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This morning I began prepping our Yosemite menu.
Oh, I love cooking outdoors! Nothing wakes you up like bacon sizzling on a Coleman stove. Throw on a few eggs, a thin slice of ham, toast a couple of English muffins in the grease, place a stick of butter just close enough to soften without melting—the memories were so vivid I had to close my eyes. That’s when I heard a small “um” at my elbow. I looked and found Chip leaning on the kitchen table. “Can’t you just taste it?” I asked, knowing the answer. Chip loved camp food as much as I did. But he had something different on his mind. “When we’re in Yosemite, I think we should eat the kinds of food that John Muir ate.” Uh oh. Was Chip getting carried away by Muir’s ecstatic prose? I knew how he felt, but he was messing with my camp menu! “What’d you have in mind?” I asked. “Well,” Chip said, counting off on his fingers, “I was thinking fruits, vegetables, nuts, bread and ...” He searched a moment, then held up his thumb, “grains, like rice and pasta. What do you think?” “I don’t know, son—” “But, Dad, don’t you want us to be like John Muir?” Oh, boy. So, of course I agreed to think about it, to find common ground between my All American menu and Muir’s All Wilderness fare. Later that day, I thought back on my own childhood diet. I grew up in the Golden Age of Frozen Food. Our freezer was stacked with Swanson’s TV Dinners. Pre-heat the oven, pop in the foil-covered tray, and in 35 minutes you were eating. Sure, the chicken legs and Salisbury steaks were a little chewy, the green beans a little mushy, the sweet corn squishy instead of crispy, the mashed potatoes (with that pat of still unmelted butter on top) wasn’t quite mashed, and the tiny dessert tray filled with Apple Pie was really just a dollop of pie filling in a half-baked crust. But it all tasted delicious to us. Why? Because we weren’t just tasting food. We were tasting an idea. We were told the food was healthy (so our bodies were being served) and we were told the food was fast, creating the leisure time we all needed (so our souls were being served as well!) We believed it all, just like our parents’ generation believed the doctors who said cigarettes were good for you. It would appear I have a long history with bad food. Maybe I can use this Yosemite trip to rethink the way I eat. Because let’s face it: I now eat more like Ronald McDonald than John Muir. I’m acting in opposition to my own values, and that’s not the way I want to be remembered by my son. Comments 
Media Jean: That’s great, Chip. Your dad is thinking about healthy food! 
Chip: Yeah. I’m curious to see where he ends up on all that. 
Johnny: I’m happy your dad’s going to lose a few pounds, but what about me?
Media Jean: The Capitalist’s Mantra: What About Me?
Johnny: I’m serious! Doesn’t that sizzling bacon sound good to you?!
Media Jean: My parents are vegan, remember? I don’t eat meat.
Johnny: For a vegan, you sure eat a lot of junk.
Media Jean: That’s because I’m a junk food vegan. I say no to meat and dairy, but I say yes to salt and sugar.
Chip: And fried food.
Media Jean: And processed soy products.
Johnny: All right, already! How about you, Chip? The sizzle and smell of bacon! Butter melting on grease-grilled muffins!
Chip: Sigh. Yeah, I’ll miss all of that. But I really need to get my dad to eat healthier. I think Yosemite and John Muir can help.
Johnny: So we’re going to go all the way to Yosemite to eat, what, berries and nuts?! It’s un-American!
Media Jean: What’re you talking about?
Johnny: Unhealthy, processed, packaged foods were invented and perfected in America! They may be bad for your personal health, but they’re great for our economic health!
Media Jean: You just want your bacon.
Johnny: It’s bigger than that! Billions of dollars are generated every year to manufacture, package, distribute, market and sell bad food!
Media Jean: I think you’re finally cracking up, Johnny.
Johnny: I’m just getting started! We haven’t even discussed the middle and end of the product cycle!
Chip: Middle and end?
Johnny: Bad food creates bad health, which in turn creates a middle-market for supplements, vitamins, diets—you name it! We’re talking Billions with a capital B!
Media Jean: I’m afraid to ask about the end of the product cycle.
Johnny: It’s not pretty, but facts are facts. Bad food creates a massive and perpetual customer base for the healthcare industry.
Media Jean: I still say you just want your bacon.
Johnny: Not just bacon! Bacon in Yosemite! Bacon on a Coleman stove! Waking to bacon and birdsong!
Chip: Ha ha! Bacon and birdsong, that’s funny.
Media Jean: Ha ha! Bacon and Birdsong, a poem by Johnny Green!
Chip: Ha ha!
Media Jean: You add a verse, Johnny.
