Velociworld

COLANDER BLOGGING

I've been trying to carve out a little niche in the blogworld, some area I can find my little place in the sun. But every time I try one, and throw out a few samples, the Experts ride into town like gunslingers, and co-opt the damned enterprise. And so I cast about for something unique, differentiated. Well, hell, not even that. Something so incredibly boring and vapid that people would look at it, turn to the side and spit, and think "Man, you can run with that one."

Now, the vapid is not as easy to find as one might think. But after some strenuous alpha wave activity I came up with! Colander Blogging.

Lookit: my first post:



Wow! That there is a 1947 Wearever aluminum colander. Don't leave! There is a story behind this particular piece of metal.

When my parents were first married they set up house in Albany, Georgia, where the Not Yet Senator was opening a branch office of my grandfather's business. 1947. Life was tough, postwar, pennies were tight. But young couples are bouyed with optimism, the Nazi Huns had been smashed, and one could smell the sweet smell of an affordable Chevrolet in the air, if one worked their righteous knuckles to the bone. My father made $30 a week, and was damned glad to get it.

Not long after they were ensconced in Albany my mother went shopping. For basic staples, and a piece of cookware. She needed a colander. Now, my mom was notorious for frugality. In later years she fed a family of seven for three shiny nickels a day, I think. But on this trip something happened. Somewhere, somehow, she ran across this colander. A fancy aluminum Wearever. Price tag? $30. There was some money in the bank account, presumably start-up funds for the new business enterprise. My mother bought that colander. An entire week's worth of pay on a frivolity, basically.

Legend has it my father went ballistic, and who could blame him? That would be the equivalent of the Bride walking in tomorrow and informing me she'd spent 2 grand on a saucepan. But I think the legend was hyperbole. After my mother passed away my sister found, and shared with me, love notes my father had written my mother a few years later, when he was a JAG officer in Tokyo during the Korean War. He was quite smitten with her. Kind, attentive, loving. A painfully obvious True Love affair. I'm sure he was angry at the time, but I can't see it as that big of a deal. I think my mother told me the story when I was in my twenties because she still felt remorse, and shame, for such an uncharacteristic act on her part.

I will say, though, that we ate a lot of spaghetti growing up, it filling many bellies quite cheaply, and that colander was deployed a lot. But for the life of me I can never remember my father ever, ever eating spaghetti. When we had it, he would pull a steak from the freezer, and pan fry it, and eat in solitude. Just a recollection.

I have several colanders, but this is my favorite. I always use it, and every time I do I feel like that was probably the best $30 ever spent on anything, ever.

And so, the gauntlet is thrown.

Colander Blogging. Are you fucking man enough?