Searching for Scotland
Braveheart was released in 1995, around the same time my mother became obsessed with our family’s genealogy. Mel Gibson’s film featured a romanticized version of William Wallace’s story, coupled with an engaging soundtrack of original music by James Horner. Though grossly historically inaccurate, the movie and my family’s Scottish origins instilled in me a desire to go to Scotland.
Twenty-three years later I found myself traveling to Inverness with my husband and my daughter. My father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law met us there. We saw (and touched) Loch Ness; we visited the Highlands. We stood on Hadrian’s Wall (illegally). We saw the oldest of the Crown Jewels in Edinburgh Castle. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
France, 1994
I learned how to buy a ticket and negotiate a train ride. I bought a ticket to see “La Haine “ (the hate) at a local cinema, and I watched the movie with real interest and appreciation, and I learned how people stood up for themselves in the face of ignorance and racism.
I walked with my host family and their cows down the trails on the outskirts of town. I listened to local classical music performances at some of the beautiful old buildings in the town’s center.
I learned how to make authentic French dinners using fresh, local ingredients that I would pick up after school let out each day. It wasn’t a “cushy” stay by any means, but it was inspirational and transformative.
It’s a Wonder I Learned to Cook at All
For my mom, cooking was mostly a chore, an energy-sapping exercise to be done after work so that her stick-thin daughter would get enough nourishment. An act of both necessity and love. Dinners included the requisite meatloaf, stuffed bell peppers, pan-fried hamburgers. Spoiler: they were all really good (except the veggies).
A Taste of Home: How Pepperoni Rolls Connect Me to My Roots
The official state food of West Virginia, pepperoni rolls are a staple for funerals, wakes, and periods of convalescence. Southerners bring casseroles in times of crisis; West Virginians bring pepperoni rolls.
The recipe in its simplest form is bread dough and sliced stick pepperoni. Some people make their own dough; some people use frozen rolls. (Bridgford is the only acceptable brand to use). Some folks like to add cheese to their pepperoni rolls, but in my family that’s tantamount to blasphemy.
Chili Dogs and Family Roots: Exploring the Legacy of Our Beloved Recipe
But the one thing on the menu that kept people coming back to Griffin’s Bar-B-Cue was the chili sauce. In West Virginia, hot dog chili sauce is king. The whole state has an obsession with the dog topper that borders on the obsessive. Strict rules differentiate “chili sauce” from “chili.” It’s always called chili sauce, it never contains beans, it must be a tiny bit sweet (to counteract the saltiness of the dog), and it must always include ground beef simmered in water - never browned first.
A Season of Emptiness
But this year -- this year -- was different. This holiday season arrived with an empty chair at the dining room table. A vacant recliner in the living room. A dad-shaped hole in my heart. The first Christmas without him.
Selling More Than Just Tools: A Personal Essay on Letting Go
We sold my dad’s tools today. Each one went with a story.
Roots + Wings
“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.” -Hodding Carter
He knows (as do we) that it’s all in the daughter’s best interest, but the entire purpose of parents, to prepare our kids to go out into the world, unfolds painfully because “[i]t is with our skill we live in what kills us.”
Moonshine Days
Moonshine, the Southern elixir of life, has many names — some disparaging, some inspiring: corn mash, white lightning, hooch, bathtub gin.
My Own Dutch House
Nestled in a narrow alleyway amongst twisty-turny streets, the Ferguson Street house has long captured my imagination. When I was small, I reveled in discovering its secrets: a dark basement with tapered stairs lined with jars of canned goods, culminating in an honest-to-God black cauldron used for apple butter and sauce; a seldom-used parlor with two vintage organs, imposing as dark sentinels in their watchfulness over the space; a converted attic where my great-uncle slept, a place I was granted access to only once in my life.
A Love Song for Lynn and Dar
Fifty’s greatest insult took root in the doubts and insecurities she planted under cover of the night, the ones that crept into my psyche like poisonous serpentine vines, entwining themselves with the firmly established stalks of self-confidence that I had so tenderly nurtured and cultivated over the last twenty years or so, until at last they overtook them.
A Dime in His Pocket
My grandparents’ farm appeared frozen in time, an anachronistic reminder of humble days. The warm, fetid smell of cow manure and the cool, earthy scent of the blue-green grass greeted me as soon as I opened my car door and stepped out onto the gravel road.
My Beloved Pop: A Eulogy and Tribute to My Unsung Hero
All of these memories are wonderful and painful at the same time. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor’s mother has just died, and he muses: “the first of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth, had visited, and its dimming influence quenched our dearest smiles.” I profoundly feel Victor’s sentiments right now with the loss of my dad. My attachment to the world is lessened because he is not here. In fact, it’s hard to view the world the same way now that he’s gone.
Typing Takes Us to the City
What makes a person a trailblazer? Must they be defined by their immigration to a harsh terrain or an undiscovered land?
My mom calls my aunt Barbara a trailblazer, a pathfinder, though she certainly never completed any of the stereotypical feats of one. My aunt doesn’t see herself as anything brave or special, though she did leave the hills and hollers of southern West Virginia at the tender age of 17 to move to Washington, D.C. My mom insists she never would have had the courage to leave if my aunt hadn’t paved the way.