The woman pauses, coffee in hand, as she looks down at the crack in the floor.

“What am I doing?” she says. 

Coughing and rubbing her eyes, she wipes her nose with the small napkin.

“This damn cold weather.”

An escaped tear rolls down her cheek, around the curve of her chin, and drops silently into the the smooth crack running across the coffeeshop floor.  

She drinks another swallow of coffee.

“Well, I can still ‘crack’ jokes.” She laughs hollowly and scratches at her pale wrist exposing a slow pulse of blue veins.  

“Let me think. What did that kid say? Oh yeah . . . ‘What is a pile of kittens?’ he said. ‘What?’ I dutifully responded. ‘A meown-tain.'” She shakes her head. “The kid doubled over at his own joke. I’m not kidding, doubled over, and then held his gigantic overflowing bag of candy out for more.”

“And speaking of ‘cracks,’ who doesn’t like the cracking sound of a bat?” She looks up at me. 

“I’m not sure I’ve ever hit a baseball in my life,” I admit.  

“Hah, I remember being a little kid, scared of my own heartbeat. I was in fourth grade when it happened. I was sure that older boy was going to bean me with his fastball.”

“And?” 

“You’ll never guess. I didn’t die. Instead I connected solidly — CRACK — sending that ball over the playground fence.”

And she looks over the espresso machine watching that ball fly out of sight.

“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit a homer. Isn’t that what Matthew said in the New Testament?”

She smiles and rubs the side of her head, repositioning a strand of gray hair that slipped from behind her ear and was beginning to swing like a clock pendulum in front of her eyes. 

“My grandpa was a ‘crack’ shot,” she said.

“True?”

“Yup. I used to walk with him through the harvested fields, shotgun at the ready, no words spoken between us, deadly as a heart attack.” She pauses. “Really, the low-flying pheasants didn’t stand a chance even against his old eyes.” 

“My goodness.” 

“He let me shoot once. Carefully giving me instructions and then picking me up from the ground with a red bruise already showing on my shoulder.” 

“Ouch.” 

“I’ve never hit anything,” she said. “Well, unless you want to count the time I hit my husband, may he rest in peace, with a Lemon Meringue Pie. He never saw it coming.”

We laugh. 

“Time to go. Tomorrow is the day. I can’t put it off any further. The doc said it is either do or die . . .  and in the doing I might die.” She gives a forced laugh. “That sucks. But there it is.”

She sits quietly without moving.  

“Thank the lord the surgery isn’t at the ‘crack’ of dawn.” She wipes at her eyes.  

“Ha ha,” I say. 

And she carries her empty cup to the bin, placing it carefully inside. And walks back, the muscles visible in her jaw. 

Before putting on her coat, she points to the middle of her chest where her thin bones are pressed tight against her sweater. 

“Here is where they are going to crack it open.” Her voice hitches. “I guess I should say crack ME open.” 

She takes a jagged breath.

Steady, steady, steady.

She puts on her stocking cap.

Breath. Breath. Breath. 

Slowly she tries to grin.

“If it goes badly, remember to ‘crack’ a beer for me.” 

And she walks alone out into the cold. 

____________________________________________________________________________

“What do you think?” My friend Bill Roach says with a smile.

“Really?” I say.

“Yup. I dare you to write a made-up story about this crack in the floor.”

We both laugh.

“Okay, I’ll do it, but I dare you to do one of your photographs of that same crack in the floor.”

Here we are. Two old men having coffee. One a writer and one a photographer. Talking foolishly about creativity, which is an unfortunate deviation from our normal talk about wine, women, and song. 

“I’ll do it if you will.”

“No, I’ll do it if you will.”

“Deal?”

“Deal!”

The refrain of two 10-year-olds.

So we did. 

Joe

Sometimes it seems like the only thing you can win is the short end of the stick. Why is that? Did you break a mirror, walk under a ladder, step on a crack? Honestly, it doesn’t matter how careful you are, some days bad luck seems to be the only road. Sure, Good Luck Avenue is out there somewhere, but there you are in Bad Luck Canyon — with a flat tire — no air in the spare — and is that the last donut?

By the way, I’m not talking serious bad luck, but the kind of bad luck where things just don’t seem to be cutting in your favor. You know what I’m talking about. Like today I’m in the self check-out lane at the grocery store and the person in front of me is trying to buy some beer. Fine. Of course the attendant has to verify that the beer-drinker is 21, so I wait. No big deal. Holding my heavy purchases, I wait patiently. Shifting from one foot to the other. Waiting. Yup, that’s me. Waiting. 

Ah, there’s the attendant.

But the attendant goes to help the guy in the other lane who is apparently on some type of fruit fast that requires the weighing and identifying of 32 unusual types of fruit. This could be hours. And now I’m pretty sure that the kid in front of me with the beer is actually skipping class from middle school. 

This is just bad luck. Pure and simple.

Or how many of you have taken your car in for a tuneup and thought there won’t be anything major wrong? Don’t be silly. It’s Bad Luck Tuesday. Of course there will be major things wrong.

“Sure, you can drive the car, Joe,” my mechanic said last week, “and all that carbon monoxide coming in through your heater shouldn’t kill you as long as you keep the windows open.”

Dead or chilly? Trust me, those are bad luck choices.

Or my personal favorite, when the windstorm hits and all the houses around me are unscathed. Yahoo for them. But then I see the neighbors standing around on the sidewalk looking at my house. Mmmm . . . and when I go outside to see what fun I’m missing, there is the old sycamore tree, my sycamore tree, apparently taking a timeout on my roof.

Such is the life of one who has bad luck.

So it’s time for a little good luck. For all of us. But where exactly does one find good luck?

“If you touch a chimney sweep it is considered good luck.” The smiling chimney sweep, Tim Hughes, tells me.

Really? That is all it takes? I just have to find a chimney sweep?

“Occasionally I’ll be somewhere and someone comes up and touches me. They tell me they just wanted some good luck.” Tim laughs.

Tim Hughes and Eddie Buntenbach are out cleaning and inspecting chimneys for Chiminey Cricket Family Chimney Sweeps — originally started by Tim’s dad in 1983.

 “My dad has even been invited to a few weddings because having a chimney sweep at your wedding is considered good luck.” 

I’m 41 years too late for the wedding, but how are chimney sweeps at funerals?

“And not only chimney sweeps bring good luck,” Eddie adds, “but a cricket on the hearth brings good luck.”

You’re kidding?

“There is actually a ‘roof cricket’ on your chimney that diverts water,” Tims says, “but a chimney cricket, a little model of a cricket on the hearth, is really supposed to bring good luck.”

This, of course, leads to the obvious next question:

“So, while you’re up on the roof do you ever want to play Bert the Chimney Sweep singing and dancing in Mary Poppins?” 

Tim and Eddie look at each other with a twinkle in their eyes. 

“Of course, this is a serious job.” Tim says smiling. “We are trying to make it safe. I think we have really saved people from very dangerous issues like carbon monoxide poisoning. We have gone into houses and seen wood up in the chimney — not a good idea and a real chance of fire. To be able to help people out means a lot to us.” 

“We can leave people with confidence their chimney is safe,” Eddie adds.

But . . .

“But there is something special about being up on a rooftop around sunset and you have a great view,” Tim says. “So, yes, I have done Step in Time up on the roof occasionally.”

“Step in Time” is the call-and-response tune sung by Dick Van Dyke and other chimney sweeps on the rooftops of London and composed by the Sherman brothers for Mary Poppins: 

“Round the chimney, step in time
Round the chimney, step in time
Never need a reason
Never need a rhyme
Round the chimney, you step in time!”

There you go. Today only. Chimney sweeps. Change your bad luck to good. And, for an added bonus, you now know the correct song to sing when you’re on a rooftop.

By the way, Tim and Eddie inform me that my chimney is totally unsafe and a fire hazard. 

Yup, the short end of the stick. That’s me. Stuck in Bad Luck Canyon. 

Joe

The two young girls shared nearly everything. No surprise. The Great Depression guaranteed a certain equality even though the girls were four years apart in age. 

“So you shared your sister’s dresses?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says.

“Weren’t you tired of only wearing hand-me-downs?”

She laughs.

‘Well, my sister’s clothes were handed down from relatives and then they were handed down to me. It was hard to be jealous of that.”

She smiles at the memory.

“And did the two of you fight?”

“Only when I wanted to play dolls and she became too old to play with me.”

She frowns, clearly still not happy at her sister’s decision — 90 years ago. Yup, whoever said time heals all wounds apparently never had a sibling. 

In truth, these two sisters were very close. They grew up on the farm but left home early to go work in the city. Eventually they both ended up in Indianapolis. Working in businesses.  As single women during those times, they lived in a boarding house for women only. Their home had rules for most things, but particularly forbidding visits by men and requiring a strict curfew at night.

But these were the war years. Two of their roommates were related by marriage — the brother to one roommate was the husband to another. 

“And I remember to this day the knock on the door by a man in full uniform. We all knew what that meant. And just like that there were two grieving women. Our home was a sad home.”

World War II ended and both sisters went to college at Iowa State University. Boys and dances and more boys and more dances. A good time for all.

But then their paths diverged. One went on to become a nun and a dietician and one went on to become a housewife and mother of eight kids. 

This didn’t matter. They were close in other ways: letters, during the early years; in person, during the middle years; by phone, most days in the latter years. They shared news of birthdays and jobs and promotions and weddings . . . and what one or the other was making for dinner that night. The big and the small. It really didn’t matter to them. 

And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all roses. They were stubborn women who at various times thought the other was too stubborn and clearly incorrect. But then they’d talk the next day as if no disagreement had occurred. Peas in a pod? Of course. 

Together they buried their mother, then they buried their father, then they buried a husband, and finally they buried their older brother. Together.

And as life goes, the older sister finally started failing in health. At 98, she still talked every day with the younger sister until she couldn’t. And even when she couldn’t talk, the younger sister called while a nurse or nun held the phone up to the older sister’s ear. 

And finally the older sister could neither talk nor listen.

“I’d like to put this rosary into the casket with my sister,” my mom says as we drive across Iowa to the funeral. “I want her to have it.”

She holds up the rosary for me to see.

“I don’t know,” I say to her, wary of my mom’s doggedness. “I think her religious community is deciding what goes in the casket.”

“Hmph,” she responds with arms crossed over her thin, 94-year-old chest. My answer is clearly unacceptable. Although I’ve been down this route before in years past, as various family members plotted to put things in or take things out of a casket. Never a good situation.

The casket sits open before us. The older sister lies on a pillow with a rosary wrapped around her crossed hands.

My mom puts her hands over her older sister’s hands as we stand together looking for the last time. 

“They’re cold,” she says.

“I know,” I say.

“Listen, I’m going to slip this rosary down next to her body,” she whispers loudly.

“I think that is a bad idea.” 

My mom glares at me as we stand in front of church.

“OK, how about we just ask the head nun if it would be all right to leave the rosary?” I suggest. 

Another glare.

“Of course it’s all right,” the head nun says without hesitation.

“It is a lovely idea,” she says to my mom.

“In fact,” she continues, “your sister told me before she died that the rosary she is holding right now is a special one from Rome and she wants me to give it to you before we close her casket.”

My mom is dead silent.

“So why don’t we take your rosary and wrap it around your sister’s hands, and you take the one she has.”

We walk away and my mom leans into me and says in her loud whisper: “What do you think of that?” 

Mmmm . . . I just saw two sisters who talked to each other even after death . . . that’s what I think of that.  

Joe

“The test is in the pneumatic tube,” the pharmacy tech’s crackly robotic voice says over the speaker.

Great. But which pneumatic tube? With all the other tubes and pipes and columns in the drive-thru lane, I can’t tell what’s what.

There’s a whoosh and suddenly the test appears in that tube over there — arriving like George Jetson home from Spacely’s Space Sprockets.

Darn it all, I can’t reach the tube. So I open the car door, still trying to reach through the open window, and am left hanging in space across the pavement.

How did I get in this predicament?

I blame my wife.

Although my wife and I have both shots and our boosters, my wife tested positive for COVID the other day (she is recovering nicely from her mild case, thank you). So here I am, taking my 73rd test since the pandemic began.

I slowly pull myself back in the car, bump my head on the door frame, and get out.

The lady in the car behind me glares. Now is that Iowa Nice???

Back in the car, the robot woman on the speaker tells me to open the package and remove the swab.

I can’t.

Listen, I try. Multiple times. But my big fingers can’s get that darn swab out of the package.

“Be careful, don’t touch the swab end,” blares the loudspeaker.

Really, I don’t know where the swab end is, let alone have any desire to touch anything.

Finally I get it open.

“Put the tip three-quarter inches inside your right nostril until it hits a hard spot.”

Well, the hard spot would be my brain, but I dutifully twist and twirl both nostrils.

“Now screw off the lid of the small container with liquid and put the swab in the container.”

I screw off the lid . . . and immediately drop the lid between the seat and the console.

Trust me, we have a nice enough car. Seats, steering wheel, the whole nine yards. But between the seat and the console we also have the Bermuda Triangle. Nothing and no one survives this area. Keys, popcorn, pens, French fries, and small children have dropped into this abyss and never been seen again. And now the Bermuda Triangle has swallowed the cap I’m supposed to screw back on.

I get out of the car.

Look at that. There are now five cars sitting patiently behind me. Although the woman in the first car doesn’t seem to be cheered up by my fun antics.

Moving the seat as far forward as possible, and holding high my unsealed container like a rodeo rider with a hand in the air and one hand on the rope, I bend over the back seat and reach into the dark.

“Are you having problems?” the loudspeaker lady says.

Mmmm . . . a dollar bill, a pretzel, a quarter of a glazed donut . . . and the cap.

I smile and hold it up victoriously for the cars waiting patiently in line to celebrate in my success.

The woman in the car behind me now has her head in her hands and may be crying.

I jump back in the car.

I close everything up and ask the loudspeaker lady where to put it.

“In the container.” Her tone has become tired.

I can’t see a container.

I get out of the car once more and try to forcibly open the tube door. No luck.

“In the styrofoam container,” she says after a long sigh.

Ah hah!

I open the styrofoam container, sitting on top of a garbage can next to the tube, and place my sample in with several others. When I get back into the car, I can’t close my door. So I give it a hard yank. The door knocks over the styrofoam container and the garbage can and they both crash into the parking lot.

Oops.

Perhaps I should just drive away?

Maybe to New Zealand?

Instead, being a good Iowan, I jump out of the car once more. Pick up the container and the garbage can. Place everything back where it belongs.

I glance back at the woman behind me. I can’t see her. I think she may be lying down across her front seat.

I quickly drive off.

So . . . there you go. Failure to properly take your COVID test is a litmus that answers so many questions about a person. Certainly, one of those being herd immunity and who can society best do without.

Now where is that darn drive-thru for those to be culled from the herd?

Joe

It began when she was 14 years old. Secret voices. Shameful desires. Unholy thoughts of suicide and mayhem. This went on for 26 years until she had enough of the demons and took drastic action.

She went to a convent, was restrained in a bed, and was surrounded by the “strongest nuns” the Franciscans had to offer. All well and good, until the Catholic priest began to pray over her. Immediately she lapsed into unconsciousness. Her eyes locked shut. And then . . .

“With lightening speed the possessed dislodged herself from her bed and from the hands of her guards; and her body, carried through the air, landed high above the door of the room and clung to the wall with a tenacious grip. All present were struck with a trembling fear.”

And so began the exorcism of an unidentified woman in Earling, Iowa, in 1928, as told in BEGONE, SATAN!, by Father Carl Vogl, translated from the German in 1935 by Rev. Celestine Kapsner.

Yup, Earling, Iowa.

By 1936, Time even ran an article about BEGONE, SATAN! and noted that the truth of the event was vouched for by a bishop and a monsignor — “Hence it was presumed not to err in faith or morals,” said Time.  

Indeed.

And what an ordeal it was. Screaming, howling, and cursing from the possessed was the norm. The poor woman’s face became so distorted that the nuns had to leave the room because it was unbearably gruesome. And then there was the spitting and frothing and vomiting of “excrement.” Not to mention the smell. 

Exorcisms are not for the weak of heart.

The devils possessing the woman were an impressive cast of characters — Beelzebub, Judas Iscariot, the father of the possessed woman who had attempted to sexually abuse her, and the father’s mistress who had murdered four children — just to name the main players. But there were assorted other demons who came and went like “a swarm of mosquitoes.” 

Fortunately, the exorcist, the Reverend Theophilus Riesinger, was experienced, tenacious, and carried a “consecrated Host in a pyx upon his breast in order to safeguard himself against injuries and direct attacks by the evil one.”

After 23 days, Father Theophilus blessed the woman and said: “Depart, ye fiends of Hell! Begone, Satan, the Lion of Juda reigns!”

And that was that. 

Believe it or not.

Well, 61% of Americans actually do believe it — believe in the devil, that is, according to a Gallup poll in 2016.

I’d wager that number is even larger today after two years of pandemic, multiple years of climate disasters, and centuries of most people hating folks who act a smidgeon different than themselves. There’ve been some banner years for Satan.

But does Satan get the last word for the New Year?

I don’t know . . .

What about the Des Moines woman who prepares bags every week with all sorts of essentials and money, then hands them out to the folks asking for help at street intersections?

What about the Des Moines couple who take young women in tough situations into their home and provide a safe place for the them to thrive and be loved — forever after?

What about the Urbandale woman who cares for a sick husband, sick kids, sick grandchildren, and then drives to Florida to rescue an ill, elderly aunt?

What about the Des Moines man who sits on so many boards that are crucial to the quality of our lives, reads all the materials, and makes decisions that make our world better — all without pay?

What about the Des Moines man who retired early to take care of his ill, adult daughter around the clock but still has the energy to fight for her care in court after the State refused to help — and then won?

What about the Waukee woman who gives countless hours to support sustainable farming and healthy food for all of us?

And what about the genuine smiles from the staff at the coffee shops, the hardware stores, the restaurants and bars, and wherever I go for groceries?

Really? Smiles? With all these devils running around?

That same Gallup poll in 2016 found that 72% of Americans believe in angels.

Personally, I’ve never met either Beelzebub or Judas Iscariot, and am not much of a believer in devils. Although reading about the exorcism in Earling did scare the bejesus out of me — where did I put my consecrated Host in a pyx anyway?

But I am bullish on Iowa angels. I know more than a few. Good people. Good Iowans. And so I suggest a new book for Father Carl Vogl: 

COME HITHER, IOWA ANGELS! 

Why not?

Joe

Holding her thin hand and rubbing her thin back, I sit quietly beside her wheelchair.

She smiles and I swear a light comes into her eyes. 

I know what you’re going to say — it is all malarky about the “eyes lighting up,” or “sparkling eyes,” or “twinkling eyes,” or a “wink of the eye,” but I’ll be darned, her eyes did light up.

Clearly, Sister Marla Smith is here and ready to be counted.

“That feels nice,” she says out of nowhere.

It is late fall in Iowa. The birdbath is frozen when I leave Des Moines in the morning. The sun is a bit dimmer. The grass is matted and brown. The orange and red and yellow leaves are now a shade of mud. 

“Winter is coming.”

Dire words written by George R.R. Martin in his Game of Thrones series for the fictional land of Westeros. 

Yup, winter is coming. Sure, maybe not White Walkers, but certainly snow plows and subzero temps. 

For my aunt, Sister Marla Smith, this is her 99th winter. Ninety-nine years gives one a bit of perspective, I imagine. And with no one left alive of her generation, who is going to argue with her about how much snow actually fell in the great blizzard when her father had to drive draft horses through giant drifts to get to the barn? No one. Even her father who loved a good story can’t back her up any more.  

A thin, tough woman with iron grey hair and bright eyes, Sister Marla is dogged and compassionate and kind and smart. Just a few months ago she laughed and joked and ate dark chocolates. But she has taken a turn and is struggling a bit.

The inevitable change of seasons I guess, but what a ride it has been. 

My aunt used to order her life very specifically — church and work, work and church. Which is why she surprised me 45 years ago when she rented a piano for me, an obnoxious unbeliever, to practice on as I lived with her elderly father. And if that wasn’t out of her wheelhouse, she then she set me up on dates with her other dietitian friends and interns. Unbelievable as it sounds, I had never dated anyone who specialized in white sauce for their degree. But thanks to Sister Marla, that empty spot on my to-do list is now checked. 

But where she caught me most by surprise is when she insisted we take disco dance classes together. My only regret of that time is that the Franciscans were no longer wearing their habits. That would have been a picture. And she was a superb dancer. Naturally. 

“Now is the winter of our discontent . . . ”  A young King Richard delivers this line for Shakespeare. And it might describe a winter day in Iowa where the snow is dirty and hard-packed and the wind slices through the small, exposed neck of your coat and there is a real possibility that spring will never come and you might as well lie down in the snow and call it quits.

Really? Is that helpful? 

Winter IS coming, but don’t you love the quiet, peacefulness of an Iowa winter day where nothing stirs, you are the only living person outside, and the crystal air is sharp and pure and the sun reflects bright off the tops of the snow? You are alone in the universe and the universe is good. 

When asked a couple of months ago about whether she was sad after the death of a dear friend, Sister Marla said, “Why? She is in a great place.” 

As is Iowa, when the wind blows down from Canada and the smell of woodsmoke drifts across the snow and the eagles and hawks float gracefully over a pure, white world.  

I drive away from my aunt’s home at Saint Francis Convent in Dubuque thinking about life. Playing on the radio is the classic hit by KC and the Sunshine Band:

“Oh, do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, get down tonight
Do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, get down tonight”

And there she is. Doing the hustle. Wide smiled and loose limbed. And look at that — she is ending with a dramatic John Travolta point towards the heavens.

And her eyes light up. Trust me.    

Joe

The parking lot is full. Men in dress pants and jackets, women in dresses and skirts. Many my age, but I recognize only a few souls. In hushed voices we enter the church. It’s a weekday afternoon.

The obit read: “Yes, that’s a Monday, Sam’s day off. We knew he would not want to miss any work.”

Listen, over 35 years ago I walk into the shop on 42nd street without an appointment. A man with a kind smile is cutting hair. He tells me to sit and that he’ll be right with me. He goes back to his conversation with the guy in the barber chair. 

I pick up a newspaper. 

Now you may be wondering what I’m doing in a barbershop. Believe it or not, there was a time I had some hair. Not much. But some. And my wife directed me to get the few hairs I had cut. This was all part of my wife’s ongoing program to make me presentable to the public. A thankless task. So here I was at Uptown Barber Stylist trying to get some style.

