And Now the Truth Revealed!

             On my post of last Saturday I acknowledged the "Creative Writer (Liar)" Award giving to me by Patricia Stoltey.  In accepting this award I gave you 6 possible things about me of which only one is true.  I reposted these on Monday-- talk about getting maximum mileage out of blog topics.

              Since I didn't reveal the answer as promised on Wednesday, I'm doing it today.  First here are the lies and the truth:


1. I was once a roadie for the Marshall Tucker Band (a popular country rock band in the 70s)
2. I was the salutatorian of my graduating class in high school.
3. I have hiked the entire Appalachian Trail.
4. I performed in a circus that featured Ted Cassidy and Jackie Coogan from the television show "The Addams Family".
5. While rafting down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon, the raft I was in capsized and I broke my leg, necessitating a helicopter rescue out of the canyon.
6. In the late 70s I spent one season working as a featured magic act in a carnival sideshow.

       The guesses were all over the place.  And I'm not sure whether some of the numbers guessed were that they were the truth or a lie.  In any case, here they are revealed:

1.  ... roadie for the Marshall Tucker Band  -- I saw the Marshall Tucker Band in concert once in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1975.  I talked Ken and Roberta Griffin, the magic act that I mentioned in my Wednesday post, into going with me.  Lead singer and guitarist Toy Caldwell became very sick during the concert and had to be taken away in an ambulance.  Opening act Charlie Daniels stepped in to take his place and finished out the set.  I was a fan of Marshall Tucker, but never a roadie.


2. ... salutatorian of my graduating class.--I had a pretty good grade point average in high school--but not that good.  Some of my math grades kind of messed things up.  Still, out of a graduating class of about 250, I was ranked #21.  I just missed having my picture in the school yearbook as one of the Top Twenty.

3. .... hiked entire Appalachian Trail--I did a lot of hiking and backpacking in my younger days and dreamed of doing the entire Appalachian Trail, but never did.

4. I performed in a circus that featured Ted Cassidy and Jackie Coogan from the television show "The Addams Family".  If I remember correctly this was in about February of 1966.  My family's juggling act was booked to play the Shrine Circus in Rochester, New York.  Right before intermission there was what they called the "Spectacle Parade" in which all performers, animals, and some special floats would circle the arena.  Part of this spec featured celebrities who had been advertised to draw crowds.  This was the extent of what Cassidy and Coogan did.  They rode around in some sort of novelty vehicle and waved at the crowd.  I recall after one spec, my sister and I caught the celebrities on a backstage stairway to request autographs.  They complied, but they sure were grouchy about it.  This is the true story.

5. While rafting down the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon, the raft I was in capsized and I broke my leg, necessitating a helicopter rescue out of the canyon.---Definitely the most concocted of all the stories, this one is a total fabrication.

6. In the late 70s I spent one season working as a featured magic act in a carnival sideshow.--There are some truths to this story.  In the late 70s I did work on a few magic shows and did perform a few magic illusions in these shows.  For a brief stint when I was working with the Ken Griffin Magic Show we did work on a "girlie" or burlesque show at a carnival at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Missouri.  So this is an amalgamation of truths to form a lie.

            There you have it!  A shorter post of recycled material.  Works for me.

Menudo: The Soup Not the Band

            I don't exactly recall when I first heard about menudo, but it was probably in the late 70s and it was probably from Ken Griffin, a magician for whom I worked for a few years.  Ken had been a leather craftsman making saddles and other items in Montana and elsewhere. He had gain reputable stature in the field of leather work when he decided he wanted to run away from it all and follow a childhood dream of becoming a magician.

           His wife, Roberta, had briefly been involved in the Hollywood movie scene in her younger days and as a woman with a great deal of spunk and driving ambition, she backed Ken in his dream.  They became well known in the magic field and Roberta wrote books under Ken's name about both magic and leather craft.  When I became involved with them most of their glory days were behind them and they had a lot of miles on their odometers.

           Ken had been born in Deming, New Mexico and he claimed he was part Mexican.  He certainly looked the part.  With a face as tough as the leather he crafted, he liked to take a drink or two more than once a day. An alcohol high had become a natural state for him.  When he was in prime form he would like to reminisce about past times and Roberta would fill in the places where his memory gapped.  The two of them were quite the team of storytellers.

