Saying goodbye, and thank you

If this column were “The Fugitive,” it would be the episode where Dr. Richard Kimble catches the one-armed man.

In other words, the last one.

Twenty-two years ago, I transferred from the advertising department to the newsroom of The Alliance Review. I had maybe six bylines under my belt when I began to pester then-editor Susan Shea to let me write a column.

She said no.

But I kept asking. At least once a week. For months.

Finally, in what must have been a moment of weakness, she told me to go write one. Just one. I came back the next day with a draft, which she accepted. Then she told me something I’ve never forgotten: “You know, once you start writing a column, you have to do it every week. I mean, every single one.”

I took that advice to heart. In the last 21.5 years, I’ve written around 1,118 columns, taking maybe three weeks off. At 600 words a week (often more), that’s an estimated 670,800 words, or the equivalent of six or seven novels, a pretty good output.

At first, I only wanted to be funny. The late, great Sally Ailes, Spanish teacher extraordinaire at Alliance High School, once paid me the greatest compliment when she said I was a male Erma Bombeck. Mission accomplished.

My first column ran on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2001, and was a lighthearted look at first-day school photos involving my daughter, who was starting the fifth grade.

Three weeks later, terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers, and I realized I couldn’t write about funny stuff all the time. I started to alternate between serious and frivolous topics, trusting that readers would know the difference and come along for the ride.

In the decades since, I went from full-time reporter to editor to teacher, but I kept my hand in the newspaper business with various projects, including this column. I tackled issues as diverse as mowing the grass during a tornado, the Boston Marathon bombing, urinal cakes, white supremacy, various crises in education, and throwing a bag of poop onto my neighbor’s roof.

I created a few alter-egos (Dear Shabby, who wrote a conservative advice column; and Beatrice Bluenose, children’s book censor), wrote two columns that were published as comic strips, and basically did whatever I wanted with minimal editorial oversight. I was a lucky writer indeed.

So, before the orchestra plays me off, I want to thank a few people.

First, my appreciation to a murderers’ row of fantastic editors: the aforementioned Susan Shea, Michael Patterson, Sarah Reed Gold, Rob Todor and Laura Kessel, all of whom put up with my shenanigans and ran interference with readers who thought I’d gone too far, even when I’d gone too far.

Thanks to Georgette Huff, former Review columnist, who served as a weekly email sounding board for my drafts. You rock!

Next, sincere gratitude to my family, all of whom allowed me to use our interactions as raw material. My daughter, all grown up and a physical therapist in the area, still gets the occasional comment about things she said or did as a kid that found their way into this space.

A special shout-out to my long-suffering wife, Holly, who good-naturedly indulged my use of our marital life and graciously gave me time and space to work on this column for hours every week, all out of proportion with the amount of money it made. I love you, honey.


Finally, and most importantly, a huge thank you to all the readers who let me know by email, snail mail, social media and even the occasional phone call that they were still out there, reading and thinking, agreeing and disagreeing. I asked a lot of you as I veered in topic and tone from week to week and sometimes from sentence to sentence. Thank you for supporting local journalism, even when I made you mad enough to spit.

Hey, I’ve had the opportunity to do something I love for a long time. I’m a happy guy.

So, as they say in the biz:

-30-

Meatless Mondays in 2023

I’m old enough to remember when Chipotle workers asked what meat you wanted with your meal, not what protein.

Calling meat “protein” makes people aware of other ways to get it than just from red meat. For example, black beans, eggs and nuts, to name only a few.

Excessive consumption of red meat and processed meat is linked to many health concerns, including increased risks of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer death, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Then there’s the environmental impact. Production of red meat is a major contributor to climate change, since methane is a potent greenhouse gas. (The National Dairy Council notes ways that methane can be captured on farms and used in environmentally sustainable ways, so there’s that.)

All this was eye-opening to me, even though I’d heard it dozens if not hundreds of times before. But, as the old saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And I was ready to learn more about cutting back on red meat, just in time for a New Year’s resolution.

A recent study started me thinking more seriously about a change. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic linked higher levels of a specific stomach byproduct — phenylacetylglutamine, or PAG — in people with heart failure.

PAG is created when the gut breaks down protein. The more protein, the higher the PAG.

A conclusion from the research is that PAG blood tests would be a good weapon in a cardiologist’s arsenal for diagnosing heart disease, not that people should necessarily go vegetarian or vegan.

However, one of the suggestions from the study was to cut back on red meat, possibly through a plan that has already gained traction in other circles: Meatless Mondays.

My wife and I had one of our usual deep discussions before agreeing to implement Meatless Mondays in the New Year.

