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Written by Todd Paton
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Monday, 27 September 2010 10:23 |
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LIFE IS SHORT; GO RIGHT FOR THE HASH
By the time I came along, my family had ceased farming. I “let myself out” summers to “earn my keep”, as the old folks might say, so I know a bit about the work involved in running a farm. However, I never experienced farm life in totality. But we generally kept a garden when I was young and the tradition of boiled dinners in the fall evoked the “spirit” of the farm life once so intimately known by my parents and grandparents.
At present we are blessed to have a delightful young woman working here as a guide who is a newlywed. She gave us all a chuckle the other day when she mentioned that friends had offered her and her new husband, a young man who grew up near Chicago, some of the vegetables from their garden. She grew up in Maine in a more rural setting, so gardens are “old hat” to her. But her husband had never been exposed to gardening during his upbringing and was surprised that the feathery green shafts rising out of the ground were attached to carrots. And after a brief moment of observation, he was forced to ask “How do you get them out?” To which she replied: “Just pull them.” And thus his gardening education began. So lest I assume that you are well acquainted with something that might be unknown to you, let me describe the boiled dinner:
A boiled dinner is utilitarian in every sense, the workhorse of meals, intended to fill the most number of stomachs for the longest time possible with the least effort and expense. It’s a hearty, filling meal more akin to “grub” than to “fare”. It’s composed of the plentiful root vegetables, the last crop of which, generally, constitutes the last fall harvest.
The traditional boiled dinner is not especially savory, though it might have been made so by the addition of herbs. No, the boiled dinner’s sole purpose was to “stick to the ribs” not to dazzle the tongue.
Potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips or rutabagas, and beets were thrown into a large pot and boiled together, along with a bit of salt pork. Now root vegetables have a strong flavor by themselves, but the long boiling time tends to diminish it a tad; the salt pork is tossed in so the cook does not feel herself to be a complete culinary failure when the whole red (from the bleeding of the beets) load is toted out to the waiting crew of farmhands laboring relentlessly to bring in the last harvests of the season.
Without intending to insult any boiled-dinner-philes, if there be any, I have to admit that I always found boiled dinners to be somewhat less than satisfying, the must-be-endured prelude of tastier things to come—red flannel hash.
Red flannel hash is made from the leftovers from the boiled dinner. The next night all of the vegetables were mashed together and fried with copious amounts of butter (and sometimes an extra helping of salt pork). I found the hash much more appealing than its boiled predecessor; the creamy sweetness imparted by the butter and the crunchy delicacies created by the frying (the famed Maillard reaction) were far more tantalizing to my young tongue than the previous evening’s meal.
As a kid I had culinary tunnel vision, never once supposing that the joy of the hash might be had without the introductory boiled dinner. But today, I never cook a boiled dinner. Oh, I boil the vegetables, but then I mash them and make the hash, completely eliminating the boiled prelude. They say that “Life is short; eat dessert first.” Our New England version might very well be “Life is short; go right for the hash.” It’s not a call to irresponsibility, not an “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die” philosophy. We all have responsibilities, and just think what a terrible world we’d live in if the “tomorrow we may die” philosophy prevailed. But let’s prioritize. Let’s jettison the annoying things we can and be mindful about enjoying the sweet, transient pleasures of life whenever and wherever we can in a way that honors both ourselves and others.
And now if you’ll pardon me, I feel like eating hash…
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Written by Todd Paton
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Monday, 20 September 2010 08:33 |
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FALL IS IN THE AIR, A TIME FOR INTROSPECTION
Once more “fall” is in the air. I’m not certain I could adequately explain what that means for those who’ve never had the privilege of experiencing an autumn day in New England, but there is a palpable change in the “feel” and the smell of the air that runs more deeply than simply a dip in the average daily temperature. There is an intuitive “knowing” that change is afoot, not signaled alone by the slowing of the growth of the grass beneath your feet or the slightly sweet scent of apples that playfully kisses your nose when you meander in the woods, or the hint of fall hues that heralds the oncoming, emblazoned glory of the trees decked out in their fall finery like socialites in the grand Easter parades of yore. The sunshine is softer, gentler, more introspective—not nearly as bold or brassy or confident as the intrepid rays of summer that scare away the gray and playfully chase the shadows through golden fields.
