off my nose” isn’t just a quaint expression your grandma used to use, it’s based in reality and Jim was grown enough to make his own decision, so I let it go at that. 

The temperature that day ran up to about 105 in the shade, except out at the Rodeo grounds there was no shade to speak of.  Clear blue skies, lots of new reflective aluminum, white sand in the arena.  The place fairly sparkled until the rodeo was just about over when the shade began to creep eastward. 

It had been a great day, and a wonderful rodeo.  And while the afternoon had stretched on in real time, it seemed like it passed too fast and before we knew it Jim and I were walking back into town talking up our plans to hit the street dance that night downtown.   

But I noticed Jim was moving a bit careful, and a bit slow.   

So I asked him if he was alright. 

He said he thought he was maybe a bit dehydrated, and that his shirt was scratching just a bit, and maybe his skin had “dried a little”.  So he decided to peel off that yellow fishnet to cool down a bit while we walked. 

He did. 

I laughed. 

So hard my eyes still tear up today some 40 years later whenever a picture of him passes my mind’s eye. 

Cause Jim was right, his skin didn’t simply burn.  It burned in the most wonderful geometric brown and maroon checkerboard pattern I have ever seen. 

At least until you slapped it. 

Then it simply went maroon all over.

 

Too bad too.  Cause that was the last year of the street dances, and by the time we got home Jim was too “done” to care about going out later. 

Turns out he missed one heck of a burly, drunken brawl.  The police department, sheriff’s department, and a couple security services finally shut the “dance” down after finally pulling the last of the drunken revelers out of the trees, fountains, and down from the light poles about 2 in the morning.   

Livermore hasn’t issued a street dance permit since.

 

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen