In Plain Engel-ish

I really admire my friends and relatives who pursue woodworking as a hobby and turn out beautiful pieces, one of which now adorns my curio shelf. Neither my dad nor I had any talent that way. I couldn’t identify one piece of wood from another, unless it still belonged to a living tree, and even then only because I sometimes recognize an individual leaf or two. But the exceptions, thanks to my dad, are spruce and maple. These I knew all about because of the incredible musical talents of my father’s siblings, especially my Uncle Ernie, Uncle Billy, and Aunt...

I’m just old enough to remember that, in the 1950’s, clerks in the fine menswear section of department stores wore starched French cuffs. I’m sure they were wearing starched collars, too, but I was just a little kid then and therefore much shorter than the clerks. It was their shirt cuffs, nearer to my eye level, that caught my attention. In high school, I discovered that a “French cuff” meant that the end of the shirt sleeve was folded back upon itself on both sides. The cuff was then closed in what was called “the kissing style” (ah, the French...

During my senior year at Indiana University, I was a Resident Assistant —or “RA”— in a freshman dormitory, Wissler Hall. I had thirty residents on my floor. I took my job seriously and tried to look after these young men with as much concern and advice as I could muster, since I wanted them to achieve their full undergraduate potential. I might have overdone the hands-on guidance just a tad. Within about a month, they had dubbed me “Wissler’s Mother.”  Although there was an age difference of just three years between me and my freshmen, they saw me as prehistoric...

Yesterday I was eating my favorite breakfast of scrambled eggs, exactly the way my father had taught me to make them when I was just a kid: not overcooked nor dry but very moist and flavorful. I remember going to a restaurant shortly after that, and when I ordered scrambled eggs, the waitress said, “How would you like them, young man?” I thought a second and exclaimed, “Wet!” My dad smiled at me, and after she’d left, he said, “I think the best word for how you like them, Elliot, is ‘soft’.” Yep, leave it to my dad to have...

I remember reading the classic novel Tom Jones as an undergraduate and scratching my head over this passage: “Tom asked Widow Miller if he might come in to offer his condolences to the sobbing matron. ‘Yes, Sir,’ the grieving woman answered. ‘I am presently quite comfortable.’” What? I think it defies reason to equate grieving with being “quite comfortable,” especially now that I myself have been widowered. Yes, I know there’s no such term as “widowered,” but if you whisper it a few times, it sounds just like Tweety Bird trying to say ‘little word.’ Please spare me the groans...