Me: Hey, you wanna go meatless on Mondays? I hear it’d be good for us.

Her: Sure.

Long-time readers may remember our disastrous attempt to go completely vegetarian in 2013. My wife broke her resolution during Carnation Days in the Park, when the Methodists lured her away with their delicious steak burgers, like the Pied Piper leading all the children out of town.

I held on for the entire year, breaking my meat sabbatical with an Arnold-the-Pig-sized pork roast at 12:01 a.m. on New Year’s Day 2014. I freely admit to being a garbage vegetarian who survived on frozen cheese pizzas and snack foods, gaining about 15 pounds over the year.

Despite my previous lack of success with a vegetarian lifestyle and the lackadaisical way I’m backing into Meatless Mondays, I am sincere about it, and about making better food choices overall.

Maybe I can’t abandon meat entirely because of my love affair with the All-American hamburger, but I can try to do better on the days when I’m not gorging on one of those.

So, the next time a Chipotle worker asks me what protein I want, I may answer, “Black beans.” And shed a tiny tear.

chris.schillig@yahoo.com

@cschillig on Twitter

The Christmas fish lives!

Every year, my wife and I and my sister-in-law and her husband keep a fishy tradition in our family alive. This year is no different. 

What you see above is the fish as it was gifted to us last year, in full Gene Simmons attire. This year, it's our turn to redecorate. My wife came up with a doozy of an idea. It's being implemented even as I type these words. 

Meanwhile, from Dec. 19, 2020, here is the story of the fish, complete with my imitation of Ringo Starr's passive-aggressive "peace and love" message to fans. 

* * *

Every family, I’m convinced, no matter how straitlaced and proper, has an oddball holiday tradition.

For my family, it is fish.

Not a Christmas Day meal. Not an expedition where we cut a hole in an icy lake and squat in a shanty, waiting for a nibble on our cane poles.

No, this is a ceramic fish.

It is a cross between Big Mouth Billy Bass and Flounder from Disney’s “Little Mermaid,” if the latter were drawn by a singularly untalented four-year-old and bereft of any aesthetic appeal.

Technically, this hideous sculpture is a koi (not the real McKoi), but I’m not one to carp about labels. Whatever it is, it is truly horrific, with bulging eyes and a gaping mouth questing upward, ever upward, in search of some elusive worm. Or possibly human flesh.

The fish travels back and forth between our house and my sister-in-law and her husband’s house each year, sometimes wrapped as a gag gift — emphasis on the gag — and sometimes secreted outside, on top of a car, or dangling from a tree.

Legend has it this piscine monstrosity was once the size of a tennis ball, but has been painted so many times over the years it has ballooned to its present size, roughly the dimensions of Rosemary’s Baby or some other dark denizen of the netherworld.

One year, the fish was pink and teal. Another, it was yellow and black, a nod to a certain team in Pittsburgh whose name shall not be spoken. Occasionally, it has been adorned with battery-operated lights or pinwheels or pictures of loved ones in compromising positions. (OK, not that compromising — we’re not that kind of family.)

Two years ago, my wife and I plastered peace and love stickers across its scaly surface and affixed it with a QR code. The code led to a YouTube video where I imitated Ringo Starr’s passive-aggressive message to fans to stop mailing him merchandise to be signed. We shipped the fish special delivery, requiring a signature by the recipient.

This was where I learned two horrible lessons. First, marking “fragile” sixteen times on a box is still no guarantee mailroom gorillas won’t play catch with a package. Second, ceramic fish can break.

The fish arrived a few days before Christmas in pieces. (I am tempted to say “in Pisces.”) Photos were sent. Services were arranged. The fish, we assumed, would receive a burial at sea. Another custom lost to the vagaries of the USPS.

But it was not to be. By Christmas Day, the fish had been resurrected, shades of Danny DeVito’s Penguin, who bragged to Batman that “a lot of tape and a little patience make all the difference.”

Not tape, but glue allowed my in-laws to stitch Frankenfish back together and re-gift it, with bolts on each side of its neck. Later that year, they stole it out of our house on Mother’s Day and gave it to us again last Christmas. This time, it was green, white and red, wearing a tie.

It has lived a hellish half-life in our basement ever since, awaiting another chance to rise and thwart our revels.

My wife and I are plotting what to do with Mr. Chips this year, aware time is running out, especially if we want to find a way to get it inside our victims’ … er, family’s house without them knowing. Thank goodness they don’t read the paper.

Some years, I’ll be honest, the fish has been a damn — or is it dam? — nuisance. But this year, when so many other traditions have been postponed or canceled, it has provided a sense of continuity and familiarity, an activity we can complete in isolation and deliver while social distancing.

