Forest City

Almond Auto Parts was where my dad bought all of his car parts. It was about a mile from home and he was on a first name basis with everyone who worked there. Let me rephrase that, he bought almost every car related item he needed at Almond's. There is a place called Forest City. You may have seen the signs for it with a drawing of a guy with an unusually long neck. I don't know what that's all about. The closest Forest City seemed about forty miles away when I was a kid. You know how that goes. It was probably six miles or so. Forest City would have these sales with unbelievably low prices. A case of Oil for 6.99! Limit one per customer. Dad and I departed on our forty mile journey to Forest City early one morning. We went in and he bought his case of oil. When we got out to the car, he removed his navy blue jacket and put on a dark brown corduroy one. Then, he put on a pair of sunglasses. Lastly, he put on a dark brown Fedora. He instructed me to wait in the car and went back in. He came out with a second case of oil. I was really impressed. My sister would join him on subsequent trips of the same nature. Creativity, great sense of humor, and always ready to work on a car (or in my case, brush paint my 67 Dodge Dart and 70 Ford Maverick). That was my dad. I think about him every day. Daniel Thomas Shea Sr. would have been seventy-seven today.

The Pour Over

After a nice dinner, I asked my mom if she wanted some coffee. She said yes   and said that it could come from the half full pot that had been made this morning. I told her that I had brought my "coffee kit" from Chicago. The kit includes a ceramic pour over device, some #2 filters, and a small container of coarsly ground french roast coffee. It would taste a little different than this morning's coffee. After the explanation, she agreed that it sounded good and asked, "is that called a Bull Durham?" I said yes, a Bull Durham and started pouring.

Chili pie w/cornbread top

2 tbs of oil

1 medium onion

Two cloves of garlic

1 lb of ground beef,turkey or pork

Two tbs Worcestershire sauce

1 bottle Heintz Chili Sauce

2 heaping tbs mild chili powder(should be pure)

1 level tbs hot chili powder(pure)

1 level tbs cumin

1 level tbs oregano(Mexican is best)

1 tsp each salt and pepper

1/2 cup raisins

1 box Jiffy cornbread mix

Chop onions and garlic finely and sauté until transparent.

Add meat and sear it breaking it into very small pieces.

When meat is totally cooked, add Worcestershire sauce and cook while stirring for 5-10 minutes.

Add chili sauce

Add all other ingredients except raisins and cornbread mix.

Stir everything up real we'll and cook 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat and prepare the cornbread mix per the package.

Stir in raisins(you can leave them out if you like).

Using large spoon, fill a standard glass or metal pie dish with the mixture.

Smooth it out and keep in mind you will need room to pour the cornbread batter on top. Pour the cornbread batter on top and spread evenly to cover. Cook in oven per cornbread mix instructions. Let finished pie stand for 15-30 minutes before cutting. 

Southport Ave.

I was literally starving. Another thirty seconds without food and I would have needed to lay down and wait for The Grim Reaper. I pulled into a 7-Eleven and got a deluxe sized beef jerkey. I had been in such hurry to get in the store, I hadn't really noticed what neighborhood I was in. I got in my car and made a right out of the parking lot. As I was sitting at the light, it hit me. I was a block away from where Teresa and I had lived in the early 90's. The apartment on Dover Street. Taylor's first home. The apartment where we found her in a basket on our doorstep. All bundled up and about the size of a loaf of bread. Taylor was the most beautiful baby. 

As I sat at that light on Southport Ave., getting ready to make a soft left north onto Clark Street, I was filled with the sweetest memories of Taylor in her early days. I remembered taking her on a bike ride on those streets. She sat up so nice and straight and observed everything. She was indeed "like little doll" as one lady had remarked in the thickest of Itallian accents. I also remembered the three of us going to a Cubs game. Taylor was so small. She slept on my lap for the whole game and jumped awake everytime something exciting happened. Then fell right back to sleep. After the game, we walked in a big crowd down Clark Street. As we crossed Addison, a bus actually rubbed against my arm as it drove by. It really didn't hurt me or anything but it scared the hell out of me. I was carrying my baby. What was wrong with that bus driver. I felt like handing Taylor to Teresa and going after him. 

In that apartment, we had a magnet of the Elvis stamp on the refrigerator. I had sideburns at that time and when I wasn't home, Taylor used to look at the magnet and say "Daddy".  

One night after I finished feeding her, she was standing up as I was holding her arms. I let go and she took her first step. That was exciting.

Those memories made me happy. As I was sitting through the green light, the guy in the car behind me, in the Chicago tradition began honking his horn. I sped away as I ate that jerky. My mini memory trip was over.