           Somewhere in one of his story sessions he had talked about menudo and its medicinal value in curing a hangover.  I had not been too much of a drinker back then--oh every now and then, yet not too excessively--but I kept this hangover remedy in mind just in case I would ever need it.

            The date eludes me--it was probably late 70s or early 80s--and whether a hangover was even a part of the equation--I think not--but it was a few years after hearing Ken's story when I was in a small town in Texas that I saw "Menudo" advertised in the window of a small downtown cafe.  I was no longer with the Ken Griffin Show, but now married and working on another touring show.  Seeing the sign in the window that Saturday morning evoked those memories of Ken's stories and I decided this was to be the morning I would try this curative soup.

           It was a quiet, uncrowded little small town cafe that specialized in Mexican food and I don't remember much more than that.  What I do remember is that large bowl of menudo that the waitress set before me.  I breathed in the aroma of the steaming soup and nearly gagged.  It was evocative of a barnyard full of animals, not unlike the livestock area of a county fair or the odor that pervades as you drive past a large cattle feed lot.  It did not look at all appetizing.  A dirty looking broth which suspended slimy white strips of unindentifiable animal products and white globules of a white vegetable product stared back at me. 

           Since I had ordered it I was determined to eat it.  The first bite was so alien and offensive that I was not sure I would be able to finish the rest of the bowl.   I slowly continued to eat.  I recognized the vegetable globes as hominy and that part wasn't too bad other than being accompanied by the obscene broth it was in.  The meat product was a whole different matter.  They were slimy bits of rubbery fat colored substance that reminded me of octopus, which was another food that I was not a big fan of.  It had that cow taste, not like beef, but like eating a cow right there in the barnyard.  I'm pretty sure I didn't finish the entire bowl and I decided that this would be my last meal of menudo.

           This was not to be the case.  Over the next several years I would occasionally venture back into the strange world of menudo.  I discovered that menudo served properly should come with an array of condiments to help dress and flavor the concoction.  Lemon, chopped onions, cilantro, oregano, crushed red peppers, and minced jalapenos helped turn the earthy soup into a rich tasting gourmet concoction.  Shredded cabbage could also be mixed in to add a cooling crunchy texture.  It took a while but I began developing not only a taste for menudo, but a craving.

            After I moved to the Los Angeles area I began finding restaurants that had buffets that included menudo and all of the appropriate condiments.  Now, when I eat in one of these establishments I always head for the menudo first and have at least two bowls.  Zapien's La Salsa Restaurant down the street from where I live specializes in menudo.  I should probably go there more often but I don't.  They have a special giant bowl that if you finish it, you get a T-shirt and your picture on their Menudo Wall of Fame.  I like menudo now but I don't know if I could finish that big of a bowl.

         I usually keep some cans of menudo in my kitchen.  I typically buy the Juanita's brand because it looks the most appetizing and it's the one I'm used to.  It's a good quality brand.  At home I usually don't have all of the condiments and just eat the soup as it comes out of the can.  They season it very well and it tastes quite good the way it is.  Since I'm the only one in my house who will eat menudo (my wife won't even taste it), I usually eat the entire 3 serving can, unless my father-in-law is there to help me eat it.  He's 85 years old, but he likes his menudo.

             Menudo is a good example of something that I have acquired a taste for.  From the first exposure in which I was completely repulsed by the substance to the present where I look forward to my next bowl, the journey of appreciation for menudo was taken carefully.  It was a process of years and the camaraderie of other menudo lovers who encouraged me.  Maybe that first bowl really was poor quality--I really have no way to gauge it now.  When I eat menudo, it still smells kind of weird to me.  I'm still not a huge fan of the meat product, but I love the broth, the hominy, and all the fixin's that go with it.   I guess instead of the beef tripe, which is the meat product of which I speak, I'd rather have good quality fat free pork meat.  But then I guess it would not longer be menudo and  I would have pozole instead.   And that's a whole different post about a different soup.

         Look at this!  Here I 'm supposed to be posting shorter blog bits and today I've gone so long that I can't post what was the truth out of the lies that I posted Saturday and Monday.  Okay--I promise you that on Friday I will reveal which was true and which were lies.  Oh brother!  Did I lie when I said my blog posts would be shorter?