Defiance

(Wherein I compare Bama to cancer, but in the nicest way possible.)

My typically excited anticipation for this year’s Alabama game is numbed by this week’s events. Yet my desire to be in Death Valley for it has been stronger than ever, bordering on fanatical. I finally figured out why:

After Cory received a horrible diagnosis, he took everything the cancer and chemo had, then waved some fingers for a little more. Just a month before he passed away, he stood tall at his wedding and danced the night away.

When doctors said there was nothing more to do, he shook hands and said thanks for the hard work, drank a Dr Pepper, got himself back home, and took everyone out for breakfast the day before he passed away.

He smiled until he couldn’t smile, and his heart kept beating even after his body stopped breathing. Cancer took his body, but never once did he let it take his humor, warmth, or love. He never let it win.

The stakes this weekend are obviously less severe. But the lesson is the same: The big, bad thing is coming, and there’s not much we can do to stop it. But we are not afraid of it.

“It never rains in Tiger Stadium.”

“Welcome to Death Valley.”

Delusional optimism is our disease, and bourbon is our medicine. We happily greet any calamity, no matter how dire.

On Saturday, 100,000 mortal souls will become part of something bigger than our individual selves. Every chair will be full, even though one seat will be empty.

The defiance in the stadium will last for 60 minutes. And it’s much more socially acceptable to cathartically scream your anger, relief, frustration, and hopefully jubilation there.

The defiance he taught me — the same defiance our dad taught him — will be a lesson I keep for a lifetime.

A mighty wind

In the back of our minds, we are all aware of our own mortality. We wake, drink coffee, bang a keyboard, go for a run, watch a game, eat some ice cream, read a book, set our alarm for the next day, and otherwise go about our business hoping something exciting will happen.

Maybe we create some excitement for special occasions? Otherwise, we while away our days in what are hopefully productive pursuits. Then one day the drummer drops a stick, or the bassist pops a string, and the rhythm ceases to keep time. 

We become aware of the busyness of running errands, keeping the gas tank full, the glare of fluorescent lights in the office, the traffic. The bustle of everyday life swirls around us, like a log stuck in a riverbed, yet we lie still, considering our own breathing.

We inhale deeply and feel the air in our lungs. We blink our eyes and sense the moisture in their corners. We crack our knuckles and flex our toes and pop our ears. We hear the gurgle of digestion snaking down our abdomen. 

We become aware of the intricate and delicate yet resilient nature of our bodies — of our selves. We become aware of the battle between permanence and impermanence. 

The concrete edifice of the mighty interstate highway will stand long after we are gone, but should we sacrifice ourselves to it by sitting in traffic? Each of us carries a different priority in our hearts. Here's hoping each of us pursues them with equal gusto.

What matters to you today?

Cold

Every summer, amid the 105° scorch of the August sun, I pray for winter. But when winter arrives — and here that means maybe a couple of cold cracks per season, not a multi-month slog of ashen, slushy misery — I start to think wallowing by the pool with a mai tai isn’t so bad. 

Heat drains you, but cold truly enervates. “Coming in from the cold” means something to you; there’s probably a reason no trite phrase exists for the feeling of opening a door and getting blasted by the AC. 

But I still like winter. It’s cold, chapped, dark, and generally as numbing to the spirit as it is to parts exposed to freezing wind...but I bet those late-summer mai tais wouldn’t taste as good without it. 

Patty's Pig

As a little guy, I knew about my Grandpa Brown's military career: the shadowboxed medals, ribbons, and insignia hanging on the wall; the library of books I was free to borrow; the arrow-straight military saber and the serpentine Filipino sword he would bring out from the bedroom closet once we had begged him enough; the (still) too-cool-to-believe mounted rocket from an F-4 pod that sat in the front bedroom window.

To me, he was just a nice guy who exclaimed "hello, Rickerbick" when we visited and liked to play catch. When a larger familial group gathered at the familial acreage in a town south of Fort Worth, I knew to watch for the frosty mugs of beer that would herald a raucous political argument with his large and dogmatically diverse progeny. But no matter how heated the argument, it would inevitably end in the goofy Irish sense of furious love — and more cold beer.