The Alley

 The garage sale was a block south of Fullerton in the alley that runs behind the east side of Western Avenue. The garages in this neighborhood are behind the houses and they open into the alley. I had parked near the end of the alley and had to walk down it about five or six houses to get to the sale. As I was walking, I came upon a house where a guy who looked like Charles Mingus was bent over the engine of a car doing some repair work. Two dogs came running up to the fence to bark at me. One dog was a large mixed breed with a lovable face and floppy ears. The other was much smaller and looked like a Jack Russell terrier. He was the boss. These two dogs were like the ones in cartoons where the big dog is goofy and not too smart and the little dog is very smart and in charge. They both barked at me loudly as I walked. Then, they began barking at each other. Finally, they started biting each other. A total fight. Mingus dropped his wrench and came to break things up. He got between the dogs and waved his right hand, yelling hyah!, hyah! It sounded like he was driving a team of mules. The fight was over. I was impressed. I continued on to the sale which was bad. Lots of children's clothes, VHS tapes and an old television.

As I walked back through the alley, I hoped for another dog fight where Mingus would yell hyah!, hyah! I loved that. I'll always remember him and his dogs.

New Job

I Mickey was a rotund woman who worked in the office. She wore very plain and old lookng clothes. She was annoyed by everything. There was always this look on her face. Her in her comfortable shoes. It was Mickey that I needed to talk to when I couldn't find my time card in the rack. "Mr. Gabler has fired you." Stone faced, in those shoes. Stuffed into that horrible blue polyester pant suit looking like a sausage casing ready to burst. Not much more to talk about. They did owe me some money. I went  home and told my Mom and Dad. My Dad wanted to go and beat Mr. Gabler senseless. He didn't. My Mom told me to get a newspaper and look for a new job. As I looked, I found the perfect job to offset my embryonic bodybuilding career: Cab drivers wanted call Mr. Roberts 313-547-8219 The gears began to turn in my head. This was it. To be the size of bodybuilder I wanted to be(BIG), I needed to to eat a whole lot of high protien food. Many times a day. It said in my Bible, (The Education Of A Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Douglas Kent Hall) That I should be eating six smaller high protien meals a day instead of the three meals that normal people eat each day. The plan was this: get the cab driver job, drive twelve hour shifts five to seven days a week, meet all kinds of interesting people on their way to and from the airport and other places around town. I would always keep the passenger seat(and floor if necessary) stocked with peanut butter, several loaves of Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Whole Grain Bread, a gallon of Twin Pines whole milk and dozen or so hard boiled eggs. I could take the passengers wherever they wanted to go, and eat. All the time. I would bulk up rapidly as I would be following a strict training program while I was not driving. It would only be a matter of time before I would have to move to Southern California to train under the watchful eye of the great Joe Weider. He would get me ready for the important titles I was going to win. I finally had to put the newspaper down and sit back and just imagine the whole thing unfolding so nicely. I went downstairs to tell my Mom and Dad about the plan. They were very skeptical and when I tried to convince them how great it was going to be, my Dad shut me down when he said, "as long as you live in this house, you can't be a cab driver." My dream job would never happen. Later that week, my friend, Craig told me he could get me a job as a G.U. at Machus Sly Fox. The Sly Fox was an expensive restaurant in Birmingham. G.U. stands for general utility. Dish washer. But boy did they ever have the food! Prime rib,crab legs, lobster tail, baked potatoes,endless supply of whole milk and hard boiled eggs(for salads),Ray's ice cream, chocolate mousse, the list went on and on. And so my journey began.

Baker's Dozen

I finally decided to check out UHF, a record store on Washington ave. in Royal Oak, Michigan. They had a pretty good selection with a mixture of new and used records. They also had a lot of free records near the front of the store. After looking through bins that featured Surf, Instrumental and various 50's and 60's lps, I made my way to the Jazz section at the rear of the store. Behind the Jazz section was a desk with a girl and a guy who worked at the store. The guy was looking at some lps. He was fat with salt and pepper hair. I asked him where Mickey Baker would be filed. His response was, "Mickey Baker?" He said it very slowly and sounded it out in a way that seemed like he thought that I had just escaped from an insane asylum and was probably just making up silly names. I verified that, yes Mickey Baker was the artist I was asking about. He had already searched for and found him on Wikipedia. "It says here that he is a Jazz guitar player, so he would be in Jazz. I have never priced a record by him." He quoted some rather high completed Ebay auctions of Mickey's lps and then went on to tell me about supply and demand before returning to looking at lps. I wouldn't expect my local florist. butcher or mechanic to know the name Mickey Baker, but ultra hip, fat assed salt and pepper haired record store guy? I began thinking of how much fun it would be to actually play out the part of the insane asylum escapee asking him about all sorts of silly names that of course he wouldn't know of. "Where would I find Guiseppe Bogdonovich?" I would explain that he was an albino multi-instrumentalist from Italy. "Do you have any Erastus H. Sipperley singles on the King label? He was a great sackbut player from Ohio". I would stop in every day for a week always wearing different outfits so he wouldn't recognize me. "Where would I find Lefty McPeterson? He played guitar laying down and was born in a circus tent just outside Glascow, Scotland. He was very influential for people like Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Brian May. Wait a minute, you don't know who Brian May is?"