I found something else.

The barber, Sam Reese, is talking. But not just passing-the-time talking. He talks of life, women, marriage, kids. He talks about manhood and its real meaning. He talks about compassion and understanding. He talks about truth.

All before I even get in the chair!

I am smitten.

It dawns on me that this is a sacred place and this job of getting a haircut is a sacred event.

And I become a fan even though I have no hair to cut.

“Aging is a journey that many don’t experience. They were born old and they die old.”

Sam told me this last winter. He was always a philosopher, but he carried the mantle more openly as the years passed.

“Unfortunately, living a specific number of years is not the real gauge of ‘old.’ You are not old because you are not as handsome, or because your step is challenged, or because you have a different body ache daily,” said the handsome Sam the Barber.

Really? Old is all in your head?

“It’s kind of crazy! I don’t see ME in the mirror. When I see a photo, I just say I’m not photogenic anymore.”

Then what is old, Sam?

“You are old when you can’t physically and mentally enjoy how wonderful life was when you fell in LOVE!”

A romantic down to the marrow. Sam then always made fun of his “foolish” self. But then he would make the same romantic observation again — just in case you missed it. 

And time passed. Sam married and cut hair. He had children and cut hair. He married again and cut hair. He had another child and cut hair. He had nine grandchildren and cut hair. 

Several years ago he talked about retirement.

“When I retire, I’ll probably go to work for Trader Joe’s. Cause I like that store. And, you  know, I have enough personal skills I could get hired out there. In fact, everybody out there ought to be my age. Cause we go to work. We don’t get sick. We just die. If he didn’t show up, well he’s dead.”

This honesty is unnerving in a guy with a scissors so close to your ears.

A guy who says things like: “There is really only one attribute you’re looking for in a woman . . . it’s that she likes you for you. And then you can look for something else you like about her. If you don’t have that one, you have nothing.”

“Amen,” the barbershop chorus says.

Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church is full. The family greets each person at the door. I sit uncomfortably in the back of the church where I imagine the unbelievers should sit. The priest, Father PJ McManus, talks about the emergency haircut he got from Sam when just a little boy and this story leads to the return of Lazarus. Colin Reese, Sam’s son, talks emotionally about the lessons his father gave him growing up and as a grown man. The chorus sings beautiful haunting hymns.

I wipe my eyes.

Sam’s mantra rings in my ears: “Cause we go to work. We don’t get sick. We just die.” 

And he did go to work.

And he didn’t get sick.

And he did just die.

But didn’t he have a hell of a lot to say to the rest of us in the in-betweens . . . ?

May Sam rest in peace.

Joe

The street is narrow, poorly lit, and foreign. Cobblestones poke into my thin-soled sandals. White sheets on clotheslines flutter like bat wings high above our heads. A shadowed man lumbers down the street. Black and white sidewalk tiles, arranged in strange, ancient patterns, point us forward to . . .  

. . . to the restaurant recommended by the guy at our hotel in Lisbon.

“If you want true Portuguese food, this is the place to go,” he says.

We walk into a small bar with three tables up against the wall. Five men at the bar are glued to the soccer game on the mounted TV. 

A loud cheer comes from the men as we enter.

The cheer is not for us. 

The server smiles and ushers us to one of the tables. Dione is his name.

After serving us Portuguese wine, Portuguese olives, and Portuguese cheese, Dione hesitates when we order a very traditional Portuguese main dish off the menu.

“Tourists generally do not like this dish,” he says.

Well, apparently he doesn’t get too many tourists from Iowa. 

Bacalhau com natas — or as we would say in Des Moines — Hash Brown Casserole. Yup, just a slight variation on the ever popular Tater Tot Casserole. Which is a slight variation on Tuna Noodle Casserole. Which ultimately leads to Macaroni and Cheese Casserole. In other words, this is HOME cooking.

I dig in and am transported back to grade school lunches in Iowa City, a gazillion years ago, where the lunch ladies in white hairnets served large portions of mashed potatoes mixed with any leftovers from yesterday’s meal. These delicacies were dished up in an ice cream scoop and plopped into the middle of a divided, plastic plate. 

Fine dining at its best.

So, Dione, what’s in this?

“Fried potatoes, coriander, eggs, leeks, cream, and cod.”

Of course.

Or as my mom would call it — leftovers mixed with potatoes. 

Okay, this restaurant, and many folks who follow casserole recipes, use only the freshest ingredients. I get it. The fresher the better. Right?

That seems a loss. 

