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.

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.

Top Milk

For many years when I was much younger, I only drank Top Milk. Even today, home for holidays and family functions, I'm accused of refusing to drink anything but. I'm sure there are a number of you wondering, "WTF is Top Milk?"

Being that my mother was a quasi-hippie-turned-yuppie, our house had the (mis)fortune of enjoying weekly milk delivery from a local dairy processor. The milk arrived in glass bottles. Cardboard and plastic containers, modernity, had not yet arrived in our household.

We drank whole milk back then, rich in its 4.5% fat content. I'm still not sure whether because of the glass jars, or because it was whole milk, but for some reason little fat globules would collect on the surface of the milk. We'd peel back the foil lid, and hidden underneath was a teaspoon's worth of fat. I was not amused.

Fluid mechanics however, is on our side with this one. A full bottle of milk, when tipped to pour a glass, allows the fat to float to the top. On the other hand, a mostly empty bottle of milk lacks enough liquid for the fat to float away. The fat then ends up in your glass of milk.

Top Milk simply means the milk at the top of a full bottle. There was not an opposite of Top Milk, no bottom milk to speak of. There was milk and there was Top Milk, the sweet elixir of a freshly opened bottle. Only Top Milk was assured a fat globule free glass, and so it came to be that I only drank top milk.

I don't drink milk very much anymore, though on occasion I'll pour some over a bowl of cereal or add milk to a mug of coffee. Our refrigerator now only has plastic jugs of fat free, skim milk. But still, if the jug is less than a quarter full, I'll find some other snack or drink my coffee black.

Ring Dings

For those of you who are not in the know, Ring Dings are chocolate cakes filled with white cream. They are similar to a Yodel or Frosted Hostess Cupcake. If I were to guess, I'd say the recipe for each of these delights is probably the same-- same chocolate cake, same white filling, same chocolate coating. Yet, there is something about a Ring Ding these other tasty little snacks lack, something to do with the filling.

The hippie side of my mother prevented us from having any of these sorts of things growing up. Instead of Fruit Rollups, we were blessed with sticky, flat, 100% fruit things, for instance. These imitation fruit rollups could be found at the local health food store. I've found them once again in Whole Foods, and they are still just as disgustingly fiber filled wads of sticky pressed fruit.

Ring Dings though, can't be replicated and sold as a health food. Or at least, the local health food store never had any. How then could I have ever developed a craving for these little cakes?

There was one inevitable day out the year we would end up eating Ring Dings. Once a year, for Mother's Day, my father and brother and I would end up cooking dinner. The meal required a trip to the grocery store, a once yearly trip my father would make. I think nostalgia played a role, but Ring Dings would always appear in the shopping cart.

Years passed since the last childhood Ring Ding and now. Ring Dings are not the easiest snack cake to come across and they are after all, laced with toxic Transfats. But then there they were sitting on the deli shelf between prepackaged pound cake and coffee rolls. I bought a pair the other day, consuming them after a rather ordinary deli meat sandwich. The chocolate coating, softened in the heat, stuck to my fingers. The cream spilled out from between the layers of cake with each bite. For a moment I recalled fond childhood memories of the elusive Ring Ding.

I've had better cream filled chocolate cakes from gourmet cafes and bakeries. I probably could, given the ingredients, bake my own. But then there are the Ring Dings, sitting on shelves of convenient stores and neighborhood delis. What is it about prepackaged snack cakes that make them so irresistible?

Fight Club

The first rule of fight club is that there are no rules. I learned this the hard way.

Back in the elementary school days, I found myself in a number of scuffles. Mostly these were the result of a few bullies not realizing that they shouldn’t pick on people bigger than themselves. Those playground scuffles never amounted to much, largely because they were on the playground. But then there was The Fight.

The Fight was unlike the other previous scuffles. The Fight was not be a spur of the moment fracas between my Arch Nemesis and myself. Instead, it was a planned brawl between me and a friend. For more than a week, The Fight was the talk of school bus.

The Opponent, Matt, had for a number of years been a childhood playmate. We had grown up a few blocks from each other and for a time were the best of childhood mates. In either case, as time went on near the end of elementary school, as the divide between the popular kids and the geeks became more apparent, we began going about our separate ways. It was during this transition period that somehow being cool meant getting into a brawl.

There were a few rules Matt and I had agreed on in the interest of having a "fair fight."

Rule #1: No Scratching
I had a bit of a reputation for using whatever means necessary to get people to leave me alone on the playground. A number of playground scuffles I was involved in ended with my leaving a nice scratch on the forearm, or in one case, I drawing blood across the face of my arch nemesis. The scratching rule was very clearly aimed at preventing me from using my weapon of choice.

Rule #2: No Ball Hitting
It seemed like a fairly straight forward rule. Only cowards sucker punch you in the bollocks anyway, so it was almost as if we didn’t need the rule. The one thing I knew would be painful was a big old sucker punch to the nuts.

Rules #3: No Strangulation
I really had no interest in dying, so I thought that a ban on strangulation was probably a good idea.

As it turned out, the only rule in The Fight was that there are no rules.

For a week or so, the much publicized fight lead to bickering and taunts from both camps. Matt’s camp was essentially the cool kids lead by my Arch Nemesis. My camp was essentially, me. And of course there was third camp who just wanted to watch a good fight.

The plan was simple. In the woods behind the bus stop was a small clearing. We’d meet there after school and have The Fight. A number of folks were in attendance including Matt’s older brother and his friends, the Arch Nemesis, and a few other folks looking for a good time. There were perhaps a dozen spectators.

Neither of us really knew how to fight. We weren’t boxers, at any rate. Matt sent his fist my way. I think he struck my arm first. Then the back of my head. I was being very careful not to scratch him, as per rule number one. But I hadn’t really ever thrown a punch, so I only really shoved him back.

He launched at me and pulled me to the ground, throwing down his fist into my back a few times. We were rolling on the ground when he kneed me in the bollocks. I called fowl.

The Fight stopped for a moment. "You hit me in the nuts" I said, or something equally ridiculous. The other folks there were chanting "fight, fight, fight" concerned their show might be over. "It’s a fight" came the retort from the crowd. They all were Matt supporters. There was little that could be done except to accept the fact that the rules had been broken, and hope that the fight could continue without any further violations.

So we went at it again, wrestling each other to the ground. I still had refrained from scratching at Matt. Somehow though, while we were wrestling on the ground, he wrapped his hands around my neck. I attempted to say something about his blatant rule breaking. But he was choking me. I finally wrestled him off with a good shove and jab to the stomach. I was finished with the fight, mostly because Matt was breaking the rules.

I started walking away from the clearing down the path. The spectators though wanted their show. Tommy Kaplan, a punk and a bully a year or two older than us—friends with Matt’s older brother—really wanted us to keep fighting. He said a few things trying to get me back in the ring. When it was clear that I was halfway out of the forest and not coming back, he came running after me, demanding I stay and fight.

Tommy threw a few punches my way, square in the shoulder insisting that I return and fight. He being a bit older and stronger, actually was able to cause some pain. I was already sore, and his punches lead to tears. The rest of the crowd had gathered now, and Tommy threw a few more punches for good measure. I slipped out of his grasp. I was bounding back down the path out of the woods.

He caught up with me a second time and pulled me to the ground. He punched me a few more times and demanded that I stay and fight Matt. Again, the crowd had come along, Matt leading them down the forest path. I was wailing in pain at this point. Tommy was after all older, and more importantly, actually knew how to throw a punch.

Finally, I concluded that I stood a better chance fighting with Matt, even though he was breaking the rules, than I did with Tommy who was simply older. Matt and I had a quick go at it before I conceded defeat. I may have cried "Uncle," which I would have done earlier if I had known that was the 'safe word.'

Anyway, as we finished up, we walked out of the woods and a police car showed up with the lights flashing. Oops.

As things turned out, a girl who lived near the forest, Anne-Marie, went ahead and alerted the police to The Fight after hearing my wailing. The police took our names and rang up our mothers. Years later, Anne-Marie and I would joke about the time she called the cops on me.

Matt had a good little story to tell his mother: 'the older kids,' meaning his brother, 'told us to fight, so we had a fight.' No, obviously, that was not what had happened. The Fight had been planned. We had rules, and Matt cheated. But his story seemed to get us both out of trouble and shift the blame to his older brother, so there was no reason to contradict him. We ended the afternoon playing Nintendo in his basement.

For a year or two after The Fight, Matt and I remained friends. In middle school, he began to drift into the crowd of cool kids, I towards the solitude of a middle school geek. By high school, we were friendly, but by no means friends. He hung out with the popular crowd that played sports, I with the dorks who played instruments and performed on stage.

Years later, then in college, I came across a young woman who knew Matt. "My friend is dating him," she said. "She's planning on dumping him next weekend," said the friend. I passed the information on to people who still spoke with Matt. He dumped her first.

The Last Birthday Party

The last childhood birthday party I attended was for a kid named Vincent. He lived a few blocks down the street from me. Vinnie, as I believe he goes by now, had a big old house with a swimming pool. He was one of those semi-popular kids who tagged along with bullies but usually didn't make too much of a fuss unless someone more popular told him to. From time to time when I meet people and say I'm from Ringwood, inevitably they or their friend or their friend's sister ‘used to date Vinnie.' He's perhaps the most popular man from North Jersey.

I was never really friends with Vinnie. Rather I knew him because you know everyone in their third grade class. I was invited to his birthday simply because that's the sort of thing you do when you're in elementary school: you just invite everyone in your class because your parents think it is rude not to.

Anyway, Vinnie had a pool in his yard. That alone perhaps made him super cool, I'm sure. So he had a pool party and everyone went swimming and then there was burgers and hot dogs, and then Vinnie would open all the fun toys that thirty classmates buy for their 'friends' at birthday parties. Only that is not exactly how things went down.

My parents dropped me off, had a quick chat with the other parents no doubt, and then the parents left and the kids jumped in the pool. We swam around, went down the slip and slide a few times, shot each other with water guns. It began as a fairly typical eight year old birthday party. Then it came time to eat.

There were, if I recall, two or three outdoor tables piled high with sodas and gifts and things like that, and then a few plates of hot dogs and hamburgers and whatever else. I had taken a seat at a table waiting for the food to come out. A few others had started taking their seats too. Then the other chairs around my table filled up, probably with more people more popular than me.

We were sitting at a table without any soda. Someone more popular than I was told me to get a bottle of soda from the other table. When I stood up and grabbed the two-liter of soda, some other more popular kid promptly took my seat.

Wait a second, I thought, I was getting the soda for everyone at the table. That was clearly my seat since I had been sitting in the chair. There were no other chairs. That's when things all started to unravel.

As I said, I lived just a few blocks away, and more importantly, I knew the way home. But of course, you can't, when you are seven or eight, simply walk away from a birthday party. The hosting parents usually frown on this.

I believe that the local bullies had made some taunting remarks after taking away my chair, the one that was rightfully mine. I probably started crying because that is what I did when I was seven or eight. That of course only lead to more taunting and things like "cry baby."

Finally, I think some adult tried to arbitrate the situation. This ended badly because the judgment came down against me, since I was not seated in the chair and I was, as I said, somewhat less popular. Did I mention I still had the two-liter of soda in my hand? So I decided I had had enough of the nonsense, enough of the bullying, and I was ready to leave. I slammed the two liter down on the concrete patio. This turned out to be a lot of fun.

I was halfway off the compound before the shock of an exploding two-liter had worn off and the adults came to the realization that I was actually showing myself out. Then the chase was on.

As you can imagine, a seven or eight year old, even a mildly overweight child, is significantly faster than a middle aged man. Unfortunately, Vinnie lived on a small compound. There was a rock wall surrounding the yard. I was cut off from the main gate where the driveway was so I kept going all the way around the house. I made it as far as the creek, but the creek was more of a trench, and a bridge was certainly required to cross. But I didn't know where the bridge was.

I ran along the creek looking for the slate bridge. I had seen it several times before. But I soon realized the main gate was the only real way out. I made a run for it knowing there was some adult relation of Vinnie stationed there to prevent my escape.

I didn't make it.

Someone grabbed hold of me, though if I recall, I certainly made them pay for it with a few bite marks and deep scratches. Finally though, I was subdued and taken into the kitchen where I was detained until my parents arrived.

That was the last birthday party I was invited to.

Head Injuries

As far as I'm aware, I was never dropped on the head as a child. Of course, I probably wouldn't remember such a thing even if it had happened. But the other day, for some reason, I was recalling just how durable my head really is.

Incident #1
Growing up, I had a tree house. It began as a simple platform between three trees, seven or eight feet off the ground. Then we added railings, and then a small enclosure, though really the important information is that it was seven or eight feet in the air. We found in the woods a heavy metal pipe about as long as we were tall-- three or four feet. This pipe was heavy, old and rusted.

The pipe was a good piece of weaponry when we made war with the kids up the street, so we usually kept it in the tree house, on the platform. One afternoon I was standing there beneath the ledge of the fort when all of a sudden the metal pole came falling from the sky. It hit me hard across the side of the head. I believe there was blood.

Incident #2
Back in elementary school I took the bus. Perhaps this is where my hatred of buses comes from. In either case, on a cold winter day there were was a frozen patch on the road. It was always fun to "skate" around on the ice with sneakers. Apparently, I lost my balance.

I fell backward fast and hard. I can remember the sound of my head hitting the pavement. Though there was no blood, I can recall a bump for a few days.

Incident #3
I was playing pee-wee soccer like any good suburban kid one Saturday afternoon when something happened. I don't remember exactly what, whether it included the goal posts or just the ball or the hard ground. I do remember though spending a few hours in the Doctor's office waiting to find out if I had a concussion. I also recall that it was not the usual pediatrician, but instead some other smelly old man I had never met before.

Straitjacket

originally published on Sara Cohen's Wellness Blog

The first time I was in straitjacket, I was only three. Or maybe four. Strictly speaking, I've only ever been placed in a straitjacket once, as far as I can remember.

The house my family was living in at the time was a contemporary style with an open living room and dinning room. However, between the two rooms was a single, long stair. The surfaces were all hardwood flooring. Very hardwood. For reasons I cannot quite recall, the specific circumstances having been lost over time, I wound up falling face forward into this single stair, landing directly on my chin.

Apparently, there was quite a bit of blood. If these events were to be produced for a major motion picture, the very next scene would be me waking up in the hospital. At least, that is how I remember it all, the time between being erased by shock and adrenaline. But unlike in a motion picture when the victim wakes up in a strange hospital room, my consciences returned a few minutes before receiving stitches.

There wasn't much to remember except a few folks busying themselves around me, dressed in the uniform of medical technicians. There was of course a great deal of pain, and being three or four or perhaps even two, I wasn't quite aware that these frightening people in their sanitizing masks were there to help me. As far as I was concerned, they were as much responsible for inducing pain as anything else. So I did my best to fight them off, flailing my arms about to keep them at a safe distance in the same manner primitive man might have fought off an attack by some extinct species of wildlife. Enter the straitjacket.

For the protection of the medical technicians, and probably for my own safety as well, I was wrapped in the straitjacket. This memory is very clear, even if nothing else is. Years later, I still have little recollection of any part of the experience, the gaps being filled in by other participants, with the exception of the restraining device that engulfed me. The scar under my chin has long since dissipated, and the only physical evidence is the lack of facial hair on a small patch of skin.

Biography

I was born and raised in Ringwood, New Jersey, a suburb 45 miles or so north of New York City. Ringwood consists largely of state forests and reservoirs, making it a rather rural place to live. When I was little, my brother and I would war against the kids up the street. We had a tree house that needed to be defended. A few years ago, the tree house collapsed under the weight of winter snow.

I attended Lakeland Regional High School with a bunch of people I don't talk to anymore. My closest friends shared the common bond of believing ourselves better than everyone else. This is still the case. The most notable celebrity -- and for now, the only celebrity -- from our high school is Project Runway's Austin Scarlett who was a year or two older than we all were.

From there I migrated to Rutgers College in New Brunswick. I had a few good drinks and met some good mates, though largely, as in high school, we all thought we were better than everyone else. Again, this is still the case.

At present I work as a graphic designer for a consulting firm. That may sound terribly vague. That is intentional.

I enjoy cooking and eating. That may seem to go hand and hand, but there are plenty of people who love eating and can't cook for shit, and others who like cooking but don't eat. I also get excited from tall buildings and urban planning and will at any moment espouse numerous reasons as to why the suburbs rot the brain and the soul. I'm a city kind of guy. I also like photography, digital and film alike.

Press

The Big Clock by the River
Hudson Reporter, 10.6.2007

For buyers and sellers, a blog does the job
The Providence Journal, 11.12.05

Nets Go, Yuppies Come. What's he Thinking?
New York Times, 6.19.05

Fast, Cheap And Out Of Control
Gawker, 6.7.05

New York's Sixth Crosses The Hudson
Curbed, 6.7.05

Awards Target Next Generation of Tech Leaders
San Jose Mercury News, 6.27.99