“In praise of sandwiches”

  As you probably know, the 4th Earl of Sandwich is credited with “inventing” the sandwich.  However, while researching this topic, I discovered that he may never have eaten a sandwich in his life! The popular story is that he was unwilling to leave the gaming tables to eat and sent a servant to bring him some salt beef and toast, which he turned into the world’s first sandwich.  Another account says that it wasn’t gambling, but work–he was first lord of the admiralty, and spent long hours at his desk..  Another source says that while in France in 1748, he observed landowners sending sandwiches out to field workers (the law required that the workers be fed) , and took the idea back to England with him.  Still another source says that he sustained a severe gastro-intestinal wound in a naval battle at the age of 17 and never again ate solid food in his life.

Personally, I think he was a pretty cool dude.  He spoke some Turkish, helped popularize Handel, and was a member of Sir Francis Dashwood’s Hell-Fire Club, which dabbled in satanism and debauchery.  Ben Frankin was a member–surprise, surprise!  What’s more, in 1767, his wife was declared insane and  tucked away in a cozy asylum, and he took a 17-year-old mistress, with whom he had five children.  His full name, by the way, was John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, Baron Montagu of st. Neots, which he inherited in 1729 at the ripe old age of 11.

My own experience with sandwiches goes back to grade school, when my mother would pack me a sugar sandwich to eat at recess. Yep, white sugar on white bread with white govt surplus butter.  They provided solace, as the other kids often ragged me ’cause of how I talked–I had a huge vocabulary for a kid (I read the encyclopedia for fun) and I had a southern accent.  I remember when some kids were getting a pick-up football game together.  They said, do you play football, I thought for a moment and replied “That’s a matter of opinion.”  They looked at me funny and didn’t ask again.  Ever.

Later on, when I was in junior high, my dad got a job with the state as a constructiion inspector (he had been a carpenter).  With his first expense check, he took the family out to dinner at the Riverview Diner, a chrome 50s kind of place.  I ordered a bacon sandwich, expecting some sort of BLT-like thing.  What I got was three pieces of limp bacon between two slices of discouraged white bread.  My dad said he would take us out to eat with every monthly check, but he ended up spending the money on booze and gambling.  Thus I learned early that an addicts word means nothing.

Still later, on summer break from college, I got a job on a survey crew as chainman. Lunch was a cold thermos of Hawaiin punch and an olive and pimento loaf sandwich.  I still love them, god help me, even though they only marginally qualify as food.  (Ever read the contents label?  Don’t.)

Today, my sandwich lust continues to rage unabated.  When I am feeling ambitious, I’ll go for a turkey, lettuce, bacon and tomato on lightly toasted multi-grain bread.  WHen the munchies attack and there’s nothing handier, I’ll go for a peanut butter and jelly job-=-the apotheosis of which is cherry preserves and extra-chunky Jiff on sourdough bread.  Just the other day, I literally lived on sandwiches–scrambled egg s for breakfast,  roast beef for lunch, and a hamburger for dinner.  All this talk is making me hungry–later.

I have been a science fiction fan all my life.  As a child, I started out with Isaac Asimov(who has to be one of the most over-rated writers of all time ), van Vogt (one of the most under-rated, even if one of his novels did become a Marvel comic), Robert Heinlein (who jumped the shark with Stranger in a Strange Land), and Doc Smith.  Then, many years later when I was in college and editing some of Dean Koontz’s early fiction (we were on the literary magazine together), a wonderful thing happened–I got laid.  No, sorry, wrong blog.  Dune happened.  Written by Frank Herbert, this book turns up on just about every critic’s list of the all-time great SF.  Dune was followed by Children of Dune (not so good), Dune Messiah, and God Emporer of Dune.  LAter on came stuff like Charterhouse Dune, set way in the future relative to the original.

After Frank died, his son and some other guy (I don’t remember his name, and all I remember from the cover blurbs is that he was nominated for lots of awards but never got any, which is guess makes him a first-rate second-rater), started writing sequels and/or prequels, partly out of reverence for Frank, but mostly (I think) to make a fast buck.  The latest book in their series, The Butlerian Jihad, is an absolute disaster.  In short, it sucks.  Big time.  It reads at times like an uninspired National Lampoon take-off, at times like the script for a 50′s SF flick.  When I started to read the book, I wanted to review it, but after slogging through all 17000 pages or so (it just seemed that long), I decided it is not worthy of a review, but it does merit a warning.  So be warned–under no circumstances should you spend money on this book.  Check it out of a library if you must, but don’t buy it, that will only encourage the perpetrators.

