The Fictional Origins of Coleslaw

Growing up in the suburbs of northern New Jersey meant my adolescent social life essentially revolved around diners. Diners are great places for a cup of coffee and a few hours of doing nothing. I consistently ordered meals that came with a side order of coleslaw. For the most part, coleslaw in north jersey consists of green cabbage, red cabbage, and carrot shavings mixed with a thick dose of mayonnaise. There are many regional variations on coleslaw, some involving oil and vinegar rather than mayonnaise, or eliminating or substituting the vegetables.

Since I was quite well known for random tidbits of knowledge, I figured I could pull off explaining to my friends the origins of coleslaw, even if the entire story was fictional. One afternoon I retold an improvisational tale of coleslaw's origin. Since then I've repeated the story a few times, and inevitably I am believed.

When inventing the story of coleslaw's origins, I inserted certain facts that were real, such as mentioning the Panic of 1873. Other facts were so mundane, there was little reason to question them. Most importantly though, coleslaw itself is so pedestrian, there would seem little reason to fabricate a legendary tale about a food given away for free when you order a grilled cheese sandwich. In essence, I created a Clancy Pants before I even knew what a Clancy Pants was.

For those discerning readers interested in the original tale, I wrote up a version here.

Coney Island Redux

Sunday afternoon was this guy's birthday, which meant for us a second trip to the famed Coney Island. My first ever excursion to the far reaches of the civilized world was back in May, and I liked it so much, we decided to make a return trip. Erik would like to think it was all about this birthday, but really, its all about the pizza.

The day started off with the usual subway ride under the Hudson River. Sadly, thanks to the Port Authority's incompetence coupled with construction at the World Trade Center, our train was routing through Hoboken. Since Hoboken is a terminus for almost half of NJTransit trains -- and the subway is responsible for connecting these people to the city -- the subway was packed like Tokyo rush hour. This is when we met Alice. We actually didn't get her name, but I'm calling her Alice just the same.

Alice is a feisty older woman -- old enough to be my grandmother -- but in excellent physical shape, and sharp too. As it turns out, Alice took the train from Ramsey, one of those far off suburbs up north. She didn't have very good things to say about the Port Authority. "Why don't they run more trains?" she asked. I gave her my thoughts; "the Port Authority is lazy." "Lazy? Incompetent is more like it!" Alice said, "We should all skip out on the fares, then they'd take notice!" She might be right.

We left Alice at 33rd Street, off to the ballet or a Broadway show-- she apparently frequents high culture when she isn't getting ready to lead the revolution. Once in the city, we navigated through a street fair on Fifth Avenue up to Bryant Park where we met the birthday boy and his wife.

There we boarded the subway bound for Coney Island. The trip out is both wonderful and awful at the same time. Its awful because even on the best of days it takes more than an hour. Its wonderful because usually after the second or third stop into Brooklyn, the train is empty and you can have a nice conversation. Then we met Ronnie.

Ronnie boarded the train on Atlantic Avenue, the last big stop for most passengers on the D Train when we were expecting to have a chat about real estate and English football. Ronnie wanted none of that. "The bridge was closed today thanks to those damn Democrats," Ronnie said when he entered the near empty subway car. The bridge he meant of course, was the Verrazano Narrows, closed for the day to accommodate the New York City marathon. What the Democrats had to do with this I'm not quite sure. The race has been run since 1970, but a Republican has been mayor of the city since 1994.

Ronnie took a seat beside Amy, despite the fact that the car had three other passengers on it. We thought all was fine when he opened up a copy of the Post, that he would STFU and we'd have a lovely ride. That was not to be the case. The post had a story on Clinton's campaign which set him off again, "As though she'll beat Giuliani. I don't think so." He then called Clinton "thunder thighs" and "stinky."

Ronnie was clearly looking to have a conversation with us, whether we wanted one or not. He talked about his heroes, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and suggested Bob Dylan as a good running mate for Clinton.

When he was finished with politics, he started up on the Mets and the Jets, though he never mentioned the Nets. That's when I got to thinking again about Rudy; the man spends his whole life in a Yankees hat, and then in some effort to suckle a few extra votes out of New Hampshire, Rudy goes out and says how he's pulling for the Red Sox. Cheating on your wife is one thing Rudy, but cheating on your team-- that's inexcusable. I did not tell Ronnie this.

Anyway, the train was now deep into the heart of Brooklyn, and at this point Ronnie was talking about life cycles-- people are born in Brooklyn, move to Staten Island, then have a few kids and move to Jersey before shipping off to Florida to die. "Eight of ten people do that," he said, demonstrating pure ignorance to demographics. Ronnie stood up as we approached 25th Avenue, his stop. He was headed to his family's restaurant. He offered us one last piece of advice; "I'm not going to say who will be President, but all I'm saying is you better like ravioli." I guess Ronnie's vote is for Chef Boyardee.

