Liking Lime and the Cole Slaw Incident

Suddenly I liked lime.

For years I would not have even thought about eating something flavored with limes. I might drink some lime soda/pop something or other. Lemon lime whatsit. But Key Lime Pie seemed gross somehow. And lime ice cream? Yecchhhh.

But then one day, suddenly, for no apparent reason, I thought, I’d like some lime juice in the house. So I bought some. I tried it in some marinade for chicken. It was incredible. I tried a piece of Key Lime Pie. It was great.

Suddenly I liked lime.

This was different than the Coleslaw Incident, as we think of it around here. The Coleslaw Incident went down like this:

The wife and I were in a town called Frankenmuth. It’s referred to as “Michigan’s Little Bavaria,” a little town full of shops and some restaurants that people like to go to for the weekend. We were eating at this big restaurant called Zehnder’s, where they serve a great meal with all these courses of breads and sides and chicken and whatnot. Well, one of the sides is this very creamy looking, large cut coleslaw. They would bring it to the table and my wife would eat it and keep talking about how good it was, but I didn’t eat any because I hated coleslaw.

Hated it. Seriously.

Yes, I had tried it. I had tasted it. And it was nasty, at least to me. But as I watched my wife enjoy that coleslaw, it started me thinking that maybe I was missing out on something. So I spooned a little onto my plate, which caused her to stare in disbelief because she knew how I felt about the slaw. But I just looked at it for a second or two and I said to her, “I’m going to teach myself to like this stuff.”

She laughed at me. That happens a lot.

“Seriously,” I said. “I’m going to train myself to like it.” So I ate that little bit on my plate. It was bitter. Slimy and yet rough. But I ate it. A few weeks later, at my mom’s house, I ate a little more. I didn’t give up. And it took about a year. A little here. A little there. But now, I like it. I DO like cole slaw Sam I Am.

And limes.

Some things are a gift. Some things take work.



Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2010

Alligator Stew

The better half and myself went away for a day with some incredible, we don't deserve them, friends to a house in the woods, near a river, somewhere north of where we already are. It’s what you do in Michigan: You go “up north.” People do it all the time. Why? ‘Cause it’s there, I guess. In New York, I suppose they’d say they’re going “up state” or something like that.

To each his own.

The nice thing about laptops and the internet is that I can do at least some of my work pretty much anywhere. Which is what I did. But it was a little hard to concentrate with all the relaxing going on around me.

I happened to bring along with us some Alligator tail that I had purchased at a store near Lansing, Michigan, called Merindorf Meats. It’s just that kind of store. They have weird meats. It’s a great store.

So I had to decide what to do with this Alligator. I had never eaten alligator before. Never cooked it. Nothing. It was just a novelty. So I put it in a pot with some tomatoes and carrots and such, adding onions and potatoes and whatever struck my fancy. Cooked it low for hours until we were finally ready for dinner, really late, around eight at night.

We ladled the stew into bowls and, for the life of me, I couldn't find the alligator. It was like aliens had beamed the alligator chunks out of the pot while we weren't looking. Who knew aliens liked alligator? But finally we realized that it had simply broken down and it was spread all throughout the stew. The alligator wasn’t as tough as you’d think an alligator would be. And it was good. It did not die in vain.

But I wonder sometimes what leads me to such things. Why did I buy alligator in the first place? Why did I pull it out for this little trip? Why did I choose to make stew? Why did it end up tasting good? I don’t know why, really. I’m just an adventure seeker, I suppose.

Some people climb mountains. Some people travel the world. I make alligator stew.

Call me reckless, I don’t care.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Anishnabeg

The man cutting the tree, taking it down from the sky where it had lived for so long, raising its hands to the Almighty — that man, in his pride, broke the soil for the seed, a voice planted into the earth, a whispering that would continue to rise and speak, like wild-flowers, like the sound of a poet reading a holy book, like water springing from the ground and jumping into the thirsty mouths of children who laugh with the joy of the cool breeze and the sun, yellow and bright, caressing their faces.

The voice, still blooming when the season is right, still whispers the dreams of histories, from the rock and dirt that make up the Michigan landscape, still hints at memories floating in the waters of the great lakes. The voice whispers with the currents, saying, “The Anishnabeg were here, their lives singing in the soil. The Great Fish and the Loon, the Crane, the Bear and the Marten. On this land, laughing, eating, raising their children, they sing from the stones, from the sand and the seed.”

The man cutting the tree from the sky did not care for what he should have offered to the People. He did not care to speak life into their world, unless it might serve his purpose. So money spoke instead. And power. The language of commerce and comfort with it’s many adjectives of overwrought dreaming about the Dream, the dimming lights of a city on a hill, which had been distorted beyond recognition by the countless and pervasive lusts that fill the human heart.

The man cutting the tree said, in so many words, “Be like us or do not be.” Not for the sake of the Light, which would not make such empty and destructive demands, not for the sake of the People themselves, not for the sake of the land or the wonder of creation and what it might yield for the good, but for the sake of a pocket or two in a shiny, expensive suit, and a vague destiny that someone somewhere said had to be.

Memory continues to speak through histories and the symphonies of life. Someone remembers and speaks it. Someone hears again and speaks it. And through the stream of these memories, the Anishnabeg speak. They are asking...

“What do you need?”



Ephesians 4:17-19
Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2010

Snow Angels

I think I was around 7 or 8 years old. I was playing at my friends house, across the street from where I lived, and it was right after one of the deepest Lower Peninsula Michigan snowfalls I’ve ever seen in my life. We were climbing up onto his garage and jumping off into the snow – poof – and it was no problem, like landing on cotton. It wasn’t really that far of a fall because the snow was so deep.

At one point we decided to make snow angels. We fell back onto the snow, staring up into the cold, gray Michigan sky. The snow was so deep, we were sinking pretty far in as we did this. These angels were deep. And there was something hypnotic about laying there, moving arms and legs, together, apart, together, apart. I drifted off into that place we go when we stare at nothing.

When I came out of my angel shaping reverie, my friend was gone. I wasn’t sure where he went. It was a little confusing. I called his name, wondering if he had somehow gotten buried in the snow. But he didn’t answer. So I went to the back door of his house and knocked. He came to the door, pushed through the door roughly, punched me in the face and went back into his house, closing the door behind him. I tried to ask him why he did it. He wouldn’t answer the door.

This was my first encounter with random violence. I have encountered a lot of it since then. It never gets any easier to deal with.

I went home, crying. My nose was bleeding. Like always, his mom fought with my mom about it and they kept on fighting long after we had made up and were sneaking off to play where they couldn’t see us.

He told me later that I had kicked some snow in his face while I was making my angel. He went into his house to dry off his face and his big brother said something like, “You’re not going to let him get away with doing that to you are you?” So he felt obliged to punch me in the nose. Which is how many people operate well into “adulthood.”


The angels melted. I survived.




Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010