The Southern Way

The Southern Way has many facets; southern hospitality, unique cuisine and impeccable manners quickly come to mind. It’s easy to be charmed by southerners. Sincere warmth is their specialty.
As a Yankee with 15 years of southern living under my belt, I’ve learned to appreciate some of the subtleties of the culture. I wish I could say I’ve adopted all of them, but that would be a stretch. My friends who are Dixie natives seem to accept me as I am. They realize that I can’t really help being direct to a fault but forgive me, perhaps because sometimes my antics make them smile. They assume my heart’s in the right place and those that know me really well can vouch for my sincere love of grits.
Most intriguing about the Southern Way is the southerner’s ability to be polite under even trying circumstances. I shall never forget my first exposure to the gentle courtesies so routinely displayed in the south. It happened in my own home during a home owner’s association meeting about a year after my wife and I moved to Tennessee. We had a guest speaker. Bless his heart, the man droned on. An endless stream of words, he was a prototype for Ambien. I tried my best to be attentive. But my eyes, with a glaze worthy of a country ham, betrayed me. An hour later the guy was still talking.
It was getting late and most of us had to go to work the next morning. The association president got up and walked into my kitchen. Seizing the opportunity, I followed him. While he poured a cup of coffee, I asked him, “Steve, are we done with this guy?” He nodded. “I think so.”
“Then why don’t we kick him out of here?”
Steve smiled. “It’s your house Len.” When the meeting finally ended I asked my fellow board members if they felt that our visitor had wasted our time. They agreed.
“Why didn’t we cut him off then?” I demanded. Glances were exchanged. Finally someone spoke up. “It’s not the Southern Way, Len.” Lesson learned.
Well, maybe not completely learned. Five years later I was working for an Internet startup. I interviewed a prospect for an executive sales position. I thought he was a promising candidate so I sent him to my boss, the company’s CEO. He liked him enough to send him on to the chairman of our board. The next day I asked my boss what the chairman thought of our candidate. He said, “Well, he was neutral, about him.”
“Does that mean its okay to hire him?” I asked. The CEO gave me a funny look. If you saw that look watching a TV movie, you would easily recognize it as an event foreshadowing my imminent departure for the unemployment line. How was I supposed to know that neutral translated into “Northernese” would sound something like, “Are you out of your mind? Your candidate is completely unsuitable for the job. What were you thinking?” Bless my heart.
Even after all these years my translation skills are less than reliable. It may not be hopeless for me though. My editor Nancy was also born and raised in the north. She was a grown-up when she moved here but she thoroughly adapted to the Southern Way. As a sensitive writer (is there any other kind?) I appreciate her gentle approach to editing.
Nancy reads a draft of everything I write. When she offers praise with a sparkle in her eyes, I know it’s suitable for publication. If on the other hand, she says something like, “It’s not bad,” but busies herself with other things as she speaks, then I know I have two options. I can do a substantial re-write or delete the document and hope for a better idea. A kindred spirit to the southland, she takes the time to choose her words carefully. You might think she was born in Chelsea, Alabama rather than Chelsea, Massachusetts.
What accounts for the universal elegance of people in the in the south? I emailed my good friend Brenda, a native of a small town in east Tennessee, to ask her if she could explain the unfailing politeness of southerners. Her response was almost northern. She said, “Its genes and grits.” That gave me hope, momentarily. I’m half-way there after all. But then she added, “However, eating a lot of grits is not enough – sorry! That word sorry -which it never would have occurred to me to add- saved her reputation as a bona fide southern belle.
I wrote her a thank you note in longhand. Am I a work making progress?

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.

