-Dazed-

Beware of the Mutants

James L. Davis

We are a nation eternally in the dark about the things that should matter most to us. We fret and worry about wars and rumors of wars, about global warming, about which political candidate will destroy their opponent enough to become the next president, while the really important issue slips right by. I am, of course, talking about the mutation of the human race.

To be honest I wouldn’t have noticed it either had I not been forced to take a seat on one of those little park benches they set up in the walkways at the malls while my wife and daughter were shopping. I had to sit down because as hard as I tried my money was running out of my wallet faster than I could keep up with, so I needed a rest. And while I rested I decided to engage in a little people watching. People watching used to be one of my favorite pastimes when I was younger, but I haven’t had a whole lot of time for it lately. People watching is an awful lot like watching any of the shows you might find on Animal Planet and your reaction is often much the same: Where do these creatures come from? For now it seems that all of these mutant humans we are becoming can still interbreed, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we are completely different species.

Now I realize that the human race has always come in different sizes, shapes and colors. I happen to like that about the human race. That’s not what I’m talking about. While I was sitting there trying to force my wallet back into my pocket I noticed this girl being pulled around by her father. She wasn’t being pulled around because she was reluctant to go with him, she was being pulled around because she had wheels on the heels of her shoes and he was providing the forward momentum. My daughter has some of those same kind of shoes, which is not a big deal, but I’m waiting for the day when she comes walking into the room with her toes pointed in the air because her feet have warped to the point where the only part of her foot she uses is a heel.

Think I’m crazy, yeah, well so do the voices in my head. But have you ever noticed that for a certain subspecies of the planet the rules of gravity don’t seem to apply like they do for the rest of us? Take a look at snowboarders or skateboarders or motocross racers. Pick a sport and you’ll see what I mean. Like basketball. Is it really within the realm of human capability to be able to leap into the air at half court and dunk the ball? Come on!

But it’s not just professional athletes. My middle son went to the track with me a while back to help motivate me (or provide ambulance service, I’m not sure which) as I ran laps. As I was running with him around the track I happened to notice that watching him happily bound around the field reminded me of something. It reminded me of the old footage of Neil Armstrong on the moon. Gravity was not a factor for him. That’s not the human race I grew up with!

So you have the Gravity-Buster Subset of the species. Then you have the Cyborgs, who are quickly becoming the dominant subset of the species. These are the mutant’s who are always plugged into something and they have a blank, glazed look in their eyes because their mind is not really in their body anymore, it’s off dancing happily on the internet or wherever minds go when they are plugged into something electronic. They have wires in their ears, they have buttons attached to their hands, they talk to themselves and they quite often bump into inanimate objects because they aren’t entirely there. They remind me of the zombies in the Night of the Living Dead movies, except they aren’t trying to eat my brains. Yet.

Then you have what I like to think of as the Mettoos. These are the people that have metal protruding from all sorts of body parts that I never would have assumed needed any kind of piercing. What body parts aren’t pierced are often tattooed. Should this subset of the species attempt to take over the planet I’m pretty sure we could contain them with a bunch of really big magnets.

The Plastipeople have melded with plastic action figures and you can usually spot them because you might at first mistake them for a department store mannequin. They don’t really have facial expressions and when they walk their legs might move but the rest of their body seems to be frozen in place and their skin has a filmy sheen to it.

Lastly, we have the mutant set that I find that I am evolving into. Due to two jobs that both require long hours sitting behind the desk I am fairly certain that at some point my legs, due to lack of use, will fuse into one wide tail. Then if I grow out my mustache just a little bit longer, presto, you’ll have another new species. Call me walrus man.

-Casey’s World-

Letting yourself get caught up in the allure of music

Casey Wood

Many people are enthralled by the allure of music and choose to begin trying to play music before they realize how much time and effort they are going to have to put forth to be good.

I say this from the perspective of someone who has put forth my fair share of time to become a mediocre guitarist.

At first glance guitar seems relatively easy. That is what I believed after seeing my brother play, goofing around with his guitar on Sunday afternoons. In the months following my 15th birthday when my parents bought my brother’s guitar for me, I learned just how wrong I was. I picked up a ”guitar for beginners” book and began to run through it quickly, but the things it was teaching were not the things I wanted to learn. I wanted real music, not “Yankee Doodle” or “When the Saints Go Marching In.” So I asked around and learned that guitar tablature was the easier way to learn, therefore I embarked on a journey to find good tablature. One day I came upon ultimate-guitar.com and found my good tablature but realized that while I could handle basic stuff, I didn’t understand guitar well enough to do much more than that. I then embarked on another journey to find a good guitar teacher, and through my searching found Jordan Sanders. This is when momentum started to build as I began learning chords, strum patterns and the “real music” I had been searching for. Even at this point guitar was hard work. I began to get callused fingers, but also a better understanding of how to play. I started to actually know how to put forth recognizable music, and even began to write some of my own. The melodies I played were not much compared to the complicated music put forth by my peers and musical idols, and as time went on lessons became less and less frequent, as did time spent playing the guitar, eventually falling into a time without playing. At this point I became less and less skilled.

A few months later when I picked up the guitar again and tried to play as well as I once had, I learned something new. Guitar is a progressive skill, and just as in playing any other musical instrument, time without playing leads to lack of skill. I spent a lot of time working my way back to being the less-than-talented guitarist that I once was, and continued working, learning new things, such as different kinds of chords, how to sing and play along, and more than just the introductions to songs. But even now, I am not especially good. As time passes I will continue to play, and I hope to get better.

