Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Brad Bliss and The Cast Iron Skillet…by Robert M. Katzman

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story: http://www.differentslants.com/?p=355

© Monday, September 28, 2015

Two important facts will help my readers better understand this unlikely but classic example of surreal serendipity:

1–I like to cook

2–I have three dogs

Please do not despair for my dogs! While my intention has always been those two passions should never intersect, on this one occasion, they did. My story follows.

For months, I’ve unsuccessfully combed flea markets, Salvation Army stores and especially, garage sales in Northern Illinois, where I have a store, and in South Eastern Wisconsin, where I live, searching for an elusive black, heavy and a marvelous conductor of even heat for cooks, a cast iron skillet.

I decided no way I’d buy it retail in some store somewhere, because the high cost would diminish the thrill of discovery and besides that, I watch my pennies. You know, if I collected enough of them together, I suppose I could fashion my own copper-bottom skillet. Maybe 5,000 of them. No, that doesn’t seem to be a good idea either.

My three ancient dogs, Bernie, Obama and Hillary, ok no, just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Betsy, Jasmine and Chewy, except I call Chewy, an arrogant and condescending coal-black Shih Tzu with ebony marbles for eyes, the Little Bastard because when we first met and I bent over to look more closely into his eyes, he bit me on the nose.

To insure they come running back to our kitchen door in Racine, Wisconsin in the event we two doddering senior citizens forgot to close the backyard gate, we give them little dog treats that they treat like sirloin steak when they get it. Coming into our kitchen, they dance around, wet pink tongues hanging out, each perked up in anticipation of their reward for not running away.

We used to buy smaller dog bone type treats and break them in half, but my wife Joyce has MS and breaking them became harder for her. So one day, I found an unusual bag of obscure dog treats in the exact same dog bone shape, except small enough so no breaking was necessary. Our dog pack loved them.

And where did I buy them?

I had no idea.

So there was that overlapping mystery of resupplying my hopeful three hounds, and also my coming across the black cast iron skillet. Neither would be in the same place, either. Relentlessly, fruitlessly, I had checked the dog food aisles of Pick n’ Save, Wal-Mart, Piggly Wiggly, Walgreens, Pet Smart, and even the Dollar Store, wondering where did I ever buy those little treats? I didn’t bother to go looking in Whole Foods,a very nice place, since the dogs, Joy and I live on a lower economic plane and I didn’t want to spoil their contentment with that status.

That is where the two combined and evidently unresolvable situations stood until Saturday, September 26, 2015, the date of Racine’s annual giant brats, beer and rock n’ roll street fair, Party on the Pavement. Streets blocked off, cops everywhere, painted children’s faces, hot buttered salty sweet corn, crispy chicken wings, street vendors selling old books, antique furniture, a Christian Motorcycle Association tent, brown, black and speckled brats of varying sizes (thick as a lady’s delicate wrist to inflated balloon size) sizzling on flaming grills, the fragrance wafting everywhere through the thousands of people there.

Joy and I moved here four months ago, in June. We knew no one. A quiet couple slowly walking through a sea of strangers, it was our first major street fair in Racine. There is a certain insulation in not knowing anyone at all. That also means no chance encounters with anyone who might have had any bad memories of what either one of us might have said or done over the last half century. Besides that, our being Jewish liberal Democrats from Chicago, the possibilities of our discussing religion or politics in Racine with anyone, anywhere, were, well, zero.

So, Joy and I worked our way down Main Street, visiting all the little shops that were usually closed when I came home in the dark each night. There are wonderful craft shops, recycled clothes stores, an unknown artist’s gallery, Thai, Italian and Chinese restaurants, and this Gelato Expresso place that has benefited from our moving here.

A very nice small town, the streets were clean, the people polite, no one was drunk and money was flowing as fast as the beer, which keeps street fairs like this one attracting the same vendors to come back next year. But no black cast iron skillet was to be found half buried under the clutter among the several tables of old kitchen items sitting along the side the street, near the (very cool) Art Museum.