Now follow me here, this is about old age, which you’ll grow into if you’re lucky. 

I want you to imagine your last family and friends holiday meal. Christmas, for example, if you are of that bent. In our home we make potatoes, gravy, turkey, stuffing, corn, beans, cranberry salad, and pie. It is a madhouse of labor. A labor of love to be sure. But it is truly hard work. 

The next day, I mix nearly everything into one pot and fry it up. Yup, a mashed-up mess. Easy peasy. 

What is it called? Delicious.

Is this turkey casserole better than the previous day meal? By a mile.

There you go.

So, are you following?

We all grow up. We are in relationships — or not. We have children — or not. We have work friends and school friends and church friends and gym friends and we are friends to the parents of our kids’ friends — or we aren’t.

And we get older. We get a bit dinged up and we do rehab to partially un-ding ourselves. People come into our lives and people leave our lives. We stay in our jobs and we leave our jobs. We become caretakers and we are taken care of. We wear out in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Yup, we become leftovers.

You can guess where I’m going here.

Just mix in a few potatoes and we are better than ever. We are the turkey casserole the day after Christmas. We are tater tot casserole with double the tater tots. We are mac and cheese with potato chips sprinkled on top. 

We are delicious.

Really?

Who knows. 

But I still love casseroles. 

Joe

The endless white sand beaches of southern Portugal are baked in bright sun, sprinkled  with salty air, and filled with thousands of people up and down the coastline. Families, teenagers, the very old and the very young.

And us.

We are so not beach people. Coming from Northern European stock, my wife and I have major parts of the body that have never seen the light of day. We don’t quite bathe in our long underwear, but if the sun does hit a patch of my wife’s skin, the choice of colors are red or bright red.

So we come to the beach with hats, sunglasses, long-sleeved sun shirts, umbrellas, SPF 1000 sunscreen, and large beach towels wrapped around our legs. Eye-catching.

Whereas everyone else comes to the Portugal beaches with, you guessed it, a thong.

Yup, a thin piece of cloth that seems at most an afterthought. And I mean “everyone.” Okay, not the men, but every adult woman, regardless of age and regardless of any preconceived notions of the “proper” size or shape, wears a thong.

I’m not really sure how to think about it. On the one hand, my traditional religious upbringing tells me to look politely away because they obviously left the house forgetting to put on their pants. On the other hand, my old-man sensibilities are that life is short, the body is beautiful, the less clothes the better — “let freedom ring.”

And I get what’s going on. The heat and the bright sun and the sand and the water all whisper in your ear that there should be no barrier between you and the elements. I remember my oldest boy when he was a child and first saw Lake Michigan. He ran ahead of us, down the sand dune, screaming with delight and shedding clothes all the way to the water, where he stood as naked as Adam and Eve in the Garden.

It just makes sense . . . as I adjust my long underwear and peek out from under our umbrella at the people having fun.

My rumination ends, however, when I hear a sing-song shout over the beach crowd:

“BOLINHAS! BOLINHAS! BOLINNNNNNNNNHAS!”

Given my carny relations, I recognize the bark of a vendor anywhere in the world.

“BOLINNNNNNNNHAS!”

And in case you missed what what occurring with the sing-song shouts, the bolinhas man pumps the bulb on a horn straight from Harpo Marx.

“Honk, honk, hoooooonk.”

My two-year-old granddaughter and I are sold. We wave to the man.

Two baskets are strapped over his shoulders. He gestures to donut custard delights on one side or donut Nutella delights on the other. Bolinhas!

We buy both kinds.

My granddaughter heartily bites into a creme-filled donut the size of her head. Custard gushes out and smears her face. Who cares about a mess when the ocean is steps away? Mine tastes of the sand on my face and the ocean salt in my mouth and deliciousness.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

What is going on? Donuts on the beach?

Yup.

And like all wondrous thing, this donut has a twisting path. According to Etienne Roeder, writing for Deutchlandfunk Kultur (and translated by Google Translate), it all began in the 1930’s when Jews were fleeing the Nazis and finding some kind of refuge in Portugal. A Jewish woman began baking and selling a popular Berlin donut as a way to survive without a work permit. This fried, hole-less donut was filled with jam. When the filling switched to an egg-based yellow cream (creme pasteleiro) to accommodate the Portuguese passion for custard, it became a hit.

I worked at a bakery in Iowa City when I was young, where we sold this same donut as bismarcks (a variation on the original German donut called a berliner). When left alone in the bakery at 3 a.m., I would deep-fat fry the bismarck dough, pump the inside with twice the usual amount of custard, and sit on a box eating a bit of paradise.

Heaven.