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But that was Grandpa in retirement, not Colonel Brown.

You can't grow up Irish, in Brooklyn, and survive three wars (or four if you count being in SAC during the Cold) without some edge. He was emotional, even tempestuous, and my mother and her siblings talked enough about his disciplinarian side to make me grateful I never had to experience it personally. Seeing the stare in this photo well after he passed away is as close as Iever came.

As I got older, I learned about his long history of distinguished though unassumingly quiet service: a pre-Pearl Harbor enlistee of the U.S. Army Air Corps and navigator in B-26 Marauder bombers in Europe, then an important role with the burgeoning (and elite) Republic of Korea Air Force in the 50s, then riding an impeccable record as a safety-oriented specialist in SAC, and finally a career-harming but life-affirming move to become a wing commander of recon F-4s during Vietnam.

He might have cost himself a general's star by switching to fighters decades into his career, but he always wanted to fly. And despite the innate danger of flying unarmed photography machines over the bristling anti-air defenses of North Vietnam, he brought back every man who flew under his command.

His story, insofar as we continue to uncover details of it, is a remarkable one. One of his bombers was loaned to another crew, who got shot down; antiaircraft fire killed his best friend in his crew, though he escaped unharmed. His quiet influence on the ROKAF alone probably has a book in it, but I suspect it'll stay relatively unknown. That's the ethos of the Greatest Generation. He wouldn't talk much about it, but faces like that one do not go gentle into that good night.

They do, however, play catch with the blissfully ignorant and unassuming young grandchild who reaps all the benefits he had sown.

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"Patty's Pig" of the 323rd Bombardment Group — 456th Bombardment Squadron. Lt. Walter J. Brown, second from left. (Photo courtesy of the American Air Museum in Britain)

Morale Boosters

 “Morale is at one and the same time the strongest and the most delicate of growths. It withstands shocks, even disasters of the battlefield, but can be destroyed utterly by favoritism, neglect, or injustice.” –Dwight Eisenhower

Ike knew a thing or two about managing morale. While the average working stiff these days is concerned with splashing through the water fountain, not the beaches of Normandy, morale remains crucial to any organization — especially in the otherwise florescent sterility of the average office environment. I've found the single easiest place to boost not just your morale but that of other like-minded officemates is at lunch.

Below is a list of some of my favorite morale-boosting lunch joints in Fort Worth. Please note more well-known places like Heim or Reata or Bonnell’s aren’t listed below, because duh: you should know them already. In the opinion of this moderately overweight author who is under the close care of a doctor concerned about elevated triglycerides (the Latin word for “delicious”), the following are the top 10 ways to boost your morale over your lunch hour(s):

Drew's Place 

Drew's will get your morale soaring like a whole flock of eagles. A hole in the wall off of Camp Bowie and Horne, Drew’s draws a confidence-inspiring mix of locals, uniformed NAS personnel, and blue-collar types who evidently are already pros at boosting food morale. The service is always exuberantly cheerful and nearly as good as the eats. They like to see new faces.

The fried chicken is the worth the wait, though it may be rude to make your companions wait if you're on a tight schedule. The smothered chops descend directly from batter-fried pig heaven to your plate. Affordable option: order the midweek LeeAnn platter for $7.99, ask if the broccoli-rice casserole is available, and pair it with another side of your choice from the menu. If you order Texas toast instead of cornbread be prepared for personal judgment (though not from me).

Tip from a professional: Don't be a hero. Forego the offer of a second (or third) chop and then end the meal with a slice of sweet potato pie. Drew’s is where you go when you need the affirmation of boundless enthusiasm and physical sensation of a large, greasy, delicious rock in your tum-tum.

Secret Garden Tea Room

Park at the Montgomery Street Antique Mall, enter what feels like a Narnia portal and wind your way through a land of tchotchkes, knickknacks, gewgaws, doodads, and other junks and treasures comprising the antique mall, and eventually you find an open space with tables that seems to resemble a restaurant. (The plastic covering the tables is a dead giveaway; if it is not covered in plastic, it is probably for sale.)

