Nature Will Castigate Those Who Don't Masticate

We called him Uncle Harry, but he wasn’t really our uncle.  Mom and Dad had us kids use “Aunt” and “Uncle” as terms of endearment for their close adult friends.

Harry Kopp hung around with my father and my father’s brother back when the Roaring Twenties were roaring.  They rented a cottage near Long Island Sound, where they sat on the steps and sang while Harry played the banjo.  They were surrounded by young women in flapper dresses.

My father and his brother went on to become accountants.  Uncle Harry went on to become a janitor.  Actually he became a janitor who looked like an accountant.

Uncle Harry's hair was slicked back, held in place by Brylcreem.  He wore a suit, and had wire-rimmed glasses.  He looked nothing like the janitors who worked in the schools I attended.  Uncle Harry did not look like he could pick up a monkey wrench and fix a boiler; I could not imagine him piling coal on a shovel and heaving the coal into a blazing furnace.

Uncle Harry worked at the YMCA in Easton, Pennsylvania.  Easton is the home of Lafayette College, Dixie Cups, and Crayolas.  Easton sits on the picturesque banks of the Delaware River, a hundred miles from where we lived.

Uncle Harry remained a bachelor.  He visited us about once a year.  What I remember most about his visits was his chewing.  At dinner, Uncle Harry would take a forkful of food and chew and chew and chew.  My brothers finally clued me in: Uncle Harry counted the number of times he chewed each mouthful.

When I finished my dinner, I was excused and went outside to play with my friends: maybe a pickup touch football game or a basketball game.  When the game was over, I would go home and find my parents and Uncle Harry still at the dinner table.  All that chewing and counting had slowed Uncle Harry down; he hadn’t finished dinner yet.

As a kid, I should have laughed at my parents’ oddball friend.  Instead, I bragged about knowing someone who took so long to chew their food that I could fit in a touch football game before he got to dessert.

I found out that there was a slow chewing movement in the early Twentieth Century.  Its leader, Horace Fletcher, said there were many health advantages to chewing every mouthful 32 times (once for each tooth).  Fletcher’s motto was: “Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate”.  I suspect that Uncle Harry was a follower of Fletcher.

I certainly don’t laugh at slow chewing nowadays.  Back in 2004, I decided to chew my food slowly.  I didn’t chew as slowly as Uncle Harry did, but I lost 41 pounds that year.


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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Santa Claus Complied

Mention the word “Woolworth’s” to someone, and they will tell you their story about Woolworth’s.

One co-worker told me about growing up in a small Colorado town and riding her bike as a kid to the next town, ten miles away, in order to have a milk shake at Woolworth’s .  The woman who sells me vitamins at our local GNC told me about her father delivering goods to Woolworth’s.  A friend in her 80’s told me about meeting her girlfriends for lunch at Woolworth’s before going to a Saturday movie matinee.

I grew up in a town that had a Woolworth’s, but the town was not big enough to merit a lunch counter at Woolworth’s.  However, our Woolworth’s had everything you could think of, even live pet turtles.  I bought numerous Christmas presents at Woolworth’s, and I always made a point of stopping at the turtle tank every time I went to the store.

All the Woolworth’s in the United States have now been closed.  I found out that my friend Richard Smith was a Woolworth’s closer.

I asked Richard Smith to come on my Cherokee Street walking tour here in St. Louis.  Halfway through the tour, I had the group stop across the street from the former Woolworth’s (now a large Latino birthday party venue).  I handed the megaphone to Richard, who gave the group a brief overview of the history of Woolworth’s, his career as manager, how he closed numerous Woolworth’s in St. Louis, and how he salvaged lots of interesting stuff: menus, milk shake machines, signs.

I decided that Richard would make a good speaker for the Missouri History Museum. I pulled some strings; he got booked for March 16, 2011.  Topic: “Back to the Five and Dime”.

As soon as he was booked, I started to fret.  What if no one showed up for his talk, and he was disappointed.  What if people did show up, but were disappointed in his talk.  Fret, fret, fret.

I fretting right up to the moment his talk began.  There were plenty of people in the audience --- no need to fret about that.