Provided the backdoor key we have still works.

Shhh. Don’t tell. And Happy Haddock Days to you and yours.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com

@cschillig on Twitter

  

Postmodern 'Woman in Black'

I re-read The Woman in Black recently after somebody online pointed out it was a Christmas story. The first chapter takes place on Christmas Eve, with family members gathering to tell ghost stories, a British tradition that sadly did not find its way to America. After that introduction, however, the story is decidedly non-holiday. No last-minute Ebenezer Scrooge redemption scene here, that's for sure.

I first encountered the novel in 2014 during an online literature class. Because I read it so quickly, revisiting it felt very much like a first encounter, albeit with intermittent deja vu.

The following remarks are from a paper I wrote after that initial reading. Viewing Susan Hill's novel from a postmodernist perspective isn't something I would have done on my own; it was a requirement of the prompt. Still, I'm not unhappy with the results.

There are spoilers aplenty below, so if you haven't read the book, beware.

***

The Postmodern Woman in Black?

She is mesmerizing, this woman in black, from the moment that Arthur Kipps first spies her, lurking in the shadows at the periphery of Mrs. Drablow’s funeral:

        … she was suffering from some wasting disease, for not only
        was she extremely pale, even more than a contrast with the
        blackness of her garments could account for, but the skin and, it
        seemed, only the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and
        strained across her bones, so that it gleamed with a curious, blue
        white sheen, and her eyes seemed sunken back into her head.
        (Hill 45)

From this initial glimpse, the reader comes to anticipate — or perhaps dread — each subsequent appearance, recognizing the latest incarnation of the thing that goes bump in the night, the eternal bogeyman, not only of literature but of our worst dreams. Jennet Humfrye is another entry in the encyclopedia of supernatural horror figures, taking her rightful place alongside Dracula, Frankenstein (and his monster), Jekyll and Hyde, and the spectral duo of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw. Yet Susan Hill’s Woman in Black is also steeped in the postmodernist tradition, demonstrating the second-class status of women in the Victorian era and how easily they could be manipulated by a male-dominated society.

Humfrye’s backstory is tragic. As was customary for unmarried society ladies of the day, she must give her child, Nathaniel, to her married sister to raise. She lives under the same roof as the boy at Eel Marsh House, but is forbidden to tell him that she is his mother. On the day that she has planned to take Nathaniel and leave Crythin Gifford forever, a carriage accident in the local marsh — because every gothic story must have a local marsh — takes his life. Humfrye goes insane, and a physical wasting away accompanies her descent into madness. After her death, each sighting of her ghost is followed in short order by the death of a child, as if her spirit is exacting revenge for her own boy’s drowning.

If readers wait for a redemptive moment for Humfrye in the novel, they will wait in vain. She remains as unrepentant in death as in life, and Hill uses her unwavering nature to deliver a final shock to the protagonist, one she waits until the final page to deliver in a sleight-of-hand that is as dreadful as it is unexpected. Yet, in giving the ghost the last word, as it were, Hill concludes a process of postmodernist empowerment that that has characterized Humfrye from the start:

        Jennet Humphrye, during her lifetime, refuses to be ostracized

        from ‘respectable’ society, often returning to her sister’s house in

        an attempt to reclaim her son. Later, in the form of a ghost, she

        has complete freedom of space and time in which to wreak

        vengeance against other parents by causing the death of their

        children. In The Woman in Black, Jennet Humphrye plays the 

        role more often attributed to the wandering male Gothic

        protagonist. She is neither locked out nor locked in, but has the

        haunting power to ‘lock’ and open her son’s nursery at will in

        order to torment Kipps. She might, therefore, be considered an

        excessively transgressive Gothic ‘heroine.’ (Scullion 296)

The Woman in Black is also postmodernist in the way it seeks to emulate the traditional structure of a gothic tale. Oddly enough, the story that it most closely resembles, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, in many ways anticipates postmodernism in a way that The Woman in Black does not. In the latter novella, the governess may or may not be seeing ghosts; indeed, many critics have found ample evidence in her character to dismiss the notion that the two young children under her protection are truly being haunted. Instead, critics see the governess as suffering for any number of psychological ailments and that the “ghosts” are figments only of her imagination. The Woman in Black, by contrast, deals with its ghost unequivocally. The sanity of Arthur Kipps is never questioned, and his sightings of Humfrye are corroborated by similar stories circulated throughout Crythin Gifford. The woman in black is objectively there, something that cannot be said of the two alleged spirits in The Turn of the Screw.