I walked up to one of the women, quietly sitting next to one of those tables. She was surrounded by a small forest of people standing up, slowly flowing down the street. With nothing to lose, and already knowing her answer, I asked the lady did she possibly happened to have an old black cast iron skillet among her items for sale?

She looked up at me and began to say the expected “No” when a tall guy standing next to her said,

“Oh, I have a nice one I recently found, cleaned up and treated the interior surface with lard”.

The sitting lady, my wife and I all looked at this stranger with a gentle face saying the unexpected. This doesn’t only happen in the movies. I asked him if he was working there, too. He said no, just walking around like us, wandering among the tables. He appeared to be in his fifties with an attractive shorter and younger woman standing next to him, partially obscured. She had long black hair hanging down loosely over her shoulders. He then said he’d sell it to me for ten dollars.

Letting all this chance stuff work its way through my stuffy brain, I said, cleverly,

“Really?”

Stranger said, 

“Sure.” 

I extended my hand, told him I was Bob, a new resident of Racine, and he shook it firmly, like small town people normally do, telling me that he was Brad Bliss, yeah–I know, a name actually meant for the movies–and that the woman next to him was Rose. I shook her hand as well, telling her my immigrant Lithuanian grandmother was also named Rose. I’m not sure why I bring up stuff like that, but it was something to say and it was true.

I don’t remember, but I assume the two wives also greeted each other. I was too distracted by the newly encountered: Man with the Black Cast Iron Skillet!

I think I asked him how could it be that he was standing there, completely by chance when I decided to ask the lady street vendor if she happened to have what I’d been searching for, for lots of months? But I don’t remember his answer. It may be that not all questions can be answered.

However, more than one Rabbi has told me (probably a conspiracy of Rabbis) that there was no such thing as “chance encounters”. No such thing as “coincidences”. That everything in life was preordained. I was not in a very good position at that moment to mock such biblical assertions. Frequently, Rabbis seem to be on the inside track. But also, frankly, I usually defer to Rabbis out of respect. How many people would choose a life like theirs? A life of the mind?

Then we traded phone numbers and I told him I would call him later. When he explained where he lived, slowly, twice, because old people take longer to digest new information, or maybe just me, I realized we lived less than a mile apart. Then we shook hands again and went our separate ways.

As it gradually grew dark, the street vendors began packing up. Having been one of them for a chunk of my life, I knew very well that whatever it was that the various people were packing up into their vans and trucks, all of it was heavier now than when they unpacked it this morning, filled with hope that little of it would remain to take back with them ten hours later.

Joy and I walked along the town’s river on Water Street in the growing gloom, searching for our grey Toyota. The lights were on over the Root River that winds its way through Racine like a dark artery. The lights shimmered on the quiet river, the sail boats with their tall wooden masts rocked slowly back and forth on a windless evening and as I watched the beautiful scene a couple of blocks away from Main Street, I thought the river could have been a canal in Venice. Beauty is where you take the time to appreciate it.

Joy was tired. Her Multiple Sclerosis never relents, and each day there is only so much gas in her tank. As night falls, she’s near empty. I can’t carry her anymore, though I could for a while when we were first married. I have to plan things in advance so she can get the most out of her day.

Ahead of us was this old triangular supply depot type of building. Each night I passed it, it looked to me that it was about to crumble into a pile of bricks at any moment. I’d never seen it open, if it was ever open during daytime hours, until tonight. Bright yellow light spilled out of its doors like it was being poured out of a pitcher. Seemed very intriguing inside. Joy agreed to look around with me.

It was the D. P. Wigley Building and inside were sacks of birdseed, bird feeders, a room devoted to home brewing wine, beer and mead. Joy’s ancestors, Scandinavians, probably made and drank mead. Mine? Well, go back far enough and it was milk and honey, I suppose.