Third Molar Gone: Troubles Begin

I had a tooth pulled last week. It was easier than when I was a child I suppose. In those days dentists used ether which was okay, but there was always another kid before you who walked to the dentist’s chair but had to be carried out in his father’s arms with a big wad of gauze in his mouth. Even a kid could see that when the dentist’s work was done, you wouldn’t be asking for a Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews candy bar.
Nowadays oral surgeons put you to sleep. My oral surgeon certainly knocked me out cold and I could not have been happier about it. The last thing I remembered was the pinch when the needle went into my vein.
Nothing is perfect though. After the deed was done they led me into a holding area where I sat staring into space. Not exactly alert and not quite sedated, I apparently put on a little show. Two days after my procedure, when my wife figured I was about as alert as I was going to get, she informed me that it appeared to her that I had fallen in love with my oral surgeon. I don’t remember this. My wife assured me, however that I held the doctor’s hand and touched her arm repeatedly while telling her how great she was.
In the immortal words of the late Richard Milhous Nixon, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I love my wife and have for a long time. I am not in love with the good doctor. I do like her a lot. And, while she is a very pretty lady, it wasn’t her good looks that captivated me that day. Really. I am certain that what made me so ecstatic was the miracle she performed. Without causing me even the slightest twinge of pain, the doctor extracted a molar that had been warning me for months that it wanted a divorce. In fact, three days later I still felt no pain. I ask you, would you fall a little bit in love with a dentist that did that for you?
I have to admit that after my wife told me about my 30 second romance, I worried about what else I might have said or done. I was afraid to ask really. I mean suppose I asked to take the tooth home and put it under my pillow? Considering the thin ice I was on, all I needed was to make a move on the tooth fairy. Believe me the love of my life would have seen to it that I got to spend lots of time with an oral surgeon.
We go through a lot of trouble to avoid pain. In fact, we’ll put up with pain until the pain of not taking action is greater than the pain of righting the ship. People stay in miserable marriages, soul searing jobs and even live with mammoth tooth aches for years just waiting for the scales to tip. Getting a divorce or changing jobs is time consuming and fraught with risks and undesirable consequences. And, there are commitments that can’t be dismissed lightly. Until death us do part is a rather clear statement. And, even a really boring job that offers health insurance is worth a certain amount of pain. Toothaches, on the other hand, are easily dispensed with in modern times. Yet, we’ll do anything to avoid dental work.
In the old days, when removing a tooth was an excruciating experience, it made sense to hang in there as long as you could. Novocain’s been around for a hundred years and laughing gas was first synthesized 225 years ago. These options are still available to anybody with a gene that makes extreme cage fighting sound attractive. However, if pain is not your friend, chances are you’ll take something a bit stronger when its time to part company with that molar. Except for the bad behavior thing, sedation works wonders.
Still, notwithstanding the benefits of sleeping through the pain, I wonder now if I should have opted for a quick yank, a muffled scream and been done with it. Then I wouldn’t have any worries. As it turns out, I have another date with my oral surgeon in May. I’ve decided to have an implant procedure to replace the departed third molar. She will no doubt put me to sleep again when she surgically implants the post. Will she remember my previous performance and insist on putting me in restraints? That doesn’t sound like fun. Still better than the alternative though. Who knows what I might say if they give me a bit of laughing gas?

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.