Additionally, James takes great efforts to set the sightings of the ghosts at times and in situations that run counter to the traditional gothic tale. Hence, James has the governess spot the ghosts in broad daylight, under clear skies, with nary a rainstorm in sight. The same cannot be said of The Woman in Black, which uses deteriorating weather as a pathetic fallacy to indicate the waning of Kipps’s fortunes at Eel Marsh House and the ascendency of the ghost over his mental state. Few key scenes in Hill’s novel do not take place under at least the threat, if not the actuality, of a cold English rain.

Ultimately, then, the greatest postmodernist element of The Woman in Black is undoubtedly the title character herself. Despite the presence of a male first-person narrator, Hill allows Jennet Humphrye to drive the plot, even in scenes where she is not present. Merely her implied threat casts a pall over this neo-gothic nightmare, infusing a mother’s love with sinister intent, especially when said love is thwarted by staid Victorian standards of propriety. “I had seen the ghost of Jennet Humfrye and she had had her revenge,” writes Arthur Kipps. “The asked for my story. I have told it. Enough.” (Hill 164). Yet the message of Humfrye’s mistreatment and the gender inequality that drives it lives on, both for Kipps and the reader, long after the last page is turned.

Works Cited

Hill, Susan. The Woman in Black. New York: Vintage, 1983. Print.

  Scullion, Val. “Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black : Gothic Horror For

    the 1980s.” Women 14.3 (2003): 292. Literary Reference Center.

       Web. 30 June 2014.

'Back for Christmas'

 

Frequent New Yorker contributor John Collier wrote a nasty little story, "Back for Christmas" (1939) that has become an atypical holiday favorite. 

Last year, it was featured in American Christmas Stories, a Library of America volume edited by Connie Willis. Despite the story's title, it has little to do with Christmas. The protagonist's wife promises the couple will return from America in time to celebrate the holiday in England, but the setting is actually several months earlier. 

I first learned of "Back for Christmas" from one of its radio adaptations. It has been featured three times on Suspense and once on Escape. In the script, writer Robert Tallman changed the main character from a medical doctor to a professor of botany and added some business about a devil's garden in the basement. Both revisions are effective. 

The Suspense episode starring Peter Lorre is justly praised as a classic. However, I prefer the Escape episode with Paul Frees in the title role. Lorre sounds too creepy from the start, so his descent into homicidal madness isn't as shocking as Frees's. The listener is still able to muster some sympathy for Frees's doctor, despite his crime. Not so with Lorre's portrayal. (Sirius XM's Radio Classics is playing the Lorre version several times this week; it's also available on demand to subscribers.) 

All of the radio adaptations do justice to Collier's work, but searching out the original story is still worthwhile.  

A Suspect Santa

For somebody who professes to dislike Christmas, I've sure written about it enough. This holiday-themed column is from The Alliance Review in 2014. 

I guess I’m playing Santa this year.

Some people say this whenever they hand out gifts, but I mean it literally. My mom has invested in a suit and beard and wants me to play the jolly old elf for my two-year-old niece. That’s the upper age limit of anybody who will be fooled by my imitation, to be sure.

Unbeknownst to me, I’ve been preparing for the role all year. Over the past twelve months, I’ve packed on about twenty pounds. While I have a way to go before I’m truly in Santa’s weight class, I still should require fewer pillows to create Claus’s trademark plumpness.

In terms of Santa’s characterization, I’d like to say I’m from the Marlon Brando and Daniel Day-Lewis school of method acting. Those two gentlemen get into character and stay in character — past tense in the case of Brando, who died in 2004 — whether the cameras are rolling or not.

If I followed their lead between now and Christmas Eve, I’d be Santa fulltime, booming out a baritone “Ho! Ho! Ho!” to students on exam day, yelling encouragement to Rudolph when accelerating my Neon down the street, and giving out candy canes to stray passersby.

However, with only one suit, I’m afraid I might start to smell a little ripe before Christmas, like a fruitcake gone horribly bad. And playing Santa without a suit is like playing Tiny Tim without the crutch or Little Ralphie without a Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with the compass in the stock. It can’t be done.

Instead, I’m steeping myself in the classics in hopes that the characterizations will rub off. Last weekend, I watched Tim Allen in “The Santa Clause,” a movie about a down-on-his-luck schlep who magically transforms into Santa after his marriage goes sour and he loses custody of his kid. A real upbeat holiday film, that.

Then there is “Miracle of 34th Street,” about a department store Santa who thinks he is the real thing. He ends up in court, trying to prove he’s not insane. Another heartwarming hit.