Chip: Yeah. It was your idea.
Media Jean: Show us the poetry of capitalism.
Johnny: “John Muir feels sad and forsaken
Chip: Haha!
Media Jean: That’s hilarious!
Chip: This is going to be a great trip!
Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
I grew up in a little town called Rialto. Just the three of us, me and mom and dad. I have so many vivid memories from those days. Real memories from real experiences.
When I was 10, a big avocado tree stood in the front yard. I loved to sit high in those smooth branches, read and think and, on windy days, feel the whole world move. If the wind was really gusting, we’d drag tumble weeds to one end of the street, turn them loose, and race them down the block. Sometimes the wind was so strong we could lean into its buffeting arms, held up by the breath of the spinning earth. When the wind dropped us onto the warm grass, we rolled onto our backs and stared up at so much blue we couldn’t move. 10-year-olds spellbound by nothing but the sky. Am I the only one with these kinds of memories? Collecting blue belly lizards from the sunny library wall; racing stick-and-leaf boats down rain-rushing gutters; trying to catch red autumn leaves before they touched the ground; carrying one precious quarter like a pilgrimage to the bowling alley arcade; spending all afternoon flying, losing and finding kites made from the Sunday comics; riding our bikes round and round the same residential streets, slipping into a meditative stillness long before I knew what meditation was; camping in the backyard with just a sleeping bag, searching so long for constellations that the moon crossed half the sky before I fell asleep. These memories sound like clichés now. But only a great truth can become a cliché, and my childhood feels like a great truth—though not knowing exactly what that truth means does diminish the satisfaction a bit. I hope my son, with all his technology and social media, with all the libraries of knowledge at his fingertips—I hope his memories are as rich. I hope his virtual experiences carry the same heft as my physical ones. When he’s my age, I hope clicking and watching will be as real to him as touching and seeing were to me. I doubt it, but it’s a father’s nature to hope. Of course, that’s a cliché, too. Comments
Media Jean: No offense, but your dad’s memories do sound like Hallmark Cards. Sheesh.
Chip: He doesn’t come right out and say it, but I think he feels his memories are better than our memories.
Media Jean: I wonder if parents have always been that way.
Chip: You mean, throughout history?
Media Jean: Yeah! Like during the Industrial Revolution. Did dads walk around saying, “When I was a kid, we grew our own food. We sewed our own clothes. Those were good memories! What’re you going to remember when you’re my age? Factories and machines!”
Chip: Ha ha! I bet that’s exactly what they said!
Media Jean: We spend a lot of time doing things virtually, but that doesn’t mean our experiences and memories are less real.
Chip: According to the latest brain research, everything is virtual anyway.
Media Jean: What do you mean?
Chip: Our brains convert data into images and sensations. Things don’t exist literally the way we experience them. Our brains create a simulation so we can interact with the information. I mean, a rose isn’t red just because roses are red. A rose is red because of the way light in the red spectrum bounces off the rose and is interpreted by our eyes.
Media Jean: So everything is virtual!
Chip: In a way. Especially memories. All my dad’s “real” memories are just bits of information stored in his brain, kind of like a text file or photo is stored on the internet.
Media Jean: I love that!
Chip: When he accesses a memory, it’s like accessing a web site. He’s retrieving information.
Media Jean: That puts everything he said into a whole new context.
Chip: What context?
Media Jean: The “You’re Wrong” context!
Chip: Maybe we can keep this one to ourselves.
Media Jean: I don’t know. It goes against my deepest beliefs to let a grown-up off the hook.
Chip: I know, but my dad is so overwhelmed already.
Media Jean: OK. For you, I’ll give him a pass.
Chip: Thanks.
Media Jean: Heck, I’d give him a pass anyway. Your dad can be annoying with all his “those were the days” sermons, but he’s never mean about it. He’s as sincere as Charlie Brown.
Chip: He calls himself, “The Charlie Brown of the Google Age.”
Media Jean: Ha ha! See? He knows he’s fighting a losing battle, but he still has a sense of humor about it. I love your dad.
Chip: Me too. 
Comic strip from the series "So-Duh"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 1: Look Out, Tomorrow, Here We Come!) Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected]
I needed a new pair of Ironclad work gloves. That meant a trip to Sears. Always a reason to celebrate. I like Sears. It hasn’t changed much since I was a kid.