The vibe is that of an antique mall, but you can get a lovely little sampler plate of soup, quiche, salad, fruit, and a muffin that is satisfying without being overly filling. The apricot-mango tea tastes like tea and isn’t overpoweringly sweet.

Visit the Secret Garden on days when you want to absolutely destroy an afternoon. The lunch is typically served quickly, but you'll want to get lost among the antiques, which will keep you occupied for hours.

Kimbell Art Museum (and Buffet Restaurant)

The Kimbell Art Museum Buffet Restaurant is like a classy Golden Corral. Actually, that’s unfair to both parties: The building was purpose-designed and is literally a piece of modern art, while Golden Corral won’t limit you to just one run through the buffet. But both are full of old people, albeit of wildly varying socioeconomic strata.

Even calling this place a “buffet” is a bit of a misnomer. They mean it in the strictest sense, that you are served by a person from a buffet counter. Otherwise the contents of the Kimbell’s cookbook are famous, and for good reason. This is the only place where I’ve enjoyed chilled soup.

Line up, choose one of three sizes of plate, and then fill 'er up. Typical offerings are one of two soups; one of a few choices of salad; choice of a half sandwich and/or slice of quiche; crackers and other accoutrements; and if you’re lucky, the dessert that day will be the Mandarin orange cake. An assortment of teas and oddly compelling square ice cubes round off the experience.

Parking is free. Do it in the underground garage by the Renzo Pavilion and take the short stroll across the lawn to the Kahn Building. Grab lunch here with your grandparents' best friends, then feel free to walk off the orange cake and enculturate yourself a bit at one of the art exhibits.

Kimbell lunches are for days when morale is feeling classy and you really want to red-line it.

Italy

If you’re willing to drive to the far reaches of 820 (or “out of town,” as a legendary former colleague used to call it), Italy provides beastly portions of rich, filling, and cheap Italian food that can cure even the lowest pangs of morale-deficient hunger.

Their pizza gets a lot of attention, but ask the waiter what he likes that day and just go with it. I ended up with some kind of spicy sausage dish that was so abundant I took half home and had it for dinner. Since I already eat for two on a normal day, it was basically four meals of tasty pasta for around 10 bucks.

Speaking of taking it home, while Italy does do takeout, it really is more fun to visit their mostly abandoned shopping center (with the colorful Southern Classic Daiquiri Factory; Geaux Tigers) and enjoy the classic Italian vibe inside. Go to Italy for days when you want to kill some time driving around and won’t mind a carb-rich food coma blacking out your afternoon.

Mariposa's

Don’t go here. Don’t order the queso. Don’t stuff yourself with the enormous tamales. Don’t order the mini enchilada sampler, which is just enough to fill you up without making you hate life. Don’t order the Cuban rice. Don’t order the grilled vegetables, which are so good I actually voluntarily order vegetables. Don’t buy their cookies. Don’t enjoy the atmosphere that is as homemade as the food.

Don’t go here, because then it will become harder to get a table, and right now the only knock on Mariposa’s is sometimes the service is slow, though never unfriendly.

Mariposa’s lunches are for days when morale is critically low but you still have time to stretch that hour into 90 minutes or so.

Billy's Oak Acres BarBQ

Look, it's always Heim time (duh), but they're not the only game in town. If you take a quick jaunt up 820 to this little gem nestled off of Las Vegas Trail, you will feel like you traveled to an old smokehouse in the country — because you did — yet you’ll still be back in the office before the boss asks for the next TPS report.

While Billy’s has a great barbecue “feel,” fortunately the food backs it up. People like to eat the brisket. I like to eat the pork products. Get it by the pound if you’re with friends. The platter presentation is glorious and gives you the sweats just from looking at it. Their dessert game is especially strong. Leave room for it.

This is a good place to take out of towners (Dallasites); to get a good chunk of smoked meat (and smoke-scented clothing) without waiting in line at Heim; or to eat until you’re blessed with not just a food baby, but food twins. This is a day-before-a-three-day-weekend kind of lunch.

