The Junk Drawer

Tonight I decided to clean the junk drawer. You know, the drawer where things end up when they have no other place to go. A sort of Bermuda Triangle for $.34 stamps, paper clips of all sizes and colors, scissors and brick-like red Ruby erasers, and souvenir coins from places like the Winchester Mystery Museum.

I found a rubber ball with a chunk ripped out of its side and five different calculaters: A large Mickey Mouse version with easy to read numbers, a small black one that runs on solar power, a credit card sized one that my fingers couldn't manipulate, and two in-betweeners. Only Mickey was operational.

I have never seen so many ballpoint pens of different races, colors and creeds in my life. There were retractables in green, blue and red. Some with big barrels and others were slim and trim. There were waitstaff pens from Outback, Champs, Willie's Icehouse and other eateries where my daughter worked during the restaurant period of her life. In fact, there were more loose pen caps than there were pens to cap. How does that happen?

Try to image how many designs are printed on pencils? Standard #2, dayglo, flowers, teddy bears, Texas A&M, University of Mary Harden Baylor, Chase Bank and Klein Bank... Klein Bank has been gone for five years. There was even a pencil sharpener that was missing its catch-cup . . . pencil shavings were scattered throughout the back of the drawer like sawdust on a tiny honky-tonk dance floor.

I found marbles and money, stamps with birds and Santa Claus, a small vending machine-type plastic globe with a gold ring . . . it was quite lovely for a something costing a quarter.

There were books of return address labels, and an envelope with photos from the past ten years. Another small envelope had expired drivers licenses for the entire family dating back to when they were 16-years-old, and assorted other forms of picture I.D.

Why does any family need more than two rulers, or one tape measure? I discovered that at some time this family needed six. There was a 3-inch ruler in pink, a 6-inch ruler in yellow, three 12-inch rulers in assorted colors and part of another ruler that could have been any size over 10-inches at one time. . . it had been broken off, probably to make it fit in junk drawer.

There were thumb tacks, push pins and map pins mixed in with loose nails and screws, and shreds of beef jerky and M&Ms wrappers.

I even found a knife from a place setting that we had tossed out ten years ago. How? I don't even want to go there!

Cleaning the junk drawer is insightful; an exploration into the mind of those who live by the saying, "A place for everything and everything in its place" ... that place being the Junk Drawer.

My Little Buddy In Pull-ups

My three-year-old grandson has a nightly ritual. Gramma reads to him about Brown Bear, Thomas the Tank Engine, or Clifford, then Pops puts his little buddy to bed with a few songs and some guy talk that girls would see as silly.

Tonight started out no different from the many bedtimes that we had shared in the past: upstairs to brush teeth with Sponge Bob toothpaste and a yellow brush, one last pee-pee in the potty before stepping into the Toy Story pull-ups with Cowboy Woody on the front, and then into bed as the last rays of twilight dissolved into night.

As he settled beneath covers printed with images of Lightning McQueen and Mater, we talked about school and the Astros and his new Slip'n'Slide. He has the slip part down, but the slide is going to take some practice.

The talk soon led to our sing-along that we enjoy each night where Pops takes the lead and then he fills in the blanks when Pops pauses. "Take me out to the" ... "BAUH GAME". "Take me out to the" ... "CRWOWD".

We sang our way through the entire library of tunes from I've Been Working On The Railroad and Five Bottles Of Milk On The Wall, to the Beatles' When I'm Sixy-Four and Do Your Ears Hang Low?. I rubbed his back as we sang and before long his breathing led me to believe that he was asleep.

It was then that he slowly rolled over and nudged his forehead into mine, saying "Pops?"

"Yeah, buddy," I replied.

"You make me happy..." he said, and then drifted off to sleep.

I was stunned by these four simple words, unsolicited, and totally unexpected. I make this little guy happy and he wanted me to know that before he went to sleep. They were spoken from the heart. The sweetest four words that I've ever heard from my little buddy in Pull-ups.

Good Eats Along the Gulf

Sampling the food at mom and pop eateries while on the road can be an adventure. Will it be bland and tasteless, or too spicy to stomach? Will it be under cooked or blackened to a charcoal consistency? But based on the advice of the locals, maybe . . . just maybe you'll find a spot or two where the meal will be served up as a unexpected treat worthy of a blog. Welcome to my vacation at Dauphin Island, Alabama.

Wrapped in a nautical theme of wall mounted trophy fish, nets and a large jewel tank aquarium, the Island's Barnacle Bill's offered a good assortment of tasty seafood and po-boys, but it was the jalapeno hushpuppies that rated them a spot in this posting. Golfball-sized and golden brown from the fryer, the hushpuppies were soft and moist on the inside and loaded with an onion-peppery punch.

It took two visits to Bayley's Restaurant in Theodore, Alabama to feed our fix for seafood at this coastal landmark. Just a short drive north of the Island on the Dauphin Island Parkway, Bayley's mid-week specials beckoned and we answered the call. Thursday night was their famous "All You Care To Eat" fried mullet and cheese grits night. They had me at the mention of cheese grits. The mullet was crispy and surprisingly light for a fried dish, and the cheese grits were the best that I can remember . . . sorry Waffle House. The encore presentation on Friday night was Bayley's famous "All You Care To Eat" fried shrimp night. Again the meal was very good, the wait staff was friendly and phrases like, "more sweet tea hon?" and "where y'all from?" could be heard throughout the dining room.

Saturday night was a belly buster as we dined at the Pelican Reef, not too far from Bayley's. It was a nice setting along the river, pleasure craft and commercial fishing boats came and went at the adjacent marina, and again, the seafood was excellent. We finished off a full pound of sweet crab claws to start; 62 golden pinchers. But what came next took dinner to another level; Wild Alabama Shrimp that had been netted earlier in the day. These mega jumbo shrimp were lightly battered and fried to create the perfect Gulf Coast delicacy. Combined with the twice baked potato filled with onions, garlic, cheese, bacon and other goodies, we went home totally satisfied convinced that no better edible treat would be had on this trip . . . we were so wrong!

On the trek home to Houston the next day we opted to stop for lunch at the famous Crawfish Town, USA in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. After the entre' of Catfish Melee', a breaded then pan fried fillet topped with seafood etouffee, came the sweetest surprise of the entire trip; a bread pudding like no other. The thick and hearty square was covered in a hot buttery sauce and sprinkles of powdered sugar. Having spent more than a year in Savannah, Georgia, I've had good bread pudding, but nothing to compare to this Cajun creation. When pressed for the secret to this bayou delight, the waitress said only, "We use a lot of bread."

If food makes the vacation, this trip was the best ever . . . it was a getaway of good eats along the Gulf.