Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 44

Under the tree in 2010? Beer pong for kids.

They don't make toys like they used to -- which is probably a good thing given some of the spectacularly dangerous toys I savored as a kid. I had numerous near-death experiences as a boy heaving foot-long lawn darts into the air like mortar shells. My friends and I nearly blinded each other when we discovered that my toy robot could fire more from its eyes than the suction cup-tipped projectiles that came with it: We loaded those eyes up with pencils, Bic pens and nails. And then there was the battleship that was supposed to launch hollow plastic, pretend depth charges from a catapult: I figured out early on that the catapult was also strong enough to hurl Lincoln Logs hard enough to dent Sheetrock.

When I visited the Toys 'R Us in Williston and the Toy Shop of Concord, Mass., last month and looked at the hot toys of the 2010 season, I saw no foot-long, skull-crushing projectiles. Here, however, are toys that did catch my eye.

*  Cuponk. The object of this game is to bounce a small ball into a plastic cup, which lights up and makes noise when someone succeeds. It brought back fond memories of my underage drinking in my college fraternity: I can't decide whether Cuponk was inspired by "quarters" or "beer pong," or is meant to teach kids to play them. (Hasbro, $12.99)

*  Nerf N-Strike Stampede Rifle. Just another Nerf gun? Maybe. But it launches a "stream of darts up to 25 feet." The warning on the box is prominent: "CAUTION: Do not aim at eyes or face. TO AVOID INJURY: Use only darts designed for this product. Do not modify darts or dart blaster." I would have loved this as a boy. Thank heavens it didn't exist in 1969. (Hasbro, $49.99)

*  Lego Harry Potter sets. These sets are terrific, especially Hagrid's hut and the Weasley family's burrow. But here is my counsel for parents: Be careful if you only buy one set and your children want to have Harry, Ron and Hermoine figurines to play with. To wit: The set with the Weasley family's home (the burrow), comes with Harry and three Weasleys ... but not Ron. The quidditch match set comes with five figurines, including Harry, but neither Ron nor Hermoine. (Lego, $10.99 to $129.99)

*  Milestones in Science Experiment Kit. When I saw this at the Concord Toy Shop, two grandparents were considering it for their granddaughter. At first blush, this one reeks of the sort of well-intentioned, high-minded, "educational" toy that would have infuriated me when I was a child. The box top is covered with old bald guys with beards from history and a token woman: Marie Curie. But it grew on me when I read more about it, especially since it seems to include everything for a hundred experiments -- except the scientists themselves. (Thames & Kosmos, $89.95)

*  Sing-a-ma-jigs. Envision a small, plush vaguely bear-like creature with a flexible hair scrunchie for a mouth. The voice is a synthesizer on steroids. Of course, to get these bad boys to really rock, you need more than one. Why? They harmonize. So, if you want your own Sing-a-ma-jig batch of Von Trapps, you'll need to bring home an armful. Imagine: A toy company designing a product that works best when you buy more than one. (Fisher-Price, $12.99)

*  Bigfoot the Monster. Bigfoot is a spectacularly ill-behaved remote control monster. I would have loved him when I was three or four. He walks and talks and stomps and burps and, according to the box, throws a tantrum. In other words, he would have been someone I could have identified with when I was a kid. (Fisher-Price, $89.99)

Three final warnings before you pick out the perfect present this season. First, see if the toy needs batteries and whether batteries are included. Second, be prepared with a backup if you find the toy is sold out. Third, be wary of parental elbows. Right now it's a jungle out there in most stores, and even the Nerf Stampede Rifle is no match for moms and dads in the Lego aisles.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on December 5, 2010.)

My father, toughest bird at the table

This was a very special Thanksgiving for me, and not simply because I spent it with my father in Florida who, much to my pleasant surprise, was not dead. There were a lot of close calls in August and September, but my father is, apparently, a vampire.

To wit, on Sept. 13, my daughter and I were visiting a college in Chicago. Right between her tour of the school and her tour of the theater department, I got a call on my cell phone from an ICU nurse in the hospital where my father was supposed to be recuperating nicely. Nope.

ICU NURSE: Is this Chris ... (insert here spectacular, incomprehensible babbling as she tries to figure out how to pronounce my completely unpronounceable last name).

ME: Yup, it's me.