Yes, fall is in the air—an intuitive sense of mortality that deepens our appreciation of the transitory nature of life and the transient-dearness of its deepest treasures. It is not the rows of figures totted up in our bank book that satisfies the core of our being. It’s that knowing glance, the intimate love of one’s soulmate, the trusting touch of a child’s hand as you help him across the thoroughfare, a neighbor’s kind smile, the heartwarming giggles of a child as she loses herself in play—a kiss, a hug, a wink, a laugh—all of the shared experiences that connect us as human beings.
So, fall is in the air. What will you do with this kind gift, this tender reminder to savor the moment, to drink fully and deeply from the well of life? There are as many answers as there are people reading this blog: for some, a letter or a phone call will be made to reconnect to a friend or loved one or just to express thanks to a parent or grand-parent, neighbor or friend. For some, it will be an abandoning of the niggling irritations that so easily beset the human spirit and overly complicate our lives. For some, it will be quiet meditation and heartfelt thanksgiving. For some, less time will be spent in the office and more at the family dinner table. Whatever your personal prescription, I challenge you to soak up the view on life’s journey, to take the time to meaningfully connect to all of the wonderful people in your life. Take time to be joyful.
And if you just happen to be thinking about a vacation as a brief respite from the “freeway of life”, please consider visiting Vermont. It epitomizes much of what is still right with life—the value of family and friends and community. And please do visit us here at Rock of Ages when in Central Vermont. We’ll be certain to make you feel welcome. But whatever you do or wherever you go, choose to connect, choose to make a difference in the lives of others. When those fall thoughts of mortality press upon you, you’ll be glad you lived a rich, full life of connection and service. |
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Written by Todd Paton
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Monday, 13 September 2010 15:25 |
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BUT YOU FORGOT TO REMEMBER
The words of that touching, but rather plaintiff, old Berlin tune meander through my mind as I sit here typing. Saturday in Central Vermont was glorious—the sunshine kissed us lovingly and embraced us with a warm, good-bye hug before she parted from our company on Sunday, leaving a gray, glowering sky behind to replace her bright smile.
After greeting a coach-load of Kentuckians and Indianans, who declared themselves to be from Kentuckiana, I took them on a tour of the quarry. They were a friendly, welcoming group of folks who reminded me how genuinely satisfying human interaction can be. Once they’d seen the quarry, enjoyed our exhibits and browsed our gift shop, they were off with a collective smile and wave of farewell. That was my cue to bid farewell myself as I left the Visitors Center in the capable hands of staff and headed to pick up Connie and then head for a much-anticipated family reunion.
There were fifty or so of us reveling in the beautiful weather and the sumptuous, luau-themed buffet, chatting amiably while listening to the delightful giggles of the children as they bounced wildly in the bouncy house. I’d exchanged pleasantries with a dozen or so people when Diane and Ed arrived. I rarely see them, so I was eager to greet them and catch up on family, inquire after their son who is now stationed in Iraq and their two daughters, one of whom is finishing college this year and the other high school. It was Ed and not Diane who first confided to me that they were a bit apprehensive about being “empty nesters” next year as their youngest child departs for college.
I then connected with Luke, who graduated two years ago with an engineering degree and now lives in Connecticut; I asked if his domestic skills had improved as he’d been teased by his family because of his lack of cooking skills. He claimed he’d not improved much, but his mother, beaming, steered me to the appetizers and pie he had made and brought as his contribution to the luau buffet. “You’re a better man than I” quipped his father who confessed to living almost exclusively on fried potato for the four years of his bachelorhood.
So I decided to make subtle inquiry as I spoke to the young people who attended college for the first time this fall and those who were living on their own for the first time to determine their preparedness for life. Did they remember what mom and dad had taught them? Could they fend for themselves? The results of my very unscientific and informal poll surprised me; the competence factor seemed less gender based than I would have assumed. I figured the girls would be very self-reliant and the boys much less so, especially as regards cooking, cleaning and laundry. But there appeared to be equal numbers of young ladies and young men who’d apparently forgotten the life lessons mom and dad had sought to instill in preparing them for their own independence.