I contend that the year 1947 was the most important year of the 20th century in terms of innovations and events which still resonate today.  Take flying saucers–please! Seriously, 1947 was the year that Kenneth Arnold saw the first modern flying saucers.  This was also the year the the aliens were supposedly secreted at Area 51.  In a related area, the first solid-state device was invented by Bell Labs in 1947, little gizmo called the transistor.  Oh, those cute shimmery holograph things–they were invented in 1947 as well.

Socially, we saw some awesome upheavals in 1947.  As you may know, one of the more-overlooked injustices inflicted on black people is that many great athletes who played for Negro Leagues went unnoticed, unsung, by history.  That started to change in 1947, when Jackie Robinson signed up with  the Brooklyn Dodgers.

India and Pakistan have been in the news a lot lately.  Guess when these two countries became independent–yep, 1947.  Also, the Taft-Hartley Act was passed that year (arguably one of the most important pieces of legislation ever, this act limited the power of unions), Truman came up with the Truman Doctrine, and Marshall came up with the Marshall Plan.  If you’re not familiar with these, you’ll have to look it up because I’m too lazy to do that right now.

Henry Ford died that year–I bet you’ve heard of him.  He’s said to have left an estate of $600 million, I assume in 1947 dollars.  That is the year too that Mach 1 was first attained.  Did I mention the Dead Sea scrolls, which kind of revolutionized biblical scholarship?  They turned up in 1947 too.

Finally, from my own narrow and selfish point of view, here is the most important event of 1947–I was born.  (Thanks, Mom!)

Today, Gentle Readers, I shall blog about a subject close to all of us–shit.  As a word, shit is one of the most potent metaphors of our time.  For instance, if you are very worried or scared, you shit bricks.  If you throw something away, you have shit canned it.  Bad shit is a consumable of very poor quality, usually street drugs.  Someone who is overly worked or overly competant is said to be able to eat sawdust and shit 2x4s.  Someone who is totally clueless can’t tell shit from Shinola.    Someone in a bad situation is up shit creek.  If the situation is very bad, he is up shit creek without a paddle.  If the situation is truely terrible, he is up shit creek without a paddle in a lead-bottom canoe.  One can take a shit, take shit, have the shits, or be shit out of luck.

In addition, it is a well-known fact that flight recorders often record these common last words of pilots–”Oh shit.”  And just to class up this little essay, I must mention John Ciardi, who observed in his introduction to his most excellant translation of Dante’s Inferno, noted that Protestants usually use shit as an expletive, while Catholics usually use profanity,i.e., God damn it, or somesuch.(Oh and by the way, I understand that the last words of rednecks are usually “Hey, watch this!” ) Anyway, shit–or the disposal thereof–is a major issue here in the Frozen North.Offhand, I can’t think of anyone I know who has an indoor shitter.  Outhouses rule!  Except for many villages, where it is too cold for outhouses.  (This is for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, when it is 60 below zero outside, you don’t really want to be hanging your naked ass out, outdoors.  Plus, once you use an outhouse for any length of time in the winter, the frozen feces tend to pile up like a nasty brown stalagmite–we call this a shit-cicle.)  Where there are no outhouses, honey buckets prevail.  A honey bucket is a five-gallon bucket that  one shits in until it is full.  Villages usually have someone whose job it is to collect and  dispose of the contents.  That person really earns his pay, I should think.

Now critter shit is a totally different issue.  I have the honor of cleaning our three-cat litter box.  It sometimes astounds me that such huge turds could come out of such little tiny butts, but that is just the way it is.  Dog shit is ubiquitous. One of the least pleasant aspects of break-up is the miasma that comes from a winter’s worth of dog shit coming to light and thawing as the snow melts.  And then there are those of us who make money by literally selling shit–moose shit, that is, commonly known as moose nuggets.  Moose nuggets are about as inoffensive as shit gets–no bad smell, no smeary quality, moose nuggets are more like pellets of sawdust.  Strong-stomached entrepreneurs make them into jewelry, put them on small dowels and sell them as swizzle sticks, and what have you.  One of the big tourist items is a wooden moose that you fill with candy nuggets, which come out of the moose’s posterior.  I probably mentioned before that Alaskans tend to have robust senses of humor.  (Around our house, a fart joke is ALWAYS good for a laugh.)

I was gonna add some stuff, but I gotta run to the outhouse.  But first (he wrote, manfully clenching his cheeks), I need to give credit to Kathleen Meyer, author of How to Shit in the Woods,  who compiled a wonderful glossary of shit.

Then again, who gives a shit?