So each day we drive from our home in the hills to the white-sand beaches. We park and trek across the wooden boardwalks above cactus, scurrying crabs, and long grasses. At the sand, we slip out of our shoes and begin to look for a spot among the hundreds of beach umbrellas. And it is then, if we listen closely, we hear a cry softly floating on the wind.

“Bolinhas!”

“Do I hear somethin’?” My granddaughter excitedly shakes her grandma’s and grandpa’s hands.

“I think so,” I say.

We strip off our towels, hats, sunglasses, sun shirts and race to get our first donut of the day.

At last.

Custard sticks to my face. My eyes are slightly glazed. And my belly is transforming into a bolinha.

Mmmm . . . I wonder if we could race to the bolinhas man more quickly in a thong?

Joe

The train station’s awning stretches out over the platform with a slight ironic flip just before the tracks. Stucco walls, clay-tile roof, tile floors. The tracks out front run from the western Atlantic all the way to eastern Spain. 

A busy center of transportation.

Or not.  

With backpacks slung over our shoulders, we blink in the bleach-bright sun as we step off the train. It is nearly 6 p.m. on a Saturday. The town is Tavira. Not a soul around.  

Having taken the train from Lisbon, we are to meet our son in his rental car. Of course, we are supposed to call him to say we’re here. But as luck would have it, we have no battery left on either phone and no place to charge them. Our only hope is the train station.

Shoot! The station is locked solid. Even the bathrooms. 

Oh well. There is a bar attached to the station. It has a counter at the door and outside seating on a small patio with plastic red and black chairs. I order a beer and ask the owner, who speaks exactly as much English as I speak Portuguese, whether we could plug in a phone behind the counter. After multiple foolish hand gestures on my part, he smiles, takes my cord, and plugs me in. 

My wife leaves me for the grocery store across the street.

I sit with my beer.

Three men, the only other customers, sit in a small circle on the other side of the patio. The older one of the three calls me over.

“How are you?” he says in British English, capped with a large friendly smile.

Being married to an Irish woman, I realize how little it takes to get a storyteller to tell a story. One moment you are asking them to pass the salt, and the next moment they are telling you that they were born in Hastings, Nebraska, and their great-grandmother, who lived in Hastings for a time, had rescued all 9 of her children from a burning farm house in western Minnesota but was supposedly unable to rescue her husband.

“Really?” you say. Which is a response like manna to a storyteller. 

And when my wife — excuse me, the storyteller — shares information about her relative’s murderous past, you feel compelled to open up and tell a few stories of your own — ne’er-do-well uncles, philandering husbands, adult children without prospects.  

And before you know it, you have a new best friend. 

Jeff, my British new best friend, is a storyteller. He speaks of his 41 years in Portugal, his conversion experience from agnosticism, his job running a charitable organization, and his wish to buy me another beer and a delicious sandwich of homemade bread stuffed with pork and cheese — bar food in this neck of the woods.

“You’ve never had anything like this,” he promises. 

I bite the sandwich.

I decide to move to Portugal. 

Jeff introduces me to Pedro, who, Jeff informs me, can’t understand me and I can’t understand him.

Pedro give me an encouraging nod.

The third man, says hello in a strong Russian accent.

“Dmitri.” And he stands and shakes my hand. 

I ask Dmitri if he’s from Russia. 

Dmitri looks at me with cool-blue eyes and tells me that he is ex-KGB. He laughs quietly. 

Just like I’d expect an ex-KGB agent to laugh.

Dmitri pulls his chair over, a burning cigarette cupped carefully in one hand, and asks about my life and interests in Iowa.  

“Is this an interrogation?” I ask, partially joking. 

Dmitri smiles. We finish our beers.  

Dmitri offers to buy another round. He has been painting walls all day at the school across the street and explains he has a thirst. 

Jeff thinks we should also buy more sandwiches. “Life is short,” he shrugs. 

The beers arrive and we toast each other in high spirits. 

I eat another sandwich.

Pedro smiles. 

More Portuguese beer. More sandwiches. 

At the age of 67, I’ve experienced a bit of life’s ups and downs. More ups than downs, but I’ve been around. So I make a momentous life decision in my red plastic chair on a bar patio in Portugal . . .

I’m never leaving my new friends, this bar, or Portugal.   

Just then I see my wife waving at me across the street, pointing to a car driven by my son, and gesturing for me to hurry over.

My three friends give me knowing smiles and I realize it’s too late to pretend I don’t know the hand-waving woman.  

Mmmmm . . . train station in southern Portugal with my new best friends or life in Des Moines?

I unplug my phone, give everyone a handshake . . . and run to the car. 

Joe