A good time was had by all

So the beer-tasting/ribs fest is history. Jakob and Lizzy came along with Ben and Joey, and it was challenging to find ways to entertain the kids while the adults drank beer. But we soldiered on.

Ben brought Killian's Red and Modelo, Joey brought Guinness and Red Stripe, and I had New Castle and Grolsch. I was hoping to get the boys' opinions on their favorites, but neither cast an official vote. I voted, however; I thought the decided winner was Modelo (a Mexican beer, I'm told). Of the beers the boys brought, I had tried only the Killian's and Guinness previously.

The ribs were great! To the grandkids, they were "special chicken" (eyeroll). Lizzy did take several bites, and Jake one or two. They were more interested in finding other things to do.

Poppy Joe is going to have to store a few toys at his place for future visits ...

Slow-cooked dry-rub ribs: They're on the grill now!

I'm expecting my sons to come over tonight as a sort of belated BD toast -- I'm slow-cooking pork ribs (country style), and will contribute some import beers to our plans for an import "taste-testing" get-together tonight to wash down the ribs.

I haven't made ribs in ages. When I first made them this way (dry rub, slow-cooked on the grill), three summers ago, I probably made them three or four times that summer. Very good eating, and I made slight adjustments about the cooking process each time, as I'd always found a thing or two to tweak.

Two summers/autumns ago, I made them only twice -- once in summer, and once in early autumn. Last summer, I don't think I made them at all. Why? It's a long process -- on a charcoal grill, you really need to babysit them to make sure the coals don't get too hot or, just as or even more important, too cool or else the heat will die. So you're constantly checking the heat and trying to add just the right number of coals periodically to keep the heat at a low simmer.

But when it's all over, and you've done them right, they are very good eatin'. I'm baking some potatoes on the grill, too ... keeping them a tad off direct heat so they can sit there almost as long as the meat.

I think I'll go and pick up another six-pack of an import just to make sure we have enough variety to sample tonight. I have some Heineken already, but ... I thought we should have least four to choose from.

(AN HOUR LATER): I just got back from the grocery. Not only did I get one more import, but I got two: Grolsch (Holland) and New Castle (England). Here's hoping for a fun night of "tasting."

:-D

The hobo way of life, a fading lifestyle

While I've been on vacation, I've been reading "Tales of an American Hobo," a book by "Reefer" Charlie Fox, an Indiana man who spent 15 years or so of his young life living the life of -- as the book title suggests -- a hobo.

"Reefer" was Charlie's hobo nickname -- all hobos adopted a nickname -- and "reefer" was short for refrigerator, a reference to the many refrigerator cars hobos come across while riding trains.

From 1928 to 1939, he rode the rails of the country and Canada, and from 1939 to 1965 he hitched rides in automobiles and traveled by foot. From Indiana to British Columbia, from Arkansas to Texas, from Utah to Mexico, he was part of the grand hobo tradition that has all but passed away from American life.

After his years as a hobo, Reefer Charlie settled in Charlottesville, Ind., a far-eastern Hancock County (Ind.) town, and that's where he was living when he died in 1994.

I'm liking the book very much (the accompanying photo is a scan from the only image provided with the book -- the cover photo of Charlie). One of the nice things about the book is that it's a collection of very short anecdotes -- the types of characters he came across on his travels, the common folk who were nice to him, the surly sorts who were not so kind, the friends he made in the hobo "jungles" (overnight camps) and the companions on his journeys and his close brushes with serious injury and even death. Charlie writes with a folksy style and, along the way, explains the hobo way of life.

It makes for a very endearing read.

The 2009 garden(s)

Quite a few things are different about the gardens in my yards this summer. For one, I planted, with seed, the first vegetables I've ever tried to grow -- broccoli and lettuce. Both look like they're doing fine right now, and I even clipped some lettuce leaves two days ago and ate a salad with lettuce from the garden that night. The lettuce did taste like it had a little something to it, though I can't put my finger on just what.

I also split my three types of hostas and mass planted a bunch of the cuts along the south side of the house. That probably was a bad move; I had thought that even though that side of the house was on the south end, which supposedly gets a lot of sun in summer (along with the west), the house on that side is so close to my neighbor that I figured it got a lot of shade, too. Obviously, I didn't study that sun situation close enough. Several of the hostas are struggling, leaves drying up. I feel pretty bad. I'm going to try to water them extra the remainder of the summer in hopes that most of them can survive, and then perhaps replant them elsewhere next spring and use the south garden for more sun-craving perennials or annuals.

In the interim, I did seed the vacant spots between the hostas with orange marigolds and yellow and burgundy wild flower. Also used those seeds in the bare spots of the front and front-side gardens and a few in the front row of the back yard fenceline garden. All of those seeds went in on Tuesday, so I won't be seeing anything from those anytime soon.