Maybe I’d have better luck sticking to Santa stories in print. L. Frank Baum, the creator of “The Wizard of Oz,” wrote a novel called “The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus,” but I’ve never been able to get past the first couple of chapters. Imagine Santa as delineated by J.R.R. Tolkien after a night of heavy drinking and you’ll get the general drift.

Then there’s Dr. Seuss’s classic, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” about another crazed character who gets his Santa fix by dressing up as Anti Claus and stealing an entire town’s Christmas. Yeah, sure, he gives it all back and the Whos even invite him to carve the roast beast, but I’m sure that on Dec. 26 they arrest him for multiple B&E’s and throw the book at him. Because they’re white and he’s green, he probably gets choked out for “resisting arrest” or spends the rest of his life as Charles Manson’s cellmate.

Hey, what is it with all these Santa stories and delusional, tragic characters? Is my mother trying to tell me something?

Maybe I should stick with Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from Saint Nicholas,” better known as “The Night Before Christmas.” It’s probably the most quoted poem in the English language, which doesn’t say too much for America’s taste in verse. But at least the Santa it presents is of the non-postmodernist, non-ironic, Victorian variety: He’s (ital.) really (end ital.) St. Nick, and nobody carts him off to the asylum halfway through or threatens legal action when he slips down their chimneys and eats their cookies.

He’s also mostly silent, other than a few shouts to his reindeer. In many ways, this is good news. I don’t have to disguise my voice, learn any lines or, worst of all, offer any extemporaneous comments, like railing against crass consumerism (which Santa represents) or criticizing the military-industrial complex. When I go off script is when I get myself in trouble. Santa as the strong and silent type. That’s the ticket.

As long as I don’t get him confused with Brando and start screaming, “Hey, STELLA!,” halfway through handing out presents, I think I’ll get through this without permanently scarring any children.

Here’s hoping.


chris.schillig@yahoo.com

cschillig on Twitter

A 'perfect' Christmas

This was originally published in The Alliance Review waaaaay back in 2006. My definition of a perfect Christmas has changed a little. Maybe. 

A wise person – if not Gandhi, then probably Dear Abby – once wrote that the perfect Christmas could take more than one year to celebrate.

Important and time-consuming elements can be parceled out over several years to avoid fatigue: One year to put up the perfect tree and bake cookies, the next to focus on outdoor lighting and Christmas carols, a third to doll up gifts with ribbons and bows, and so on.

When one looks back over the years, these memories will blur together to create the “perfect” Christmas.

I can buy that – a slacker philosophy disguised as new-age wisdom.

That being the case, I guess this is my year for outdoor lighting and Christmas carols, not because last year I erected a pristine tree and baked 50 dozen gingerbread men, but because the weather was accommodating for the lights and I can’t escape the carols if I tried.

Temperatures approached 60 degrees the day I decked my halls, leading to two firsts – the first time I have decorated wearing only a T-shirt (OK, I wore pants and shoes, too, but you knew that, didn’t you?) and the first time I ventured on top of the porch roof.

My porch isn’t high, but for a guy who cries “Mommy” when he gets to the third rung on a step ladder, tiptoeing onto it is akin to rappelling down the side of the Alps.

It didn’t help that I had three strands of icicle lights underfoot and a wife who kept calling up from the safety of the ground, “Be careful. Your cousin’s porch is the same height, and somebody died falling off of it.”

(Little plastic fixtures under the shingles: $5. Holiday lights: $25. A loving and supportive spouse: Priceless. For everything else…)

Obviously, I survived. If the weather holds, the silly things are coming down next Tuesday, before an ice storm or some other freak of nature cements them up there until Easter, no matter how Grinchly it makes me look in the neighborhood,.

But I said this is also my year for Christmas carols. Friends and family need not worry: I’m not singing door to door. I know my voice can curl an elephant’s nose hairs, falling as it does somewhere between Michael Bolton and truly awful. (Not that Bolton is far from truly awful himself, but I digress.)

No, I’ve been (ital.) listening (end ital.) to carols this year, which puts me more in mind of Groundhog’s Day than Christmas, since there are only about a dozen songs that get played to death between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Take “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” – please (with apologies to Henny Youngman). We have perfectly acceptable Perry Como versions (he recorded two), a not-quite-so-acceptable Carpenters version, and a truly frightening Jim Nabors’ rendition, which proves that even a guy with great pipes can’t escape the long shadow of Gomer Pyle, USMC.

I’ve heard all of them this season, and I could probably live a long and happy life without ever hearing any of them again.