If I could start my guitar experience over I would do a few things differently. First, I would have begun to get lessons as soon as I began to play. Second, I would have discovered tablature earlier, and finally I would have never taken a break in the middle. So if guitar, or music in general interests you, I would advise not waiting for the opportunity to be right, but picking up your instrument of choice and trying it now, before the time to learn has passed and it has grown too late.

-Swell Recipes-

Quick and Easy Meals

Kathy Ockey

Ann Sitterud has an insight to cooking that most women can easily understand: “It isn’t as hard to cook as it is to come up with something to cook every night.” Ann loves to cook but wants it to be quick and easy. She said convenience foods can be used as a basis for dishes but they have to be high quality because “you are putting it into your family’s bodies.” One helpful hint from Ann is to have a well-stocked pantry and freezer -- it is the trick to having a fast meal.

Ann and her husband, Michael, a native of Orangeville, moved from California several years ago. She was a software engineer in Silicone Valley in the 1980s and retired from Sun Micro Systems and claims to be a total computer geek. She said now she gets to do what she enjoys and enjoys what she does.

Ann loves cooking with fresh produce but she recently discovered root vegetables (turnip, rutabaga, beets, carrots) and the difference they can add to a dish. The carbohydrates are better from vegetables and beans.

Ann’s husband is very health conscience but said she said it is fun cooking for him because he is willing to try her new recipes.

Uptown Mac and Cheese

1 pkg. Italian sausage, (I love the hot sausage)
1 onion, chopped
1 jar Alfredo sauce
1 pkg Wackie Mac. Vegetable pasta
While pasta is cooking remove sausage from their casings and brown with the onions. Add Alfredo sauce and heat through. Pour over cooked pasta, garnish with parsley and Shazam, Uptown Mac and cheese in 20 minutes. Kids love this.

Shrimp in Black Bean Sauce

1 lb. shrimp, catfish, trout or other firm flesh fish
2 slices ginger
1 green onion
1 tsp wine or rice vinegar
1 tbsp Black bean sauce (available in Asian section)
2 Tbsp peanut oil
1 bunch of asparagus cut in 1” pieces or use green beans, broccoli or other available veggie
1 can of water chestnuts
2 C of fresh mushrooms or reconstituted dry or canned salt and pepper according to taste
Dash of sugar
Sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Cups of water
2 tsp cornstarch
¼ c water
Marinate shrimp in ginger, green onion and wine or vinegar.
Heat wok or frying pan until very hot. Add 1 Tbsp of oil then add Black Bean sauce and stir fry for a few seconds. Add shrimp or fish and stir fry for a few minutes until shrimp are pink and curl up. Remove from wok and set aside.
Add another tablespoon of oil, then veggies, water chestnuts and mushrooms. Stir fry for two minutes, then add 2 Cups of water and soy sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. Simmer until veggies are tender. Return shrimp to wok. Mix cornstarch with water to make a slurry. Add to wok. Bring to boil, stir until thickened and Shazam, easy, nutritious, healthy main dish, very good over rice!

Adventures with Roots and Lentils

1 pkg beef ribs or a nice bone with some meat like the leg from a leg of lamb roast.
1 onion
A few cloves of garlic
1 6 oz pkg of lentils
½ lb baby carrots
1 rutabaga and 1 turnip cubed
½ lb green beans cut in 1” lengths
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
Cook the bones with onion, garlic, salt and pepper until you’ve got all the good out of them that you can, remove the bones. Add lentils and simmer for 15 minutes, Add the rest of the vegetables and simmer another 15 minutes. Add cheese when serving and Shazam, Din-Din. This works well in a crock pot. This is economical and a good source of vitamins and fiber.

-My ride-

A collection of perfection

James L. Davis

Having so many beautiful collector cars that you have to consider for a moment which one is your favorite, is a dilemma most car lovers wouldn’t mind having to face. In the case of Dennis Ward of Huntington, it isn’t much of a dilemma. Even with a garage that is a bit of paradise for a car fanatic (his collection includes a 1957 DeSoto Adventurer, a 1954 Olds Delta 88, a 64 Plymouth Valiant, a 67 Plymouth GTX, a 35 DeSoto Airflow and a 48 Plymouth Coupe), his favorite car is one of the first he restored almost 15 years ago.

Like most of the cars in his collection, his 1954 Plymouth Belvedere convertible is immaculate and looks as though it has just rolled off the show room floor. When Dennis restored the car, like he has with all of his cars, he didn’t cut any corners. From the paint, to the engine and transmission, the car is restored to eye-popping quality. Dennis’ wife, Rose, states modestly that the car has taken a number of first place wins at car shows near and far.

Even with the classic quality of the cars in the Ward collection, the couple firmly believes that a car is meant to be driven and when they take their cars to auto shows, they don’t trailer them, they drive them.
“When you drive them people come out to look and reminisce,” Rose said.

Dennis, a stroke survivor, still has cars in his collection that he plans to restore to their glory days. Even with a collection that would make many car lovers grit their teeth with envy, Dennis holds onto his philosophy that a car should be driven. On more than one occasion he’s even let his grandchildren sit in the driver’s seat of his cars.

“He’s let the grandkids spin the wheels a few times,” Rose said.

To which one of his grandsons, Jacob Killian, responded to his grinning grandfather, “You taught me well.”
Plymouth produced the Belvedere from 1951 to 1970. The 1954 Belvedere marked the first year that small chrome tailfins appeared on the rear fenders.