Also new this year, in the back yard circular garden (as seen on May 3 above), are raspberry zinia and blue bachleor's buttons. I expanded the circumference of the garden slightly (accounting for the area outside the circle of tulips), planted the buttons along the new territory in the outside rim and put the zinias in the center area, on the inside of where the tulips are. So the tulip foliage you see in the above picture, again, taken a little more than a month ago, separates the zinias from the buttons and should not be an issue by the time the two annuals start to bloom. I did seed the zinias and buttons in late April, and there is nice foliage on both flowers right now, so I ought to be seeing blooms relatively soon.

The Asiastic lilies along the north privacy fence came back, in their second year, very full and tall and are showing LOTS of buds right now. Last year, they didn't get up very far at all, and each plant produced only one bloom each! What a difference a year made. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking they'd come back this well so soon, so I put some Russian lily bubls between the Asiatics, and only three of the seven Russians produced buds and showed blooms. The Russians were pretty (pictured), but small.

Finally, I put in two heather perennial bushes in the front. They didn't look like they did very well, and I'm hoping it's just the first-year jitters. I'll be patient and give them a chance to do well.

Finally, back again for their fifth year in a row, are tomatoes. The foliage is growing splendidly, and I'm guessing to see some fruit in three weeks. I see some green buds already near the bottom, so perhaps I'll get lucky and get some in two and a half weeks!

No illusion of grandeur

I actually created this blog (well, the "Prose and Konz" name, anyway) two years ago, delusionally thinking I could compose profundities warranting widespread reading and discussion. After a few seconds contemplating that fantasy, reality hit home. "Who am I kidding?" I asked myself. I also had the quick answer: No one.

So the template sat idle for 24 months or so. Until today, my birthday. I just decided to come back here, and instead of trying to compose profundities, I'd use Prose and Konz as a sort of personal journal, contributing to it as much, or as little, as I have time for. And to write regardless of how pristine the prose turns out, which includes not stopping to worry about whether sentences end in a preposition, like the one immediately before this.

My daughter Elizabeth left me a birthday card on the dining room table this morning before leaving for class at IUPUI. I opened it a few minutes after she left, and I was struck not only by how elegant it looked, but how it looked like she created it herself. I was truly touched. And even if it turns out she didn't compose the text herself, she sure found a card containing text that read like it could have been self-composed; the voice in the message spoke as if only to me. Thank you, Luv Bug.

Elizabeth and my other daughter, Kelly Anne, and her daughter, Lizzy, are planning to take me to lunch this afternoon at Red Robin, a place known for its delicious burgers. Then Elizabeth and I will visit Mallow Run, a winery, afterward. My previous visit to Red Robin also was with Elizabeth, Kelly Anne and Lizzy. Red Robin has wonderful burgers and french fries, which they boast about being "never-ending" or "bottomless." In other words, supposedly if you eat all the fries, they'll bring you out some more. And more again, if that serving goes empty. Ad infinitum ... until you can't eat anymore.

When I first visited Red Robin, I couldn't help but be reminded of Flakey Jake's, a chain that pulled up stakes and left town about 10 years ago or so. It's scary to think it's been that long, but ... it has. It was a favorite place for the kids when we'd look for places to dine on Saturday nights. Aside from the main fare itself (loved their fries), the kids and I enjoyed how Flakey Jake's allowed every diner to select burger toppings from sundry options spread out in buffet-like style. It was quite the rarity in the dining community.

* * *

Lots of people get a kick out of knowing what celebrities share their birthdays. I'm one of them. Among living celebs who have June 4 birthdays are actor Bruce Dern (who turns 73 today), former Mamas and Papas singer Michelle Phillips (68), Gordon Waller of the 1960s British wave pop duo Peter and Gordon (64), pop/R&B singer El DeBarge (48), "Brothers and Sisters" and "Six Feet Under" actress Rachel Griffiths (41), "Saturday Night Live" alum Horatio Sans (40), "E.R." actor Noah Wylie (38) and actress Angelina Jolie (34), who in today's paper I learned has just knocked Oprah Winfrey out of the top spot of Forbes magazine's list of "most powerful" celebrities, which supposedly is based on media coverage, earnings and "other things." Maybe if Oprah would start adopting some children, she could grab incessant media coverage and get back the top spot next year. Still another celeb, actor and former "Hardy Boys" star Parker Stevenson, was born on the exact day as me.

Among deceased celebs sharing my B.D. -- country singer Freddie Fender, opera singer Robert Merrill, actress Rosalind Russell, actor John Drew Barrymore, "McCloud" actor Dennis Weaver, former U.S. Sens. Howard Metzenbaum (Ohio) and Gaylord Nelson (who was from my boyhood home state of Wisconsin) and last, but not least, King George III. Quite a list.