Not all carols affect me that way. I like “Silent Night” (the less instrumentation the better), “Deck the Halls” (those fa-la-la’s get me every time), and even “Frosty the Snowman,” although it’s more of a winter song with a little snatch of Christmas thrown in at the end.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been listening to albums by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a mostly Christmas hard rock/heavy metal band that dresses up classical pieces with a lot of three-chord bombast, cheesy lyrics, and production values reminiscent of Queen. The results are sometimes tacky and gaudy, but it stirs blood made sluggish by too much eggnog, I tell ya.

Yet even those guys I’m weary of by Dec. 25. I’m fickle that way.

Probably the only Christmas song I can listen to repeatedly, even in June, is “Father Christmas” by the Kinks. It perfectly captures the madness of the holiday consumer season and the gulf between the haves and have-nots.

The song is loud and a little depressing, just like Christmas is sometimes, even when you’re assigning parts to different years to avoid total Yuletide burnout.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, and if you see some guy being pushed down the street in a full body cast next week, humming disjointed lyrics like “Father Christmas, give me some money!” that will be me.

At least you’ll know I took down my lights.

Readers Sound Off on Tipping Mickeys

For Those Who Came in Late: A few weeks back, I wrote about tipping costumed characters in New York City.

I had a close encounter with five such folks − Elmo, Mickey, two Minnies and a Grinch − on Thanksgiving morning. One of them used my phone to snap a photo of me with the other four. I tipped five bucks. They insisted, loudly, that the interaction was worth $20. Nevertheless, I held firm with my original tip.

I asked readers whether five dollars was an acceptable gratuity and why (or why not).

Thirty-seven readers responded to the survey, a big reality check since I had been expecting tens of thousands of people to weigh in on a topic so vital to the future of civilized society. My wife, who excels at keeping me grounded, said without guile that 36 was twice as many as she had expected.

Despite the miniscule numbers, I was gratified that the statement “Chris’s five-dollar tip was JUST RIGHT” attracted a razor-thin majority, 51.4%. If I had been a candidate in Georgia, I wouldn’t have needed a run-off.

I’m compelled to note that in last week’s run-off in the Peach State, Raphael Warnock, as honest and upright a candidate as one could find anywhere, corralled the same percentage, which means that 48.6% still voted for Herschel Walker, werewolf hunter, who lives just a few doors down from Beelzebub.

My own 48.6% broke down differently between the two remaining choices.

Surprisingly, 37.8% of respondents agreed with “Hey, they asked Chris for a picture! He should have tipped LESS than five dollars.”

Only 10.8% of readers clicked, “Chris was a scrooge! He should have tipped twenty dollars or MORE.”

Because I’m more of a qualitative than quantitative guy, I was especially interested in the comments. Readers didn’t disappoint.

“Elmo should have at least combed his face. He deserves none of the $5,” wrote one.

“They prey on tourists,” said another. “You weren’t even a memory when they left you. They were on their way to another victim.”

“These costumers didn't drive in from Ohio,” wrote a cartoon-character sympathizer. “They most probably live in the Big Apple, and life expenses for them are a lot more comparatively than a dinky little town such as Alliance.” Later, the same commenter opined that “if you couldn't afford to give that much, you should have not agreed to have had any pictures taken.”

Another offered a similar observation: “In NYC $20 is like $5 here in flyover land. When in Rome …”

A couple respondents further noted that Starbucks, which I had just exited, bag in hand, when my tale of mouse tails (and Grinch feet and ticklish Elmos) began, was more expensive than Starbucks here in northeast Ohio. So my tip should have been larger, too.

Point taken.

But I would also argue that, if costumed mice made me say cheese in the greater Alliance area, I would have tipped a dollar or two. So I did inflate my tip because of geography.

Finally, one respondent shared a similar encounter in the Philippines, in the company of a group of fellow Marines. A street hustler painted a young Marine’s tennis shoes with white dye, effectively ruining the shoes.

“With age comes wisdom,” the reader said, “and I can say with relative confidence that you have a greater sense of tact and social grace than that young Marine had at the time. But an ass kicking seems an appropriate response in both cases.”

In closing, let me reiterate I tip generously in most situations, and I urge readers to do the same.

Especially at the holidays, when tempers are short and patience wears thin, support the people who are doing their best to make your interactions merry and bright.

Even if one of them is dressed like Elmo with an unkempt face. Maybe especially then.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

Poem of the Year written 150 years early

Tell all the truth but tell it slant -

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind -

— Emily Dickinson

It’s the time of year for dictionary publishers to announce their Word of the Year selections.

Merriam-Webster chose “gaslighting.” Cambridge Dictionary went with “homer,” the Wordle answer on May 5 that garnered more lookups than any other word. Oxford Dictionary is leaving the choice to readers, who can vote for one of three options: metaverse, #IStandWith, and Goblin Mode.

