Maybe black was a bad color choice for my fake suede coat. I was more enamored by the idea of the coat looking and feeling like the expensive fabric without the worry of it being ruined in the rain. But as I confidently approached the JC Penney’s cashier counter, coat in hand, I perused the sales tag one last time. I quickly scanned something about water resistance and tumble drying. Nothing on the tag, however, forewarned me about spilt tahini and vodka, enormous chalk and brick imprints on the sleeves and back or the coat being often used as a crude blanket or a train pillow.
Then again, nothing, no matter how resilient to the elements (or condiments), could have prepared me for the year’s wanderings, period. I approached 2006 like I usually approach everything else: staggering through the sloppy, stickiness; with little balance and most likely, unshaven. Like the fake suede (fuede?) coat draped around me as I write this, I’m somehow still around. In some capacity.
A few staggered snippets:
The main thing learned from a short stint in Pittsburgh over the summer was that the probability of every restaurant meal in town being accompanied by a fried potato product, equals 100%. Whether French-fried, chipped or pancaked, I was amazed at how Pittsburghers relentlessly created new ways to serve something that grows in the ground. All three renditions were served in abundance to ensure proper artery deterioration, at Fatheads in the Southside neighborhood. Not so much the restaurant and brewery it claims to be, as a sanctioned trough, Fatheads is Pittsburgh all the way down to their pierogies and keilbasa. Incidentally, both were offered together piled high onto the Southside Slopes; not so much a sandwich as a zip code. I had to have it. But really, after a few jaw-straining bites, it had me.
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Forget GNP, trade deficits and academic achievement. The real indicator of progress and/or whether a country has or has not, is if the general populace has clothes dryers. Or not. Egypt hasn’t. Turkey hasn’t. Romania hasn’t. Ditto for parts of Spain and Portugal, even. While the washing machine revolution has swept most of the world up in a detergent wave of clean, in the most cramped of urban landscapes, the clothesline still proudly links building to building and neighbor to neighbor.
But to expect “April Fresh” from places where sheep excrement doubles as a sidewalk is beyond wishful thinking. Instead, my shirts held a bouquet of leaded gasoline with a subtle, yet noticeable, hint of cheap, domestic cigarettes in Cairo. In Rome, a piquant homage to brewing espresso and Vespa exhaust lightly graced my windblown boxer briefs.
At the same time, few things even come close to reproducing a sense of place better than its odors; something you don’t get from Downey dryer sheets. I just could have done without my pants having the aromatic whiff of an Alexandria fish market.
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I was more than fortunate to have first and second helpings of Turkey in ’06. More specifically, Istanbul. With its ancient, cobbled streets, teeming bazaars and fascinating ethnic jumble, it’s hard not to love exploring the city for hours at a time. The task is made easier thanks to the constant influx of tea into the bloodstream. Turkish tea is a lightly sweetened, frequent delight. So frequent it might also explain the city’s frenetic pace. So frequent that you understand why waiters carry gleaming silver trays, laden with the traditional, figure-shaped tea glasses, down city streets and through hotel lobbies because tea is being ordered all day and all night by everyone with a mouth. So frequent that simple visits to stores and market stalls can result in a warm, welcoming tipple of the stuff with the salesperson, no purchase necessary. So frequent it’s no surprise to see the blue flame of an old stove firing a worn kettle behind the counter of any restaurant in any part of the old city, Sultanahmet. So frequent that even as I write this, already hopped up on two pots of coffee, I peer out the window, anxiously awaiting the next tea-toting Turk.
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Historical re-enactors do not always cue eye-rolling and a frenzied search for the exit. A friend of mine and I sat on the porch of an old farmhouse with a few even older tourists, listening to a twenty-something actor play a Civil War-era Confederate soldier. The re-enactor precisely described life as it was the day Lee’s army surrendered to Grant in quaint, little Appomattox in 1865. The actor was terrific and completely believable as every detail from the grubby farm-wear to the slight Scottish brogue in his eastern Virginia accent was authentic. Managed by the National Park Service along with the rest of the superbly run Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, it was refreshing to see a government service actually worth my tax money. I would have gladly forked over more money if the park rangers would stop wearing those stupid hats.
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Constantly getting lost in Baltimore’s rougher neighborhoods – something just too easy to do – always seems to ram home the stark differences between the Charm City and Washington, DC, my former home. The short forty-five minute drive between them couldn’t be further away in terms of landscape, architecture and ambition. DC, the never-supposed-to-be city, simultaneously strives to be America’s best; while trying to hide America’s worst and competing for America’s future. Baltimore doesn’t try so hard. Maryland’s largest is a classic, East Coast city that has deteriorated gorgeously during the 20th century, yet is experiencing a modest comeback. Even many Districters have looked to Bawlmore’s bustling ethnic neighborhoods, it’s underrated nightlife and cheap, by comparison, real estate. That the Italian food is far superior than what can be found in the nation’s capital should be reason enough to call U-Haul.
Great stuff my fragrant friend. I can smell you above the car fumes from NYC.
Posted by: Tom | February 05, 2007 at 11:04 AM
Oh, jealousy.
Keep it up, yo.
I love to read it.
Posted by: Mariam | February 05, 2007 at 08:03 PM