Then the train didn't stop.

"These are the people you want running healthcare?" he asked us. "I don't think the MTA is going to be running healtcare," Erik said. "No, not the MTA, the government. They can't even stop where they are supposed to," Ronnie said. He would have had a point, perhaps, had he not referred to the subway as a bus. "I can't believe they didn't stop the bus where they are supposed to," he said, confirming he was a fucking lunatic.

Then the train sat waiting for a signal. Ronnie kept looking down at the city below, pacing up and down the car and prying at the doors-- "that's where I want to go; guess I'll take a cab; they want me to go to Coney Island to get back to 25th Avenue!"

When the train finally arrived at Stillwell Avenue, we hurried down the platform to get as far away from Ronnie as we could. Before we were out of the station, we overheard him harassing some unsuspecting folks about the performance of the MTA. Not a conductor though, just some poor passengers in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We landed on the street across from Nathan's, though we restrained ourselves from any corn dogs. The boardwalk loomed ahead of us, and even though Coney Island in November is more desolate than Coney Island in May, we were hoping for an arcade to throw skee ball. Everything on the boardwalk was closed down though, even Shoot the Freak. We did spy some hipsters taking photographs of themselves in front of the display.


No trip to Coney Island would be complete until Erik stuck his feet in the water. He and Clayton removed their shoes and braved the glass littered beach for the opportunity to risk frostbite.





When the remainder of the birthday party arrived, Clayton and Erik dried their feet and we hiked over to Totonno's, the main event. There were eight of us, so we filled up the small restaurant. The crotchety hostess / waitress at first didn't want us putting together two tables because it would have blocked her workstation. Or something like that. Mostly she was interested in being rude. I'll put up with the attitude for that pizza though. Luckily, a more level headed member of the staff told her to shove off and then we rearranged the tables.

The party gorged itself on four pies. Two margarita pies, a white, and a sausage. The white pie is definitely the best, but a trip would not be complete without a margarita pie.

Afterward, stuffed with warm pie, we head back to the station. We were all taking the F train back, even though we had arrived by different means. This meant taking a shuttle train two stops and transferring at the famous Avenue X. Alright, there really isn't anything famous about it, other than Erik's insistence that we one day return and hang out at Avenue X for no reason at all. Once on the train, Amy pulled out some cupcakes, and we sang Happy Birthday.

Luckily Ronnie was still lost somewhere in the backwater of Brooklyn, otherwise he no doubt would have some words of wisdom.

Photog

I've always been the one to go around shooting pictures. As a result, I have a fairly extensive visual record of my life as far back as high school. Of course, back then digital cameras were clunky, underpowered, and ate up batteries in a matter of minutes and so every picture I took was on 35mm film and produced in glossy 4x6 inch prints. Printed photos still possess some magic quality that digital files can't really replicate. But then there are the boxes of photos.

I have three shoe boxes (really, these are photo boxes I paid seven dollars a piece for) of photos chronicling my life from the eighth grade until about my sophomore year of college. Since then I've been shooting mostly digital, with a few rolls of film thrown in from my 35mm SLR. Had I still been shooting on film, I'd by now have six or seven boxes taking up precious closet space. And I'd probably never look at the photos.

The last time I went through the boxes of photos was after learning one of my former classmates died. Death causes funny things, and for me that meant browsing old photos. Many of the people in these photographs are folks I haven't spoken to for years, and might very well never speak to again.

This all leads to me to wonder what in the world I am to do with all these printed photos. Sitting in their boxes, the photos are well protected from time, though this also makes it difficult to casually browse through them. By contrast, my digital photos are archived on hard drives at the office and at home. They are easily accessible whenever I'm at a computer, and more importantly, protected from natural disasters by having copies in two locations.

But that still doesn't solve the problem of all these physical prints. They could remain forever in their heavy boxes, moved every time I move, forgotten until the death of another classmate, sitting behind board games and muffin tins-- no, I must digitize them.

The process will be painful and laborious. At most, five photos can fit on the scanner bed at a time. There are literally hundreds, nay, thousands, of photos. I was in the high school drama club-- I have photos from almost every show. There are photos from the prom, the junior prom, field trips and vacations, birthday's and even non-events. Dozens of rolls of film.

Then there is the editorial process. Which photos are good enough to spend the time scanning? Which are better off left to turn to dust? Do I ignore people I have since ceased being friends with? Are these relative strangers worth digitizing so I never have to open the photo boxes again?

Maybe I should simply revise my personal history.