Way Deep into Nothing Special

Last week I wrote a column about disciplining children by giving them a time out. For a few readers, notably my closest friends, the word time struck an odd chord. Walter, a Miami resident and long time Bob Dylan fan, kicked things off by mentioning Time Out of Mind, a 1967 Dylan composition. Everything went downhill from there. Paul, two Mikes and I spent last Friday afternoon exchanging song titles with the word time in them. Great fun until I had this thought: A line from a Steely Dan song, without the word time in it, provided an accurate description for our little game and, not coincidentally, the way I spend too much of my time. “I’m way deep into nothing special” is the line.
Does “way deep into nothing special” in any way describe you? If your big plans for this weekend are watching the AFC and NFC championship games, you’re way deep into nothing special. For the record, I’ll be watching the Eagles and the Cardinals. If seeing Valkyrie with Tom Cruise is a top priority for you you’re way, way deep into nothing special. Jerry Seinfeld built an extraordinary sitcom on the idea that nothing is something. Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer were the pluperfect role models for being way deep into nothing special.
With the New Year already under way is it too late to set some meaningful goals that might get me way deep into something special? Certainly I set goals every year. Some of them aren’t completely self-centered either. Not that it matters. I took a look at last year’s goals the other day. Let me put it to you this way: If you were grading the results like a final exam in say, geology, I’d be studying rocks again this year.
I’m reminded of the Nationwide commercial, “Life comes at you fast…” Indeed it does. It comes at you so fast that just keeping track of our goals is an Olympic level event. Do you ever feel that life is mostly about distractions? For me it’s not just the toys I have or concerns about job, money, relationships, health and so on. While weighty matters like these can certainly keep anyone from focusing on their goals, as distractions, they pale compared to some of the things that I worry about daily.
I’m perplexed for example by the way drug companies come up with idiotic brand names like Cymbalta, Plavix and Enbrel that describe neither the condition nor the cure. And there are so many prescription drugs being advertised on TV every night, that I have no idea of what to ask my doctor for when I have a problem. Suppose I ask for Cymbalta for asthma when I really meant Advair? Will the doctor know I have confused one drug name for the other or will she see that as a symptom that I really am depressed?
I also find it very distracting when characters on shows like Law and Order politely take turns talking. If there are five people standing in the captain’s office, each one says something in turn until its time for a Cialis commercial. Even more unbelievable, each character has something important to add. In real life only two people out of the five standing around in an office will actually have anything to say. And there’s only a 50/50 chance that either one of them says something useful. I can distinctly remember the last time I said something worthwhile in a meeting. It was March 12, 1978. I said, “Why don’t we break for lunch.” It’s not that I don’t try to work on the goals I set. The other day I sat down in front of the TV and began to prepare a business plan that would make hundreds if not thousands of people rich. The idea was pure inspiration, one in a million. No sooner did I pick up my pen when the phone rang. It was my boss, another distraction. He wanted to know where we were on signing an agreement with a very important prospect. I filled him in and went back to my project. For some reason I couldn’t find my pen. Then my Blackberry pinged. An email, something I can’t resist. It was one of the Mikes. He had looked through his voluminous vinyl album collection and found another song with time in the title. To head off any more distracting emails, I called him. Now, about my brilliant idea, what was it exactly? Maybe later. Right now I’m way deep into nothing special. Care to join me?

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.

Time Out

Do you put your kids in “time out” when they misbehave? Lot’s of people do these days but it’s a relatively new concept. Baby boomers weren’t raised that way. And, from an informal but thoroughly rigorous scientific survey I conducted of three of my friends, not many baby boomers handled problems with their kids by declaring a time out either.
When I was a child there were two kinds of punishment for getting out of line. One was a stiff beating (okay a good swat on my behind) and the other was loss of privileges that lasted days or even weeks and certainly not just minutes. I suppose child rearing experts will be quick to point out that violence merely begets violence. That spanking a child that has just deliberately poured chocolate milk all over his little sister’s dress solves nothing. Children will only understand that it was wrong to do that if they are placed in time out.
No doubt, the experts can site readily available examples of the violence baby boomers inflict, constantly smacking each other at Starbucks when yet another patron slips into their place in line when they weren’t looking. Just the other day, I paddled a 49 year old man for touching an electrical outlet after I told him it was dangerous to do so. That he was an electrician didn’t matter. I had been paddled myself for doing that very thing when I was four years old. If only my parents had put me in time out instead of swatting me, I wouldn’t be facing an assault and battery charge.
Now I will be the first to admit that my parents also used the time honored three-count to achieve behavior modification. I did it with my children too. It worked because everyone understood completely that if things hadn’t changed by the time the three was spoken, swift retribution was definitely in store. I’ve seen today’s parents use the three count but somehow through the years, reaching number three only leads to a recount or, in some cases, an extended count. I think the record, which will soon be published in the Guinness Book of Records, is 1,109, by which time an eight year old had driven off with the family car. He probably didn’t even hear any of the numbers after 12.
Putting a child in time out is so silly that even a three year old knows it. I have seen the looks on their faces when they hear the words “time out.” It’s a license to do exactly as they please. One reason time out doesn’t seem to faze them is they know that if mommy actually puts them on the couch, they have two excellent options. One would be to watch television, which is conveniently tuned to cartoons. These are the same cartoons the child momentarily forgot about when she decided to see if her doll would fit in the garbage disposal. The other option (in the event that Meet the Press is on) is to cry. Loud crying works every time. Mommy will say, “Do you promise not to do that again? Say you’re sorry to your doll.” The actual length of the time out would be about 16 seconds.
Disciplining a child is never an easy thing. Although I have to tell you that a friend told my wife and I that when her kids asked her why she spanked them when they were little, she smiled and said, “Because it gave me pleasure,” a universal truth that many parents will identify with immediately. Still, she was a terrific mom apparently. Her children all live nearby and they call her every day to make sure she is doing alright. Obviously, she did something right.
Parents with young children will read this and say, “As much as I hate to admit it, time out doesn’t work that well. But I don’t believe in corporal punishment. What are my options?” That’s a fair question. Punishment is more complicated than it was years ago. My mother could refuse to let me watch TV, or play the radio. By the time today’s parents get through the list of things their kids have to do without; the TV, the laptop, cell phone, i-Pod, Guitar Hero and so on, they can’t even remember what they were punishing the kids for. Something new and different is required. How about this: Refuse to do their homework for them for a whole week. Think of it as a time out for parents.

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.

If Ony it wasn't the Food

My friend Dennis wrote to tell me he started a weight loss program. Since it was almost a week before New Year’s Day, when he would make his annual resolution to lose weight, he was way ahead of schedule. In fact he’s so far ahead of schedule, he’s already told me it probably won’t work. I know exactly how he feels.
Five short years ago I decided to lose 20 pounds. I got on the South Beach diet and stuck with it for months. It worked too. I lost exactly 20 pounds. I was proud of myself and people told me I looked good which after all is why we go on diets to begin with. Nobody goes on a diet for health reasons. Doctors can tell us we’re going to have a stroke, a heart attack or both. Our knees can ache and our arches can collapse like the Roman Empire and it doesn’t faze us. If it comes down to a choice between a pepperoni pizza and a six pack versus a salad with green tea, it’s no contest. We’ll ask the ambulance driver to stop for a pizza even as the EMT is saying “City General emergency room,” while she’s placing the oxygen cannula in our noses.
There are good reasons for our behavior. Although it’s never been fully explained in medical journals, I am sure that excess fat never really leaves. It remains lurking around the corner, in hiding if you will, while we dabble in celery and watercress. I don’t know how, but it knows that your diet plan, like your savings account, is temporary. In no time you’ll be begging that fat to come home and what’s more, to make amends, you’ll ask it to call it’s relatives in Margaritaville and invite them to live with you too. Dennis says fat is more like a suit you hang in a closet. Without thinking one day you put it on again and you’re stuck with it.
When it comes to food, the temptations are enormous. Anyone that travels on business for example, knows that the only way to maintain your weight is to walk to your destination, a highly improbably solution. If you fly you can count on thirty fast food kiosks in the airport, not one of which will sell you a piece of fruit. I have actually gained a couple of pounds just walking from one terminal to another in Philadelphia. The aromas contain more calories than I can possibly burn by running to my gate.
It’s not much better driving either. The Interstate Highway system, a product of the Eisenhower Administration, apparently was built with funds supplied by the fast food industry. Why else would there be billboards trumpeting an infinite number of burger, taco, donut and soft ice cream joints? Have you ever seen a roadside sign that said, “Health food store ½ mile on the right?”
People that don’t travel are no better off. Every neighborhood supermarket in America is set up to defeat any diet you can name. The fresh bakery section is on the same aisle as the fresh vegetables. Both offer fresh goods of course, but like perfume and sweat socks, one of them smells better. Consider the frozen food section with refrigerated foods running down both sides of the aisle. You think it’s an accident that the ice cream is on one side and frozen lima beans are on the other? That’s a tough choice. Even high calorie cold cuts are displayed under lights worthy of a jewelry store display case. It’s hard to look away.
A key ingredient of any diet always includes regular exercise. But exercise alone won’t get the job done. Thankfully, makers of diet pills, supplements and high -in -everything -but -calories shakes are eager to help us with those resolutions. You have to love all those commercials touting easy remedies. Of course, pills alone won’t do the trick either. The fine print appears at the bottom of your TV screen: Works best with 14 hours of exercise daily. I might be willing to try some of these diet aids if the average Americans with the before and after photos agreed to appear next year, live and in person in my living room. Are they still sporting svelte figures?
Regardless, a new year has arrived and there’s work to be done. I’ll bet somebody will check themselves out in the mirror after reading this and decide they can’t live with the image staring back at them. Something has to give. If only it wasn’t the food.

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.