I don’t know if there is a Poem of the Year, but if so, I vote for Emily Dickinson’s verse above, often known by its first line since the author declined to title her work.

Dickinson scholars estimate “Tell all the truth but tell it slant -” was written in 1872, but some date it several decades earlier. It wasn’t published until after the poet’s death in 1886. (Dickinson’s long, strange road to publication is just as fascinating as her singular life and work.)

So, what makes a 150-year-old poem speak to our cultural moment in 2022?

For one thing, it’s still important to be diplomatic when telling the truth. There is truth, unvarnished truth, and truth that leads the hearer to understand the unvarnished truth.

Many spouses can attest to the importance of “slant” when their significant others ask, “How do I look in this?” While the fate of the universe doesn’t hinge on the answer, the fate of the relationship might.

The recent election, too, speaks to a gradual dazzling of the truth. For many voters, the truth about the kinds of people running for various positions up and down the ticket may have finally dawned on them.

It can be fun for a while to back mavericks, conspiracy theorists and so-called straight shooters, but not at the expense of our system of government, of democracy itself. What is sometimes mischaracterized as refreshing honesty in a candidate is often nothing more than cold-heartedness writ large and shouted through a microphone.

In the weeks after the midterm election, the nominal leader of this certain category of politicians continues to tell the American public who he is, not even bothering to slant the truth anymore. The question is whether more Americans will believe what he is saying when he breaks bread with a white nationalist/Holocaust denier and an antisemite, or espouses the belief that even the Constitution itself should be set aside to allow him to remain in office.

Ultimately, Dickinson’s poem speaks to those who have not been bedazzled by false promises, serving as a reminder of how to speak to those who have.

It’s not easy to deprogram a cult member. Likewise, it’s not easy to steer family and friends back into the mainstream after they have been besotted by demagogues. “Success in circuit” means starting small, finding areas of agreement and building from there.

The sort of dissatisfaction with the economy and culture that led to such a severe break didn’t happen overnight. It won’t be healed overnight either. Certainly, a holiday party is not the place to unleash “the Truth’s superb surprise.” Save that for the New Year.

Dickinson was a famous recluse. We don’t have to be to avoid tough talk. Nor do we have to lie.

But telling all the truth means providing a little slant, or spin, that makes everybody more amenable to the lesson.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Was I Santa or Scrooge with my holiday tipping?

I like to think I’m a generous customer.

In restaurants, I tip 20%. Often more when the service is exceptional. Seldom less even if the service is poor.

You know a “but” is coming. Be patient, it’ll be here in a few more paragraphs.

A recent NBC News story on “tipflation” made me stop and think. It discussed how some retail establishments are adding a tipping option at checkout for jobs that are traditionally not augmented by gratuities.

That’s ludicrous. When I use the self-checkout at a certain big-box retailer, I feel the company should tip me because I’m doing most of the work − loading and unloading the cart, scanning, paying, everything except stocking the shelves. And I’d probably do that too if I could.

However, the NBC report made me realize that I should start tipping for takeout orders. After all, somebody took time to make and package the food, and that’s a service. In the piece, Thomas Farley, a.k.a. Mr. Manners, advised 10%.

Now, here comes the big “but” (he said with a wink and just the slightest hint − a crack, if you will − of a smile).

But I didn’t know how much I was expected to tip in the following situation:

I was in New York City for the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year. While waiting for the parade to step off, I headed to Starbucks to grab some breakfast and take it back to my wife, who was waiting along the route.

As I exited the restaurant, I saw Mickey, two Minnies, Elmo and the Grinch walking down the street. (If they walked into a bar, it would be the setup for a joke.) Being an infrequent visitor to the Big Apple, I didn’t realize people dress like this often. I snapped a photo with my phone.

This brought me to the attention of the entire cartoon menagerie, who made a beeline in my direction to pose with me. I guess they gave me a choice, but it also felt aggressive, with lots of masked people surrounding me.

Three photos and five seconds later, all their little costumed hands were extended for a tip. I pulled out my wallet, which was my first mistake. I gave them a five, which was maybe my second.

“Five dollars?” one of them said, whipping out a roll of bills from some secret pocket in Minnie’s skirt. “There are five of us! It is more like $20!”

Indeed, the wad of money had at least one twenty on top, although I suspect this was for show and that underneath were ones and fives.

The frugal Midwesterner in me bristled. Twenty bucks per “photo shoot” would be equivalent to $240 per hour and almost $2,000 a shift. Granted, these characters weren’t ever going to make that much since most of their day was spent hustling (in multiple senses of the word) for business. And they did have the expense of the suits.

