{"id":15786,"date":"2021-09-20T19:47:54","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T23:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=15786"},"modified":"2021-09-20T19:47:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-20T23:47:54","slug":"time-and-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=15786","title":{"rendered":"Time and turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo credit: Mark Miller, Creative Commons license, Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was thinking today <\/strong>(as one does from time to time) that, for a guy my age, I don\u2019t feel all that bad. (Sorry, identity thieves, but I won\u2019t tell you exactly how old I am.) I have my aches and pains, and I could bear to drop the weight of a pretty large dog, but I honestly expected to be in more pain at this age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are little reminders, though. I told you about losing my keys last weekend. Further along in the week, I lost them again. It was one of those dumb senior moment things \u2013 I had the keys in one hand, and something (I forget what, of course) in the other hand that I meant to throw away. What I figured out, after searching an hour for the keys, is that I\u2019d dropped the keys in the trash basket, and put the trash\u2026 somewhere. Who knows?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told myself I hadn\u2019t had much sleep the night before. Yeah, that\u2019s the reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reminder of a different kind came this past Saturday. I\u2019d had a visitation of a vivid memory of a meal I used to order, about 45 years ago, at a restaurant in a St. Paul suburb that shall remain nameless. I wondered if the place still existed, Duck Duck Go<\/em>\u2019d the name, and what do you know? It\u2019s still there (later intelligence informs me the place has been in business since 1969. The only other place I used to eat at back then that still exists is Perkins). I checked the menu, and my beloved Turkey Dinner was still on it. So I arranged with a friend to go eat there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maudlin back story: I\u2019m not entirely sure how I and my then roommate started eating at this particular Chinese restaurant. (I won\u2019t give you the name; this story might reflect badly on them, and I\u2019m pretty sure that would be unfair.) I have an idea we went with The Girls Next Door: the four very pretty, Christian co-eds who rented apartments in the next house over. It was the nicest situation I\u2019ve ever been in, girl-wise, until I made the mistake of falling in love with one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular girl, who shall also remain nameless, had grown up in what we used to call the Orient. So I suspect going there was originally her idea. I wasn\u2019t into Chinese food yet, back then. But I was into her. However, when we got there (Sunday lunch; you must imagine me in my brown tweed church suit), we discovered they had a small American menu. I ordered the turkey dinner, as did my roommate. It was really delicious, like mother used to make. As long as we still lived in the Cities, even after the Girls Next Door had scattered like so many golden birds, we\u2019d go there for the turkey dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, 45 years later, I went back. I ordered the turkey dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t taste at all as I remembered it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not so arrogant as to think the cooking had deteriorated. I\u2019m pretty sure I have a more sophisticated palate now. I\u2019ve had better turkey dinners and gotten used to them. Perkins is very good. Boston Market, which is no longer around here, was excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m better off knowing that my memories misled me. Maybe I\u2019d be happier just remembering an idealized meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come to think of it, maybe I\u2019m happier imagining an idealized Girl Next Door, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was thinking today (as one does from time to time) that, for a guy my age, I don\u2019t feel all that bad. (Sorry, identity thieves, but I won\u2019t tell you exactly how old I am.) I have my aches and pains, and I could bear to drop the weight of a pretty large dog, … Continue reading Time and turkey<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[3859,3858],"class_list":["post-15786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-reminiscing","tag-turkey-dinner"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15786"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15788,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15786\/revisions\/15788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}