Man, I sound old. Chip wanted Media Jean to join us. I had to think about that, because Media Jean asks a lot of questions. The kid has a heart of gold, but she wants to understand everything. I mean EVERYTHING. The other thing about Media Jean, she thinks grown-ups are hilarious. Our logic cracks her up. Talking to her can be a bit deflating. The questions started as soon as she climbed in the car. MEDIA JEAN: Mr. MacMurray, why are you driving to Sears? ME: I need new work gloves. MEDIA JEAN: Can’t you order gloves online? ME: I want them tonight. MEDIA JEAN: It’s almost dinner time. Are you working after dinner? ME: Tomorrow, then. MEDIA JEAN: Why not overnight a pair of gloves from Amazon? ME: I want to try them on first. MEDIA JEAN: Aren’t you getting the same kind of gloves you had before, those Ironman ones? ME: Ironclad. Yup. I like Ironclad. MEDIA JEAN: Don’t you remember what size you wear? ME: Of course. MEDIA JEAN: Then why not save yourself a trip and overnight the gloves from Amazon? ME: I want to try a different color. MEDIA JEAN: What color? ME: Uh, blue? MEDIA JEAN: I love blue! Does Sears have blue Ironman gloves in stock? ME: Ironclad. I don’t know. We’ll see. MEDIA JEAN: Shouldn’t you call first? I’m checking Amazon right now. They have blue in stock. (I had to help Media Jean understand why anyone would drive to Sears rather than surf to Amazon, or we’d never get out of the driveway.) ME: The thing is, I like Sears. I like the way Sears smells. I like walking around Sears. I like messing with the tools. There’s a riding mower on the floor. You can climb up on it, work the gears and everything. MEDIA JEAN: Can you ride it for a quarter? ME: No. But every time I go to Sears, I stop by that mower. I almost buy it, every time I go. I like that. It’s like pretending. For me, Sears is more fun than Amazon. MEDIA JEAN: So... it’s like going to a candy store instead of buying candy online, except you don’t actually buy candy in the store? ME: Exactly! You can see it, touch it, smell it. It’s wonderful. MEDIA JEAN: You’re funny, Mr. MacMurray. ME: You’re a riot too, Media Jean. I glance in the rear view mirror and Chip is smiling up at me, his face shining. The more ridiculous I feel, the more out of sync, the more old-fashioned and just plain old, the more he seems to love me. The more vulnerable I feel, the more love I feel. Go figure. I don’t pretend to understand it. But if that’s the math of the Google Age, I’ll take it. I hope it all adds up in the end. Comments
Media Jean: I like your dad.
Chip: Me too.
Media Jean: I wasn’t making fun of him.
Chip: It’s OK. He knows you like him.
Media Jean: I do. But he is funny. How Sears smells!?
Chip: I know.
Media Jean: I kept taking deep breaths, but I didn’t notice any particular smell.
Chip: My dad sure did. Remember how he’d stop every now and then and just breathe like he was standing on top of a mountain?
Media Jean: Maybe a little of every breath you take stays inside you.
Chip: You mean for your whole life?
Media Jean: Yeah. Maybe you keep a whiff of everything you ever smelled.
Chip: I’m not sure I like where this is going.
Media Jean: Hahahaha!
Chip: I know what you’re thinking! That’s gross!
Media Jean: I wonder if your sense of smell gets better as you get older.
Chip: Maybe you can actually smell memories.
Media Jean: If it’s true, we could create a line of perfume based on memories. Like A Whiff of Childhood or A Hint of Nostalgia.
Chip: Or Sears, the Tool Aisle.
Media Jean: Sears perfume! Hahaha! That’s hilarious! Let’s mix up a batch for your dad. We can make one for Johnny, too. Distill the aroma of a dirty dollar bill and call it A Touch of Green.
Johnny: Make fun of me all you want, but that perfume idea is gold! We need to create new products.
Media Jean: So the lurker finally appears!
Johnny: I wasn’t lurking! I was listening!
Media Jean: Lurker!
Johnny: Well, I have to keep an eye on you idiots! You waste all day tweeting and facebooking and blogging. But when you actually come up with a money-making idea, what do you do? You goof on it! Perfumes that trigger positive memories?! Are you kidding?! That’s the kind of product consumers live for!
Media Jean: ... is he gone?
Chip: Yeah. He logged off the network.
Media Jean: He’s heading to my house, so let’s meet at his house.
Chip: I’ll grab my chemistry set. 
Comic strip from the series "So-Duh"
(Kid, Inc. Volume 1: Look Out, Tomorrow, Here We Come!) Have a thought for Bob? Write to us at [email protected] |
AuthorHey, I'm Bob, and I hate technology. So why am I blogging? Because I love my son. He upgraded my typewriter to wirelessly post every keystroke online. It makes him happy, so here I am. Archives
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