Meli's Taqueria

Don’t take a date here. Actually, probably don't take anyone here: it's hot outside and they only have like two picnic tables for seating to go with their scenic view of Vickery Ave. and the railyard. This is a to-go joint. Meli's doesn't look like much from the outside, but it will amaze your tastebuds.

If you need a quick lunch, Meli’s offers tacos, tortas, gorditas, and burritos, all in a fantastical variety of meat flavors. I have no idea what half of them mean — and it’s likely I don’t want to — but be it cow or pig or chicken, it’s all good. The barbacoa is transcendent. Their hot sauces aren’t for wimps. Start small, with just a few drops, and work your way up. Otherwise, food coma may be the least of your gastric health concerns.

And they’re open early. Make office friends by showing up with Meli’s breakfast tacos. When they ask where the tacos came from, reply “Meli’s” and observe their quizzical looks, like dogs trying to understand spoken words.

Meli’s is for a rushed day when you still need to go outside. You can eat all three meals in a day here and not be ashamed.

Shinjuku Station

Classier and almost-as-delicious alternative to Tokyo Café. TC gets all the love for good reason, but Shinjuku has a more upscale atmosphere — its small dining room feels intimate without being overly romantic — with some uncommon and superbly presented offerings.

The stir-fried edamame is just spicy enough to get the sinuses working without being overpowering, and is not optional as an appetizer. The a la carte tempura shouldn’t be missed, and you can get a healthy serving of them as part of the BYOB (build-your-own-bento) that has plenty of options. Strangely enough for a Japanese restaurant, you can probably skip the sushi rolls, though the hamachi zest is good and nigiri is typically excellent. If the Big Apple roll is available, give it a try.

Shinjuku lunches are good for taking the boss out, or a day when you wore a nice shirt and feel pretty good about yourself.

BONUS: It’s also a sneaky-good dinner/date spot, but come prepared: You will wait even with a reservation. Grab a powerful old fashioned from the bar and get ready to break the ice early. The steamed mussels are divine; if the waiter doesn’t offer some rice to pair with it, ask for a small bowl and then layer rice with the mussels and their sake-yuzu butter sauce.

Smokeys BBQ

Smokeys is in approximately the middle of nowhere on E. Lancaster Avenue, and it makes a great lunch stop because it is on E. Lancaster Avenue. (Go during the daytime.) The drive is not scenic, and frankly neither is the location, but you will survive because the food is prettier than a newborn baby. And even smells better.

Get an Eli plate with ribs and turkey (Thursdays and Fridays only), or treat yourself to the full sampler and get into some pulled pork. The homemade buns bring it all together — literally. Put any of the meats (and sides) between the buns. You like sides? The apostrophe in the Smokeys name is missing, but there’s nothing left out of the buffet-style beans, potato salad, sundries, etc. Load up on pickles and as much sauce as your buns can handle.

The people here are as nice as the neighborhood is not; missing out on dining in diminishes the experience. This lunch is for days when you are hating a vendor or maybe a boss, but not yourself or another coworker.

Little Lilly Sushi

I started to put one of the Haltom City pho joints (My Lan) here, but the truth is that unlike Italy, those are technically not in Fort Worth. And more relevantly, while they provide hearty fare they aren’t necessarily a morale boosting environment. Little Lilly is.

Tucked into a shopping center on Camp Bowie just west of Bryant Irvin, you can and probably have driven by Little Lilly a hundred times without noticing it. Don’t make that mistake 101 times.. It's a small place with a casual environment and top-end sushi.

The dining room can get crowded, but there’s also a larger room in the back for a bigger group. The octopus lollipops are better than they sound. Eat the hamachi zest roll; then eat any roll that looks good to you, because it will be. Try some of the quail eggs or other non-roll items, because the quality and freshness of the offerings may illuminate you. Or maybe you just feel brave at noon on a weekday.

This is a lunch spot for a business thing.

