Triggers

     We all have triggers in life, moments that can revive memories, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I had two chuckle worthy memories that were triggered a few days ago. I was video chatting with my younger brother Andy on WhatsApp, laughing about our past foibles. Then I went to have lunch at the Pacific Dining Room (PDR). Those were the two triggers and they're related. Here are the memories.
     After I graduated High School on Kwajalein, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I still don't, although I’ve sure ferreted out a bunch of things I don't want to do. In order to avoid adulting, I worked construction for Martin Zachary with a bunch of Hawaiians. Everyone called me Haole boy and that was okay, because that's obviously what I was. Chige Sakamoto was my boss. Chige was Japanese/Hawaiian, he had a wispy mustache, wore green tinted aviator style glasses and always, always wore a white V-neck t-shirt. Chige seemed to take particular pleasure in barking out orders to me which, without variation began with, "Haole boy, COME!"  I was a General Laborer and if you're a General Laborer, you get all the shit jobs and that was okay too, that's just where I was in life. The job paid an hourly rate of $4.50/hour (Chige said I was overpaid), came with a room in the Pacific Bachelor's Quarters (PBQ) which included about 5 roommates and a meal card. That meal card entitled me to three square meals a day. The room at the PBQ ended up being a storage space for my road bike, I moved back in with my parents because well, it was more inviting than living with 5 roommates. That's right, I was a boomerang kid before it was a thing. I set up a fruit dehydrator on the roof of the house. It was a simple affair, a raised wooden box, wire mesh bottom and plexiglass cover to keep the flies and other vermin at bay. It also sat in 4 bowls of water - that was the only way I could keep the ants out. I shamelessly liberated a lot of apples and papayas every day to dry; papaya spears took about 3 - 4 days to dry, apples shriveled up in a day and those who know me well know just how shameless I can be. Andy and I shared a room, and I always had a huge bowl of dried apples sitting on my dresser.  I came back one day and it was empty. Andy said he had a few handfuls. Then he had some more. There's no denying they were quite tasty. Maybe he took a break, maybe not, but he had some more. At that point, the bowl was less than half full, and it was a really big bowl. A few more handfuls, because he was hungry and they were fantastic. He decided he was past the point of no return. He finished the entire bowl, which probably represented 30 apples. Don't judge, we Taylor's have fast metabolisms. We laugh about it today, but I wasn't a happy camper when I came home from work looking for a fruit snack.
     Working construction doing all the shit jobs that Chige liked to give me helped me burn a lot of calories and I ate a lot of food. One day at lunch, they had teriyaki steak - I piled it on, about 4 pieces and cut into it, put it in my mouth, started to chew and then spit it out. Chige laughed so hard he nearly spit his food out. Because I was Haole boy and I was overpaid, but also because it was just funny. Chige slapped his hand down on the table and yelled, “What, Haole boy, you no like liver?” When you are expecting the taste of teriyaki steak and get liver, well, not one of my favorite food memories.
     I had lunch at the PDR a few days ago. The menu at the PDR is mind numbingly boring. The food isn't that bad, it's just repetitive. Taco Tuesday is inexorably followed by Wings Wednesday (full disclosure: I like both). But when I went into the PDR that day there was something new on the menu - Teriyaki Steak. I laughed so hard when I saw that, I snorted. I don't remember them having signs above the food back in the 70's and 80's, maybe I just didn't look. Entirely possible. But now I'm older and sometimes wiser. I looked at the sign, then looked at the meat.  You can bet your bottom dollar I looked at the sign again before asking for a piece, then laughed and laughed some more, all at myself but hey, laughter is good.

Herna Jibwa, - every time she sees me she says, “Hello Alan Taylor!”

Food feels

     The tastes, textures and smells of certain food can transport you right back to the place and setting of when and where you had that memorable food/meal. Does for me at least. Like the first time I had durian. I took a trip from Sumatra to the Riau Islands on a Pelni Line vessel, deck class. A few of us bought a durian and a deckhand opened it for us. If you’ve had durian, you either love it or hate it - there is no in between. I loved it. Whenever I eat durian, I’m right back there, sleeping on the deck on that ill planned trip. Sometimes the memories are wonderful, other times not so much. 'Cause food can be emotional like that.
     I’ve got LOTS of good food feels from when we lived on Saipan. We lived in a village where we were part of the community. Whenever there was some work to be done, we’d do our part which would almost always end with a communal meal. Red rice, which is colored with achiote, but the flavor comes from the bacon drippings mixed in with the rice. Barbecue cooked over tangantangan wood. Kelaguen, which is partially cooked meat, usually chicken and then the added lemon finishes cooking the meat with the acidity. Add some fresh grated coconut and spices and you get...happiness. Lechon (roasted pig) for the bigger occasions. Coco, which is pickled mango/papaya/cucumber. Whatever fruit was in season was mostly in abundance, except after a typhoon. I can eat any one of those items and be instantly transported back to Saipan in my very fertile mind. Perhaps you have noticed there aren’t any Chamorro restaurants in your neighborhood. Mine either, so I don’t get those happy food feels often.
     I had to go to Hawaii to get an MRI on my knee in a very tight window of time and contacted a few old friends, one of whom told me about an event he was going to an event called Off the Eaten Path: Chamorro Cuisine with some hoity toity chef from Guam. Messaged my daughter who lives on Maui. Wanna go gorge on Chamorro food? Anyone who has met my daughter knows the answer. Boom! We're in! Serendipity. Family. Good friends. A couple of wicked smart professors who were riotously witty and irreverent - my kind of people. Good food which brought ALL the good food feels and many good memories back.

     I did have two unusual food memories on Saipan though. Once, I was served a bowl of soup with a cows hoof in it. The soup was just broth, I don’t recall any vegetables or anything else than the big old cow’s hoof in the bowl. And there are sometimes when you just can’t say no. I sipped the broth, I nibbled on the hoof and pretended to like it. But I didn’t.
      My most amusing Saipan food experience? My landlord called me over to eat which happened pretty every time he saw me, but that’s Chamorro culture. He had a bowl of much more palatable soup, vegetables, some kind of meat and it was really good. He watched me for a while with a wry grin on his face. Then he asked how I liked it. I said it was really good and then he laughed and said, “That’s Marianas Fruit Dove and... it’s endangered!” But his response sounded soooooooo much better in a Chamorro accent. 

Detours

     If you had told me 40 years ago I’d be with an ex-Mormon with 4 children, I would have been excited. But I would have tried - very hard - to hide my excitement as I casually suggested a wager against that scenario. You never want to appear to too excited to make a bet you are nearly certain of winning so you try to control your emotions until the bet is consummated. I'd have offered whatever odds you thought reasonable. 100 to 1? Sure. I would have bet big too, because I like a flutter now and again when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor. Because I have no game, she stalked me. She was a pretty good stalker for an ex-Mormon without, I presume, much stalking experience and now I'm with that ex-Mormon with 4 kids. Didn't expect that detour.
    Some of the biggest detours in life have nothing to do with you. Like this one. My dad went to an interview with the MITRE Corporation down in DC when we were living in Florham Park, NJ in the late 60's. The interview went swimmingly and then they went to lunch. He knew he was going to get an offer, the job was his. Back in the 60's, it was okay to have a tipple along with whatever you were noshing on and they all had something to drink at the restaurant. My dad gave one of the interviewers a ride back to the workplace in his rental car and on the way back, he kicked something underneath the drivers seat. He picked it up, and it was an empty bottle of gin. As he was holding the bottle by the neck, he looked at his potential boss and said, "What the hell is this?" The interviewer looked at the bottle, looked at my dad, raised his eyebrows and then looked straight ahead. And just like that, the job was not his. I talked to my dad the other day and asked him about this, he said if he was the hiring manager, he would have made the same decision. And to whoever drank that bottle of gin, left it in the rental car and to whatever employee that didn't clean the car I say thank you.
     That's right, my dad didn't get that job and we didn't end up moving to the DC area. He moved our family back to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands a few years later. And just like that, my trajectory was changed. My life has taken all kinds of  unexpected twists and turns, some of them wonderful and serendipitous, some of them tragic. But here's a shout out to my Mom and Dad who had the courage to move to Kwajalein with two small kids in 1964 for the first time and thanks to Gwyne for stalking me...on Kwajalein.