Fat fingers got me again. i hit “Publish” rather than “Save Draft,” so it wasn’t really fat fingers. It was fat head. So now for the rest of the tale.

Those two words don’t quite fit together. Christmas. Okra.

i should have known.

Then, there was this crazy thing when i found okra in the Navy commissary at the 32nd Street base in San Diego. In late November. i haven’t seen it all year anywhere except at the North Island exchange in early October. Go figure.

i should have known.

Then, i made the mistake of looking up fried okra on the internet. Initially, Paula Deen and i had a rocky relationship.

i should have known.

i have tried frying okra, twice previously. The first time, i could not find any fresh okra in the Southwest corner, so i tried it with that frozen muck. Bad idea. The next time, i got some fresh okra, worked on it for about three hours, counting cooking and it turned out…well, not quite as bad as the frozen stuff.

So i quit the frying jag.

i came up with own recipe for okra, something roughly akin to a Cajun gumbo. It has gotten some pretty good reviews. i toss in some Tennessee Pride Sausage, and i like it. So i stuck to it. It goes really well with my mother’s biscuits or Maureen’s gourmet takeoff on my mother’s biscuits. My cornbread also works pretty well with my okra.

i made some about a week ago before i came upon this commissary okra. So i decided to try the fried version again.

For a while, it appeared this time would not be a great deal different from the other two fiascos. i blamed it on Paula Deen. i took the ingredients and mixed them as directed. The problem was i was not supposed to mix the buttermilk into the mix. i was supposed to wash the okra in the buttermilk — i know, i know “wash” is probably an incorrect description, but hell, i don’t claim to be a knowledgeable cook, just good at couple of things stolen from my mother’s extensive recipe cards and several things i picked up from others like The Alligator, Colonel Jimmy Lynch, my former father-in-law — wash the okra in buttermilk before dragging through the mix to deep fry.

When i got to that part about not mixing the buttermilk, i tried to salvage the whole thing. More buttermilk. Not mixed.

It came out of the fryer in big lumps about the size of a baseball. i didn’t include photos here because it was ugly, real ugly. i separated the lumps as best i could with knife and fork, but it still remained lumpy. And ugly.

But then Maureen came home and we tried it. It was really good, tasted as good or better than most okra i know.

So Paula, you have a free pass on this one. But write your recipes so bozos don’t mix everything together before they read to the bottom of the recipe.

Those two words don’t quite fit together.

i should have known.

Then, there was this crazy thing when i found okra in the Navy commissary at the 32nd Street base in San Diego. In late November. i haven’t seen it all year anywhere except at the North Island exchange in early October. Go figure.

i should have known.

Then, i made the mistake of looking up fried okra on the internet.

Another from the “in progress” files:

there’s something here;
you can sorta feel it;
you really don’t know
what the hell it is;
but,
then again,
you really don’t give a damn:
do you?
no;
so wander along in your nothingness,
enjoy what it is
or
whatever it might be;
enjoy the puritanical, the risqué, the commercialism, the naturalism
or
what ever it really is.

what might be there?
who cares what might be there:

it’s a quiet night;
it’s rather cool;
it’s pleasant:
so just sorta sit back,
enjoy the infinitesimal bliss
lying there for you.

Newport, Rhode Island
Summer 1968 

From my old “in progress” files i found yesterday:

Words

who can muster words to flow
like some swirling sea,
still expecting the world to know
what’s beneath the waves and foam?
who can spray forth torrents
of loud and verbose brine
believing the following silence
means everyone else is like inclined.

Newport, Rhode Island
January 1969

i apologize in advance.

Today, i had numerous things to get done. My top priority was to write on my book.

Didn’t.

Before i started, i created a file for the lateral file case in my home office. Putting it in its place i found three thick folders of things i had written i had not completed to my satisfaction, dating at least back to the middle 1960’s. As with most of my stuff, the shards of writing long ago had grammatical errors, oversights, typos, were too wordy and in general what you expect from a story teller not a writer.

i was fascinated.

i am now going through them, cleaning them up a bit (but never enough for critics and most of the time, me too, but hell, i’m a story teller).

So you are probably going to see a lot of stuff from those folders on this site. i apologize. But my muse made me do it.

Pompei

i went to Pompei today
in the rain;
left Naples in a bus;
a fat little man
mechanically spoke his piece
about Naples’ squares and statues
while pimps and whores and hustlers
and
little boys selling dirty pictures
crowded past the bus
while
the bus itself was composed
of innumerable people in one large box,
highly seasoned with the filth of a city
integrated with the smell of the diesel fuel.

in Pompei,
the rain turned gentle;
vendors donned their rain gear;
their umbrellas blossomed
to protect their wares,
slides, tour books, trinkets;
the fat little guide swept us along
in his unbemused fashion
telling of the grandeur, the beauty,
reeling off death statistics
like an accountant,
and
suggestively showing ruined rooms of license.

i left Pompei today in the rain;
the bus felt dry;
soon, near Salerno,
no,
Amalfi, at the crest it seemed,
the clouds broke out the sun
in its harsh, startling glory:
the Mediterranean waters sparkled below;
the hillside homes blanched white
against the breaking sun’s fury
as the bus wound its way
up and down the switchbacks
of the Amalfi coast roads
enchantingly
on the return to Naples.

i left the bus,
making my way
to a phone exchange,
waiting, calling
only to hear the unanswered rings
before
walking to the pier
to wait for the liberty boats
to take me to my anchored ship
alone.

At least, the rain stopped.

Naples, Italy
October 14, 1972