ICU NURSE: I'm calling from the intensive care unit at your father's hospital. We think he just had a coma.

ME: I don't think you have a coma. You have strokes and seizures and heart attacks. Did my father have one of those?

ICU NURSE: We don't know yet. But he may be in a coma.

I am happy to report that he had had none of the above and, in the end, was not even in a coma. He had had a bad reaction to an antipsychotic they had administered. Why were they giving my gentle, good-natured father antipsychotics? As result of what one physician called "hospital psychosis," my 82-year-old dad had suddenly become the Incredible Hulk. Five weeks in the hospital can do that. No one could restrain him, despite the fact he had lost 30 pounds in the month he had been living on IV drips.

There were a lot of those moments where people at the hospital thought my father was off to join his ancestors. And yet five days after this incident, he actually went home to his condominium. ("Home," in this case, is not a euphemism for anything.)

So, my family and I just had Thanksgiving dinner with him at his country club. Yes, this is the very same country club where in August I was busted by the Elderly Fitness Police for using the weight room. Especially diligent readers will recall that two of the country club's finest escorted me from the premises as if I had just been arrested on "Law and Order," because I am not a member but still had the audacity to lift a few weights while my dad was in the hospital.

Earlier this week, I asked my father if it was going to be OK for him to be seen celebrating Thanksgiving with me -- a noted criminal -- at the country club. "Or," I wondered, "will it be like dining with John Dillinger in Chicago in 1933? Will everyone in the room know that I'm a hardened fitness club criminal, but tolerate me as a renegade outlaw?" Maybe it would be just like when Johnny Depp took Marion Cotillard to a hot Chicago nightclub in the movie, "Public Enemies." After all, just about every single person who belongs to my dad's country club had been alive in 1933.

My dad said it would be fine. His big concern was that my family is vegetarian, and the country club confuses tofu with nuclear waste. They sure as heck weren't serving Tofurky.

"It's OK," I said. I reminded him of how well I had eaten when the two of us had dined together at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Miami in February. I had creamed spinach and mashed potatoes, and he had filet mignon and a heart attack. I'm not kidding. He really did have a heart attack three weeks later. There may not have been a cause-and-effect, but the whole experience was still a little too close to patricide for my tastes.

Yet my father was back in that country club gym by April. And this past Thursday, he really was the toughest old bird at the Thanksgiving table -- and that is something for which I was very, very grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on November 28, 2010.)

We All Have Stuffing to Be Thankful For

The big story this month -- other than 4,500 cruise ship passengers having to eat peanut butter instead of lobster as their powerless boat was tugged back to San Diego -- was the midterm elections. The cruise ship story would have been much bigger than the midterm elections if the boat had drifted back to 1965 and everyone had wound up on Gilligan's Island. Arguably, they would have been better off there than on the U.S. mainland. On Gilligan's Island, there was bipartisan agreement and everyone worked together with laser beam-like focus to achieve one goal: Hook up Gilligan and Mary Ann and start repopulating the island.

I am, of course, exaggerating: There were political tensions aplenty on Gilligan's Island. If there had been actual bipartisan agreement, the Howells would have used their monumental resources to help the Professor transform bamboo and coconuts into an airplane, instead of merely inventing irons and juicers.

In any case, the other big story this past month was the revelation that Marilyn Monroe left behind a mighty tasty Thanksgiving stuffing recipe.

Apparently -- to paraphrase a classic line from a classic musical -- she really could cook, too.

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and there are many things as a nation for which we should all be grateful. But it is also worth recalling that President Abraham Lincoln viewed the holiday as a day of atonement "for our national perverseness."

Just for the record, it was 1863 and when our 16th president used the expression "national perverseness," he was not referring to the way millions of Americans watch "Dancing with the Stars" every week hoping desperately for a wardrobe malfunction or nipple slip. (This is also the reason that everyone other than my mother-in-law watches the Olympic pairs figure skating competition.) First of all, we should all be thankful that we live in a democracy in which we even have midterm elections. My sense is that there are a lot of North Koreans who would view me as pretty darn petty for whining that the recorded voices of Jim Douglas, Peter Shumlin and Penny Dubie were calling me constantly in the month of October and asking for my vote. (As my wife once wondered, "Does a robo-call ever change anyone's mind?") Frankly, if you live in North Korea and own a telephone and Kim Jong-il is on the other end, you are in very big trouble.