Richard began to speak.  He gave a recap of his interest in Woolworth’s.  I learned things I never knew about my friend.

When he was a kid, his parents asked what he wanted for Christmas.  His answer was not a baseball mitt or a bicycle.  He wanted Santa to bring him Woolworth’s stock.  Santa Claus complied.

When he was a college student, he put WWORTH vanity plates on his car.

At age 20, he drove this car to the annual Woolworth’s stockholders meeting.  At the meeting he met the head of Woolworth’s USA, which led to his being offered a job.

I realized that Woolworth’s was not merely Richard Smith’s former employer.  Woolworth’s was Richard Smith’s destiny.   I stopped fretting. I knew the audience was going to enjoy the talk. 

They enjoyed it so much that they stormed the podium when the talk was over.  Everyone was bursting to tell Richard Smith their story about Woolworth’s.


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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

The Outcast Cheese

In 1999, my buddy Randy and I took a trip to Wisconsin. 

Any trip to Wisconsin requires a stop at a cheese house.  We found a wonderful cheese house, and loaded up on all kinds of cheese.  However, it was at the cheese house that I found out that my childhood cheese, liederkranz, is no more.

Liederkranz cheese was produced in upstate New York.  It had a yellow crust, a honey-like consistency, and a horrific aroma.  The aroma made it an outcast cheese.  Production ended in 1985.

So, I had to be content with buying another outcast cheese: limburger, which also falls in the horrific aroma category.

Back at home, I had to eat my limburger in isolation in the dining room.  As soon as I unwrapped the cheese, the dog showed up. 

The limburger was yummy, and I placed a piece of it on the floor.  The dog gobbled it up, showing that she approved of the flavor.  

Then the dog wanted to show me that she approved of the aroma.  She eyed the spot on the carpet where the cheese used to be, lowered her neck to the carpet, and proceeded to roll herself on that spot - just as if she were out in the backyard and had come across a wonderfully putrefied rodent carcass.

Randy did not approve of the aroma.  He said that the cheese had made the dining room smell like the bait used to catch catfish.

Now I have heard good news from the cheese world.  Production of liederkranz started back up last year.  I visited the DCI Cheese Company website, and scrolled through a list of dozens of cheeses: American…appenzeller…asiago…  I found liederkranz, and ordered a 6 oz. block.

A message appeared on the checkout screen.  “Liederkranz will be shipped separately from the rest of our cheeses.”

It is still an outcast cheese.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

Change My Climate And My Soul

I looked forward to arriving in Africa.  Africa was an entire continent where no one knew me.  I would be able to re-invent myself by putting an ocean and a long plane flight between me and my awkward old self back in America.

A new self!  I planned on having a wonderful new self.  I would set foot on the African continent and instantly be suave and quick-witted.

The United States Peace Corps flew me across the ocean to the capital city of Nigeria, where I was housed in a college dormitory for a few days of orientation.

At the first opportunity, I went out to take a walk.  I wanted to test out my new self.

I spotted a Nigerian man, who broke into a big welcoming smile when he saw me.  Aha, my suaveness was readily apparent.

I greeted him: “Good morning!” --- I was getting ready to show off my quick-wittedness.

He responded: “Good morning, Sir!  Would you like to buy a copy of The Watchtower?”  The man proceeded to show me an array of pamphlets.  He was a Jehovah’s Witness.

I thought I was a new man with a huge amount of suaveness and quick-wittedness.  Instead, I heard myself saying: “Yes, I will buy a copy of The Watchtower.”

I walked back to the dormitory, Watchtower in hand.  My first encounter with Africa had shown me that I had not become suave or quick-witted.  I had simply been my old self, meekly spending a couple of shillings for a pamphlet I did not want, in order to avoid disappointing someone.

During the six years I spent in Africa, I no longer pretended I could re-invent myself.  I must have changed in some ways, but I remained fundamentally the same person.

Recently, I came across a quote from Quintuus Horatius Flaccus, better known as Horace, the poet who lived in ancient Rome.  He had summed up my folly some 2000 years before I arrived in Africa.

He said: “They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea." 

Horace was right.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com