If you have kids in college or who are young graduates new to independence, it might not hurt to determine how deeply your instruction penetrated by asking your young person to participate in this unscientific, but nonetheless revealing, poll:
Please mark each statement as either “True” or “False”.
1. When I was still living at home, an elusive but pragmatic creature called the Toilet Paper Fairy magically replenished the roll when it ran out.
2. I determine the cleanliness of my clothes by performing the sniff and growl test: If I sniff it and it doesn’t growl back, it’s clean enough to wear.
3. The doorknob is a handy place to keep my underwear.
4. Several rogue nations are in a bidding war to procure my dirty laundry bag for use as a biological weapon.
5. Empty pizza boxes are my decorating scheme.
6. The expiration date on milk is only a suggestion.
7. I capture and use the sulfurous gas leeching from my eggs to heat my apartment.
If your son or daughter marks four or more of these as “True” it might be time for a parental intervention.
And if you’re about to send an emergency care package, don’t forget that Rock of Ages Visitors Center is a great source for maple syrup, pancake mix, maple candy, and all sorts of VT-made jams and mustards. But sorry, we don’t sell peanut butter, Ramen noodles or pizza.
http://vcshop.rockofages.com/ |
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Written by Todd Paton
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Wednesday, 08 September 2010 07:41 |
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PART OF THE HUMAN CONDITION: TONGUE-IN-GEAR, BRAIN-IN-NEUTRAL SYNDROME
As I sit and write this evening, Labor Day has passed and summer has officially ended. The days are growing noticeably shorter and soon Vermont’s hillsides will be ablaze with the vibrant colors that characterize our falls here in northern New England. One season is ending and another is about to begin—it’s a time of transition and reflection.
We live in an increasingly fast-paced society. One of the top reasons people visit Vermont, in fact, is their perception that we lead a slower-paced life here. So if the velocity of your harried life has stretched your mind tighter than Great Aunt Mae’s girdle after Thanksgiving dinner, I hope you’ll take a moment to let the cares of the day slip into the background and to contemplate what a great gift we humans have been given—the gift of humor. A good laugh can cure just about whatever ails you, so think about the things that make you laugh and relax awhile before getting back on life’s super highway.
For me, some of the funniest things are the things that were never intended to amuse—those occasional gaffs we all commit when our tongue moves and our lips part before our brain fully engages. Of course, when you are in unfamiliar territory and you’re on vacation, your mind is even more susceptible to temporary lapses in common sense.
For years a colleague and I traded stories between ourselves and with other members of the tourism community throughout the US, exchanging with one another the silly things people say or do before their ‘brains fully engage.” I hope you’ll enjoy some of the stories I’ve collected over the past twenty years or so. But don’t be too hard on the offenders; we all put our foot in our mouth from time to time:
Here at Rock of Ages we just happen to quarry the world’s finest granite and we just happen to be in Vermont, a place noted for its maple syrup production, and here at the Visitors Center we just happen to sell maple syrup. Sometimes that combination is just too confusing for some of our visitors who just haven’t “fully engaged” yet, prompting the oft-asked question: “How do you get the maple syrup out of the granite?”
At one time we sold granite dust, a natural byproduct of our manufacturing process, for use as a fertilizer for roses and other non-edible plants. Well, we used to sell and still sell today souvenir pieces of granite called “cores”, the granite industry equivalent of the “donut hole”, the center of a hole drilled through the stone with a hollow bit. For a while we inadvertently tempted visitors to leap to conclusions when we placed the fertilizer dust near the core bin, prompting more than one customer to ask me: “How long does it take for the granite to grow once you plant the core?” We moved the dust away from the bin after that season.
I won’t soon forget the panic-stricken look of an elderly woman who rushed to our counter and blurted out “My husband is trapped in our trunk.” We give away samples of granite called “grout”. These waste pieces make a great souvenir as a garden stone or door stop; smaller pieces serve as a paperweight. If you’ve grown up around granite, as I have, grout is not that exciting. But our visitors enjoy picking out the free stone and carry away tons of it each season. Normally, taking grout from the bin is not a “Do Not Try This At Home Experience.” But this dear gentleman had chosen a sizeable piece and had pulled his car up to the bin to load it. He was driving a Cadillac, back when a small island nation could fit in the trunk, and he’d lifted the piece into the front of the trunk and then had climbed in to try to push the piece up closer to the wheels so he could pack his luggage back in. The lid closed, trapping him. He was disconcerted by suddenly discovering he was a prisoner and couldn’t find the trunk release handle in the dark. Hence, his wife’s sudden appearance at our counter. But once he collected himself, he groped about until he found the handle and was out of the trunk before the locksmith arrived. Once his feet were planted safely on terra firma, he chuckled over his unexpected “situation.”
Today we still sell children’s novelty rings, called gemstone rings. They have a small, tumbled piece of stone glued to a plated-metal ring. They look like one of the prizes I used to get from the dentist if I was very good when I had my teeth examined when I was a small child. So you get the picture—not something you’d expect to see in the counter a Tiffany’s. Well, our counterparts at Vermont Marble Exhibit sold the exact same ring. And our dear friend and colleague Jean would just chuckle as the fifth or sixth person that day approached her at the counter and asked: “Is this sterling?” The ring sold for 35 cents or so at that time. Of course it was sterling. Who’d pay 35 cents for a ring that wasn’t sterling, unless of course it was 14K gold?
I’ll end my rambling with some of the funniest questions I’ve collected over the years:
Jean had friends who worked at a resort in Florida, Miami if I recall correctly. One of the most frequently asked, nonsensical questions the counter staff heard: “Which beach is closest to the water?”
When visiting the Grand Canyon, visitors have an opportunity to rent a mule and ride down the steep walls, following other mules “wagon-train” style. They refer to this option as taking the “mule train.” Park employees field this question regularly during the hot, summer months: “Is the mule train air conditioned?”
The last two summers previous to this one were wet and rainy here in Vermont. I fielded more than one telephone inquiry from persons deciding whether or not to visit us on a certain day: “Are the quarries inside?”
Another great question posed to park staff at the Grand Canyon: “Where are the faces of the Presidents?” Oops! We need to emphasize geography in our classrooms!
I’ll end with one of my personal favorites, a question posed to the staff at Gettysburg: “Why were so many Civil War battles fought in national parks?”
We’ve all done it; we’ve all said silly things or asked dumb questions before thinking about what we were saying. So the next time you’re asked a dumb question, just smile and think: “I’m glad it wasn’t me this time.”
Take time to laugh. It’s great for the soul. |
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Written by Todd Paton
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Thursday, 26 August 2010 13:49 |
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Color-ABLE; Let's All Self-Promote At A New Level
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I wrote earlier this week in support of integrity in advertising. We marketers like to put our “best foot forward”, but the wildly exaggerated claims made by the infomercial czars have left us consumers jaded and mistrustful. Let’s face it; much of the advertising we see today is either hype or obnoxious, intrusive trash. To look at the broad spectrum of media advertising, one might conclude that cleverness is in very short supply. Of the myriad of radio ads, print ads and TV commercials I’ve been forcibly subjected to over the years, only a handful are remembered with fondness. Who of us does not remember with a smile: “I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, ‘cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me” or “…Oscar Mayer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a”?
These gems prove that there are ways to endear your product to your customers without meaningless exaggeration or shameless self-aggrandizing. Now, while I happen to be in the business of marketing this attraction, among other duties, we are all in the business of marketing ourselves in one way or another. Whether you’re in the market for a job or for a spouse, for a promotion or for a bank loan, you’re in the unofficial, undeclared, but ever-so-real business of self-promotion. So we can all take a lesson from the way products are marketed to avoid the same mistakes when promoting ourselves.
I was delighted to be introduced, via the internet, to a marketing maverick named Scott Ginsberg by our own Corporate Marketing Director Amanda Pittsley. He’s made a name for himself in advertising circles by insinuating himself into the public consciousness with cleverness and freshness rather than with exaggeration.
I began reading his material, and I was quite impressed that his success recipe includes the old-fashioned, tried-and-true ingredients of hard work and discipline stirred up with a couple tablespoons of passion and a soupcon of “I’m-brave-enough-to-be-true-to-myself” spontaneity. His recent post on the importance of discipline was especially helpful to me personally. I’d like to think that I am quite disciplined in several areas of my life, but I’ve gotten sloppy in some places. His post was a helpful reminder that I need to reinstitute this great virtue into some weak areas, a virtue that should be cultivated by every person, and especially by us New Englanders who have been historically associated with this great virtue as evinced by the expression “Yankee tenacity”. Indeed, each season I am approached by some dear visitor unfamiliar with New England who’ll insert foot in mouth and ask: “How do you get the maple syrup out of the granite?” Invariably, my reply: “Yankee tenacity.” For if discipline is the ox, tenacity is surely the yoke.
 Mr. Ginsberg, also known as the nametag guy, has written a new book, -ABLE: 35 Strategies for Increasing the Probability of Success in Business and in Life, which I have yet to read. But his teaser for it reads as follows: “The purpose of this book is to sell you on my theory of the universe. Which is: The only thing in life you have control over is yourself. And that you can’t make anything happen—but you can (greatly) increase the probability of that thing happening…by making yourself more “-able”.”
While not in my opinion a complete epistemology from which to navigate the whole of life’s seas, this core truth is nonetheless profoundly valuable. You can’t control other people; you often cannot control your circumstances, but you most assuredly can control yourself and your reactions to others and to your circumstances. And by concentrating on making yourself more “able”, i.e., being concerned as much about the other guy or gal as you are about yourself by providing value to others, you greatly increase your own chances of success and happiness.
Mr. Ginsberg’s challenge to his readers, via his blog, was to develop other “-able” words (he provided quite a list of them) to get our own minds thinking about developing our own abilities in such a fashion as to increase our value to others and thereby increase our chances of success.
Several words came to mental fruition. The first is “color-able”, which I’ll define as the ability, due to your own self-discipline and concern for others, to add color, joy, brightness and passion to other people’s lives. The word came to mind because the primary business of this corporation is the fabrication of outstanding monuments, mausoleums and statuary that serve as memorials and testaments to those loved ones who have passed on. We care enough to honor those who have thoughtfully and lovingly impacted our lives. We innately associate color with youth and vibrancy, as in “the bloom of youth” and associate dullness and the lack of color with illness or death, as in the “pallor of disease” or the “pallor of death.” I challenge each of us to become more “color-able”, more vibrant, bright and infectious in the way we treat and interact with fellow humans to bring to them a better quality of life by our mere presence.
We absolutely do have control over our own reactions by the meaning we place on each event and circumstance. Without intending to sound trite or simplistic, we can choose to make the best of our personal circumstances and can choose to thrive and bloom just where we are planted, determined through discipline to persevere and to add value to others’ lives while waiting for the “soil” of our own circumstances to improve. The color-able person tills the “soil of circumstance” to improve her/his lot in life; and while so doing, improves the lives of others.
Laziness walks the path of least resistance, becoming jaded, disgruntled and even downright unpleasant. The color-able person employs discipline to hike the higher terrain, to live above circumstances while effecting the process to change them. The color-able person adds freshness, vibrancy and enthusiasm to the atmosphere around her/him. And in so doing, conquers those circumstances and elevates those people in her/his presence.
The principle applies equally well to those of us who are marketers by trade. By avoiding risible hype and outlandish exaggeration, by adding cleverness, freshness, vitality and passion to the way we perform our duties and sell our products, we make ourselves more Color-able, more IPod-able, more E-sale-able, more E-count-able (the guy or gal whose influence really counts), more E-ubiquit-able (I prefer my word to “Viral”, which makes being successful sound like a disease) and more Propagat-able (the guy or gal whose work is most worthy of being used over and over again).
So whether you are marketing a product or marketing yourself, let’s all challenge ourselves to be more “color-able”, to add life, vibrancy and vitality to everyone we know and every place we go. Let’s challenge each other to promote ourselves on a higher level.
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