We should also be grateful that we are, by the standards of the rest of the globe, a spectacularly wealthy country. At the same time, the fact that a lot of us are willing to spend thousands of dollars a year on a cable or dish TV plan so we can watch "Sex and the City 2" or "Piranha 3D" on demand while there are 1.5 million homeless children in America should give us all pause.

We should be thankful that Florida hasn't yet been swamped by rising seas or Los Angeles by one cataclysmic tsunami. The Earth hasn't kicked humans off it just yet. It might in the next century if we don't get our act together and listen to people like Bill McKibben and Al Gore. But our stay of execution won't last forever.

Other small bits of good news? Britney Spears' parents have reconciled. Lindsay Lohan's parents have not. Prince William is getting married. Snooki is not. And Helena Bonham Carter has returned this week as Bellatrix Lestrange in the latest installment of the Harry Potter cinematic saga.

Perhaps this coming year we should combine appreciation and atonement and strive to be civilized. Me, too. I could have named names when I made fun of "Dancing with the Stars," but I didn't. And that's a start.

Now, go google Marilyn Monroe's stuffing -- excuse me, her stuffing recipe.

Happy Thanksgiving.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on November 21, 2010.)

Between a Rock and a Hard(ware) Place

A lady comes into the Ace Hardware Store on North Avenue in Burlington, tracks down a can of bug spray, and approaches Steve Audette, one of the more knowledgeable and experienced employees there. "Is this good for ants?" she asks him. "No," Audette says, shaking his head thoughtfully, "It will kill 'em."

This is one of the two reasons why I love hardware stores: Most of the people who work there have a pretty good sense of humor. It seems to come with the job description. The other reason? You just never know what you'll find in a hardware store. "We sell everything," says Martin Clark, owner of the Martin's hardware stores in Bristol and Middlebury. "Our Radio Shack section is always a surprise to people coming in here for the first time," he says. "But we sell greetings cards, skeet shooter toy games, pet toys, pig ears."

I've been to the local hardware store a lot lately, though not for the pig ears. I'm a vegetarian. Besides, Clark insists that the pig ears are for dogs. In any case, the leaves have now fallen, which means it's time to winterize my house -- a giant, upside-down colander when it comes to heat.

It was built in 1898, when Vermonters must have been a lot heartier than we are now. To wit: Before my wife and I put heat on the second floor just before our daughter was born, the bedroom windows would ice over on the inside some winter months. It was like living inside a snow globe.

According to the hardware store managers and employees I spoke with, some people are pretty determined when it comes to keeping their house toasty in the winter. Bill Darby, manager of the Aubuchon Hardware Store in South Burlington told me, "One time, a customer wanted foam board to put over the glass windows of his house. They didn't need light, but they needed warmth. He said the lights were on inside in the winter anyway."

There's also a shopping pattern when it comes to winterizing, a level of escalation that is not unlike the way some consumers tackle a mouse problem. (Just for the record, one way not to tackle a mouse problem is by renting one of my cats. I have five, and my sense is that a mouse would have to come between them and their spots before the woodstove before they would bother to catch it.) Nick Spina, who works at the Bibens Ace Hardware in Essex, explains it this way: "People come in for mousetraps. Their first trip, they buy a no-kill or Havahart trap. Then a few days later they're back for the ones that will terminate the mice." Often the process is similar when it's time to hunker down against the cold: It takes a couple of trips to the hardware store to get everything you need.

Jan Hemsted, who works with Spina, has also had to counsel costumers who thought they might solve their heat loss problems with a little spray foam insulation: "People will squirt it next to a door, and the next thing you know they have sealed the door shut when it swells up." And so they come back for advice.

It will certainly take me a few visits before I'm done winterizing. Clark insists that "most window insulation kits are foolproof now," but he's never seen me work. Once, a few years ago, I thought I'd done a pretty good job with the plastic on a glass porch window, only to have one of my cats claw through it in search of a cluster fly the moment I'd finished.