Swiss Pastry Shop

All hail Chef Hans. The second-generation proprietor and food visionary recently lost his dinner chef to the Kimbell, but the Swiss still pairs outrageously affordable food along with an entertaining crowd of laid-back regulars who might be even older than the Kimbell’s. (Though the Alp-y wall murals here are better than a Van Gogh exhibit.)

I won’t distract you with talk of breakfast or even the variety of pastries, pies, cakes, cookies, the iconic Black Forest Cake, or myriad other baked goods that made the Swiss famous. (You have Hans' Instagram for that.) I will note that all meals should be followed with at least one slice of the chocolate mousse pie, which is the best chocolate pie in the world. That is a literal and not hyperbolic statement. I bend a knee and offer up my sword like Rufio. Hans is the Pan of chocolate pie.

The Swiss’ pastrami is top-notch and their burgers meaty and massive, but the secret weapon here is the salad plate. It’s like six bucks and features a scoop of a meat salad, a side (a salty potato salad, or some avocado or cottage cheese if you find being healthy is a morale booster), plus some slices of pickles and tomatoes and a carrot cake sandwich. The carrot cake sandwich is made of carrots, so it’s basically a vegetable and doesn’t count as dessert. (That’s what the pie is for.)

The salad plate tastes like something your grandma would’ve served you in the early afternoon after you came inside from running around in the yard. It tastes like reading a Calvin and Hobbes book. The Swiss is where you go for the days when you feel like being around some old timers or are feeling nostalgic.

 

What's in the box?

Hint: It has 47 keys, floating shift, and is older than WWII.

"Come at the king, you best not miss..."

Is a crawfish seafood? They're technically freshwater crustaceans — and if you can name another example of one, I want to be on your team at the next trivia night. Google them and you find a list of unfamiliar, multisyllabic species names from across the globe, including the domestic "crayfish"; I'll just chalk up crawfish as another unique Louisiana thing.

A crawfish boil is an inherently social act, though nowadays it isn't conducted as a survival exercise among weary Acadian settlers so much as simply to exercise some springtime joie de vivre. These muddy bottom-feeders have somehow become the centerpiece of culinary events held all along the third coast.

The big guy below was king of the cooler last Sunday at my dad's birthday party. He kept climbing up on top of the others and waving his claws at whatever or whomever came close. Of course it didn't stop him from being poached and eaten like the tasty little morsel he is, but at least I had a chance to capture this photo, which is now framed and displayed on my desk.

Reverence

Posted on Aug. 16, 2016

It’s not insensitive to talk about football while the floodwaters recede from the Baton Rouge area. Tiger Stadium is the cathedral of college football, and in times of despair people seek to bask in the comfort of a higher power.

On a good day in Louisiana, all there is to worry about is coastal erosion to the tune of around a football field of land every hour. The bad days range from calamitous to cataclysmic. Be it the Deepwater Horizon oil spill or Hurricane Katrina, both human frailty and and natural turmoil seem to have it out for Louisiana.

My guess is that’s because her people can take it; the state flag depicts a pelican wounding herself to feed her hatchlings with her own flesh and blood.

We defied Hurricane Gustav in 2008 by roasting in the midday sun at perhaps the only day game in Death Valley not caused by CBS and JP Sports.

We warmly welcomed Virginia Tech in 2007 as they struggled to find normalcy after the shooting on their campus. We hosted a “home game” for South Carolina last year as they struggled with their own flooding issues. We gave them hospitality. We gave them respect.

Then we kicked both of their asses.

We played Monday Night Football versus Tennessee in September, 2005, not because of Katrina, but Hurricane Rita — remember her? People in Lake Charles and Lake Arthur do. That game also happens to perfectly encapsulate the Les Miles era, which is itself profoundly Louisianan: triumphant, validating, defiant; devastatingly heartbreaking.

Sometimes the river floods and people find themselves in houses with no sheetrock, stuck at their camp, at somebody else’s house, in a hotel, or maybe in one of those white trailers. One day, eventually, the winds will blow in from the Gulf and bring pain and destruction again. But I have good news for you:

It never rains in Tiger Stadium.