They also were using my equipment (which, thankfully, they returned) and likely weren’t claiming any of their tips as taxable income. They certainly weren’t paying licensing fees to Disney, the Dr. Seuss estate or Sesame Street. I doubt executives would be tickled that Elmo was shaking down pedestrians in Manhattan.

Armed with this knowledge, along with a certain bravado because maybe they should have been paying for a picture with me (educator, native Ohioan, proudly bald fifty-something), I stood firm with the $5. Take it or leave it.


They took it but grumbled as they disappeared into the early morning gloom. If any of them responded to my “Happy Thanksgiving,” I didn’t hear it.

Now, however, I’m wracked with guilt. Well, “wracked” may be an exaggeration, but I am thinking about these folks and wondering if I was more Scroogish than I should have been.

After all, I did get three pictures out of the deal, along with an idea for this column, which ain’t nothing.

So, I’ve decided to solicit your opinions, dear readers. If I should have tipped more, less, or about the same to the Mice, Grinch and Elmo crowd, let me know in the survey below. As a bonus, you’ll get to see one of the photos. I’ll report back with the results in a future column.

And if I’ve made you happy at any point while you were reading this column, well, I accept Venmo and all major credit cards.

Not really.

But maybe.

Survey link (use this shortened link):

bit.ly/3VkXOUf

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.

@cschillig on Twitter

Lick a stamp, send a turkey

Something unusual happened to me this month: I received a Thanksgiving card.

I mean, it’s not completely unheard of. Years ago, when I worked in sales, I had a customer who insisted on giving each of his clients a card at Thanksgiving instead of at Christmas.

He said it bypassed the whole “should it say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas” falderol (the alleged War on Christmas was a thing even 30 years ago, it seems) and, as a bonus, the card became a conversation piece because it was unique.

He was right, at least as it relates to the greeting I received decades later. “Oh, look,” I said, as though I were a character in an early-reader Dick and Jane book. “It’s a card, a Thanksgiving card from my insurance agent. See the card. What a special card. I must hang it on my wall. Jane, will you help me hang it? Will you help me hang my card on the wall?”

Spoiler Alert One: The card never made it to the wall.

Spoiler Alert Two: I didn’t think like Dick and Jane. I’m not really a Dick.

Still, the card did get me thinking about the somewhat odd practice of sending Thanksgiving greetings. Hallmark says Americans send 16 million cards annually to commemorate the fourth Thursday of November. More accurately, the company said Americans “exchanged” them, which makes me think of a giant swap meet with cardstock images of Norman Rockwell-esque dinner tables, cranberries and stuffing. I’ll trade your candied yams for two slices of pumpkin pie with whipped cream!

Spoiler Alert Three: It didn’t really make me think of this.

By way of comparison, Hallmark says Americans send 1.3 billion Christmas cards annually, so Santa has cooked Tom Turkey’s goose in that department.

All this sent me on a nostalgic stroll through Internet images of Thanksgiving cards past, courtesy of clickamericana.com, which offers 14 such cards allegedly from the turn of the last century. (Since it’s on the Internet, it’s hard to know for sure.)

A common theme across many of the images is a woebegone attempt to turn living turkeys into a holiday symbol in much the same way that Santa has come to represent a secular Christmas. One key difference is revelers don’t chow down on roasted St. Nick at the climax of the Yule season, so any attempts to transform Tom Turkey into a fun-loving harbinger of late November must reckon with the oven at the end of the tale.

The images offer lushly painted images of kids petting turkeys or shyly offering ears of corn to the birds. In one, two turkeys − I would assume husband and wife, but I can’t speak to the matrimonial customs of genus Meleagris − are out for a Sunday (or is that Thursday?) drive in an open-top automobile. While their progress appears leisurely, perhaps they are really putting the pedal to the metal, or the shank to the crank, to escape the cook’s hatchet.

Some of the cards have sentiments straight out of squaresville. They are also examples of exceedingly poor verse. One reads, “I welcome this day of mellow fruitfulness, As just one more occasion to wish you happiness.”

Another unimaginatively offers, “May all your dreams come true Thanksgiving Day.” A third promises “good wishes for Thanksgiving Day,” accompanied by a freshly killed turkey, its head still attached.

Maybe it’s not so hard to see why Thanksgiving cards have failed to become an enduring custom.

Nevertheless, some copywriter scored with this message: “While we indulge in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, let us have high hopes for the future.”

That sounds so nice I’m going to put it in all the Thanksgiving cards I send out this year.

Spoiler Alert Four: C’mon, you know better.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig