Jan. 17, 2002 - 19:41 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Under The Bridge

We are out here, back in the woods or hid out in town. But every once in a while one or another of us will surface.

An e-mail came in tonight asking for the recipe for the secret hamburger sauce that Rockybilt used on their burgers. Now he could be a man approaching his forties whose father or mother used to take him to one of the last Rockybilts in town, maybe. My guess though is considering the desire for the recipe he is probably an old geezer like me or perhaps a bit younger.

Periodically one of us will find out that someone in our town or a town we used to live in is old enough to remember favorite foods from that era. I will never forget the flavor of Made Rite hamburgers in East Moline, Illinois. "Funny Burgers," we called them because the hamburger was loose on the bun and had to be handled carefully. I remember the taste of smoked mullet that I would buy at a place or two when I lived in Tampa. Mullet are rather blah, the flavor is in the sauce applied before smoking but wrapping a lip around one of those that are at the peak of perfection is truly a treat. I had my first boiled peanuts down that way, my first Dixie Lily hush puppies at an event that had attracted the Dixie Lily fry wagon. Ooooh were they ever good. Mangos were new to me then, love at first taste. Tampa was the first place I was able to eat all the avocados I could hold ---- free no less friends who had a tree in their yard would beg us to take some home with us.

A word a smell, a fleeting taste or a reference puts my memory in in passing gear. Memory is about all it is. An 80 year old man whose taste buds are dulled with age, whose smeller was mostly removed when polyps were removed from sinuses still has a sharp memory and can conjure up the taste without having to put a thing in his mouth. Actual taste ? I can usually tell if a food is well seasoned, just by the feel of it in my mouth.

It is not just food either. Someone will mention Vaudville, bingo -- it was still going when I was little and I was thrilled with it. Someone will mention the piano up front in the movie theater in constant play while the movie was showing and I will remember the pianist evoking all kinds of moods by his music, and it all fit into the scheme of the movie too. Gosh, I can remember the thundering of the piano during the chase scenes, and roar of it when a herd was stampeding. I remember how soft and sweet the music would become during the tender and sad scenes.

Sometimes one or another of us will mention things about one of the amusement parks here in town and my mind will go on joyful overload, the memories swirling in faster than I can handle them.

We lived not too far from Overland Park down by the Platte River. I used to go to sleep in the summer time with the endlessly circling race cars playing my lullaby.

Near the same Drive the trains would come north or go south and in the winter time it would sound as if they were coming right through our house. Those times their toots seemed to me to be so sad and lonesome as if they were searching for a home that wouldn't be there. Train smoke, oh man, train smoke had the romance of far places and exciting things. Watching a freight train just in to town being switched out, engine pulling a car from the string, backing up past a switch and giving the boxcar a push that would send it down the new track to gently bump a car in the string there. What finesse.

It wasn't just the train smoke in the yards, but steam, oil, grease and creosote all added to the unique aroma of the area behind our Union Station.

Yep, it takes just a word to make me run once more to see the water go Under The Bridge. . . . . . . . .

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