It was a jumbled collection of rooms, an old, grim industrial-like interior atmosphere, but also at the same time, filled with warmth and many colors. One person there who was very warm, like a character out of Mayberry with Andy and Opie, was Chris Flynn, one of the owners.

She was telling Joy and me about her business and other things when as I looked across the room, my gaze fell on a large plastic sack of the impossible-to-find tiny multi-colored dog bone biscuits! Damn!

Pretty soon Chris was aware of my fascination with her dog food and we struck a very good deal for the whole sack. Didn’t want to take any chances in case this was all an illusion. Grab the dog bones and run!!

Joy and I were preparing to leave, looking at one more room when a young girl walked by us wearing a Captain America-type red/white and blue shield T-shirt. I noticed it but we kept moving and were leaving the old brick building when I caught sight of what appeared to be that same man from Main Street and his wife, but this time surrounded by children.

Couldn’t be, I thought. I said that to Joy. Then I looked out of the door and down the angled concrete walkway and called out:

“Brad?”

The guy didn’t look up or seem to hear me at all, so I assumed I had made a mistake. Still…

What were the odds of meeting the same couple again, hours later, in an off-the-beaten-path old building when most of the thousands of other fair-goers were on there way home? Remote, I decided.

Joy and I found our car a little later, and as we drove home, she called Brad’s phone number and asked where he lived so I could buy his skillet. He gave us careful directions and a little later we pulled up in front of a nice home, seemed from the Fifties to me. Night falls heavily in Racine and it was black everywhere outside, but there was a bright warm fire crackling in his back yard. Brad had been waiting for us on the sidewalk and he invited us in.

There was a ring of chairs around the fireplace, and chairs for us, too. As I looked around at all the faces, I said hello again to Rose, her skin illuminated by the orange light from the fire. But next to her was that young girl in the Captain America T-shirt. This was so weird. I always wanted to go visit the Twilight Zone, but they never had an opening for me before. Now, I was in it. Dum dee dum dum, dum dee dum dum, dum dee dum dum…

We were there for about an hour. Wonderful family and situation. Then Brad invited me in to see the cast iron treasure. I’d agreed to pay him $10 earlier on the street, but while we were all sitting around the fire, I mentioned that I was a writer, had five books in print and Brad seemed to be interested. Turns out he’s a Knapp Elementary school teacher, fifth grade, taught math, science, history and writing. That was an unusually interesting detail in the whole scheme of things.

My books normally sell for $20 each, and I offered one to him instead of the cash, because he seemed to want it and it was actually a better deal for him, besides being an old fashion way of bartering, which I liked. We shook hands again on that new agreement–in small towns that’s a never-ending thing-and Joy and I left. I told Brad I’d bring him the book in the morning, after he came home from church. I also offered to read a poem to his class, if he wanted m to do that.

I thought about this whole strange series of events and realized that a writer’s job is to grab a good story out of the air when he or she realizes there is one. And this was a good story. I began to write what you are reading now, in my mind, that same night.

In the morning, as we normally do, Joy made coffee and I cooked eggs and chopped up baked potatoes. This morning, using my new, beautiful black cast iron skillet, I heat up five Russet potatoes in the micro wave, pull them out after nine minutes, beat the hell out of them with a metal masher, pour the chunky mass into the skillet, sprinkled garlic salt evenly all around the top, added another layer of white parmesan cheese, then a lot more shredded cheddar cheese, added an entire stick of real butter, stirred everything up and then turned the heat on high.

I kept stirring during the chaos in the skillet.

Soon, the even heat that had previously eluded me began the process of evaporating the water from the potatoes creating a cloud above the black iron, the cheeses melted with the butter and mixed with the garlic salt, and the soft potatoes began to slowly brown and burn. Burned black is the best for me. For Joy, shades of brown are preferred.

The skillet worked perfectly to achieve the results I was hoping for and between us, the five potatoes disappeared. We keep this circular black iron candle arrangement I found in some flea market, somewhere. It holds seven candles at various levels so that when they are burning and flickering, it becomes a miniature light show.

Later that morning, I drove over to the Bliss House (ok, yeah, that does sound like a place to do yoga and chant, but whatever), met with Brad and Rose and brought them one of my books that I felt would interest them. I described what each of the half dozen stories were about and some background information not found in the text. I signed the book made out to both of them and they seemed pleased. Hope so. I checked recently online at one of the used book sites. A couple of my books in Europe are selling from $166 each. Go figure. Where’d they get that strange number from?

For the record, I am 65, Brad is 57 and Rose, like my own lovely wife, Joy is of no known age but both women appears much younger than either of us ragged husbands. That Captain American T-shirt girl, their daughter, is named Sarah, ending with an “H” like my own Sarah, because all the other “Sarah’s” are just wrong. 

I want to think that the most important part of all of this is that perhaps Brad, Rose, Joy and I will get to know each other better and become more than passing friends. If so, then the skillet is much more valuable than what it was originally intended to be used for.

One more thing.

Concerning Betsy, Jasmine and Chewy.

With all my efforts to track down those perfect little doggy treats for them, last night when I came home, the unappreciative Little Bastard somehow got into an as yet unopened box of my special memories and he was comfortably lying there on a blanket in the basement casually chewing on the preserved head of a small crocodile I acquired as a child in Florida in 1958.

Or put another way, a miniature dog was chewing on the head of a miniature crocodile originally purchased fifty-seven years earlier by a miniature eight-year-old person. What are the odds that the present day dog’s life would be saved from choking by that same child, now 65 years old?

Well, frankly, I don’t know, but I guess you win one, you lose one and there’s nothing else to say.

**************************

Publishing News! 

Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart and Vol. Two: Fighting Words

Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one man’s life than a person may imagine.

Please visit my new website: http://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PayPaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.

Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:

Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.

Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998 (262)752-3333, 8AM–7PM

Books cost $29.95 each, plus shipping

For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95

(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95

I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.

My Fighting Words Publishing Co. four original books, published between 2004 and 2007 are now out-of-print. I still have some left and will periodically offer them for sale on my new website.

My former other life:

Robert M. Katzman
The Old Magazine Store .com
4906 Oakton Street/Skokie, IL 60077
(847) 677-9444 // Mon-Fri: 10-4:30/ Sat- 10-2/ Sun closed
____________________________________________
 
Many short video clips:
1–Complete Facebook Posts: www.DifferentSlants.com
 
2–DOCUMENTARIES (as The Magazine Museum)
 

4 Comments »

Comment by David Griesemer

September 29, 2015 @ 4:45 pm

Questions/Comments: (1) Is that Brad’s real name? Has he read this? What does he think of your book? (2) Does the Racine Chamber of Commerce know about you? This stuff is gold (e.g. comparing Racine to Venice). (3) Bless you for adopting a dog who bites the nose that feeds him. (4) About Whole Foods, good of you to keep your dogs from the sin of pride. (5) Would love to meet someone from the Christian Motorcycle Association. (6) Will you become a visiting scholar at Knapp Elementary?

Comment by NewMan from NewArk

September 29, 2015 @ 11:34 pm

Nicely done, mon Ami.
As always.

Comment by Jerry King

October 13, 2015 @ 7:25 am

Great story. I will be on the lookout for your book. Thanks to the Hollywood name of a man, Brad Bliss who sent me on a scavenger hunt to find this to read. It was delightful and I look forward to reading more. Is that his real name?

Comment by Bob

October 13, 2015 @ 8:58 pm

Yes, it is. Where are you? My books,all 5, are on sale in my Skokie store. I am open most days 11-4, unless sick. My regular email is bob@oldmagazinesstore.com. My story site is http://www.DifferentSlants.com

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>