So, I imagine I'll see a lot of the hardware store in the coming days. And I fully expect I'll do some holiday shopping there, because you really never know what you'll find. I just know I won't be buying pig ears.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on November 14, 2010,)

A holiday still worth saluting

Sixty-six years ago this autumn, Hal Mayforth was a sergeant with the U.S. 4th Armored Division, fighting his way through France. He was part of a platoon that would eat Thanksgiving dinner that month in a barnyard rank with manure and lined with coffins. According to a letter he wrote his parents at the time, however, it actually was a pretty good meal: "Everyone in the troop is presently so stuffed with turkey, cranberries, potatoes, carrots, peas, applesauce and pineapples that the third army will be unable to clock off its daily five kilometers."

Before joining the Army, Mayforth had grown up in Burlington and played football at the University of Vermont. He will turn 90 this coming February. A widower, he lives now with his daughter in Bristol.

Mayforth doesn't consider himself a hero. Few soldiers do. But the reality is that he was a first-rate scout, and continued in that role even while acting as a platoon leader. He fought for eight-and-a-half months -- including the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 -- until, on March 1, 1945, he was shot in his right thigh and forearm while covering his platoon as they fell back across a meadow under fire.

"Mayforth was our Ben Johnson," wrote John DiBattista in his World War II memoir, "The Long Road," meaning that Mayforth was like the scouts in "those old John Wayne cavalry movies." Mayforth, DiBattista recalled, would halt the column, survey tracks in the dirt or mud road, and determine right away whether they were from an armored car, a tank, or merely a Volkswagen.

Thursday is Veterans Day: The holiday always falls on the 11th, because the armistice for the First World War went into effect at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918: 11-11-11. For most of my life, we haven't viewed the day with the respect that President Wilson imagined we would when he proclaimed the first Armistice Day nearly a century ago. There are a variety of reasons for that, but the primary ones are the scars wrought on the national psyche by the Vietnam War.

History is cyclical, however, and my sense is that once again we are approaching the work of our veterans with the reverence it deserves. First of all, we are realizing that the Greatest Generation -- men and women such as Hal Mayforth -- is growing smaller. Most veterans of World War II are on the far side of 84. We know our time with them is short.

Second, there are the younger veterans who served in two wars in Iraq in the last generation and are now fighting the Taliban in places in Afghanistan that most of us can name but seldom pinpoint on a map (Exhibit A: Kandahar). Since we have been fighting in Afghanistan for nine years this autumn, the odds are good that most of us know someone who has been there -- or, tragically, someone who died there. There is also a moral authority to our work in Afghanistan that has reassured us all: We are building schools in the country and ensuring that girls can attend. We are trying to make certain that soccer on the Sabbath is not a capital offense. In September, this newspaper's Sam Hemingway and Ryan Mercer showed us exactly that -- and more.

And right here at home, next month on West Canal Street in Winooski, the Committee on Temporary Shelter will have finished construction on its apartment complex for Vermont veterans. "We want to make sure that Vermont's veterans are honored for their service -- that they have the housing and support they need to make the difficult transition back home," COTS Executive Director Rita Markley says.

Consequently, this Thursday I will say a prayer for our veterans right now overseas. And when I am eating my cranberries and Tofurky on Thanksgiving, I will be thankful that 66 years ago a guy like Hal Mayforth was willing to celebrate his Thanksgiving in a barnyard in northern France.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on November 7, 2010.)

There's still time to find your inner cereal killer

One Halloween, Maree Gaetani, director of public relations at Gardener's Supply, dressed up in a brown shirt and brown tights, smeared brown paint on her face, and strapped a Teddy bear to her head. She was (drum roll, please) Winnie's poo. This will always be among my favorite Halloween costumes ever, and not simply because it has allowed me to use the word "poo" in this column.

This year I asked readers to share with me costumes that they felt might top Gaetani's. The following are some of the responses. Not only are they brilliant in a "Winnie's poo" sort of way, some can still be cobbled together in time for tonight.

Kym R. Lindsey: "My favorite costume is simple but effective. A guy I knew tied a box of Cheerios around his chest and drove a knife through it. He was a cereal killer."

Elaine Steele Maynes: "A friend from Bristol wore fishnets, a short skirt, a tight sweater, and tons of cheap makeup. She teased her hair and wore the Chevy logo as a necklace. Her costume? She was a Chevy pickup!"

Robin Mayer: "A lazy friend in middle school put on a suit, grabbed a flashlight, and told everyone he was an usher."

Kristin Efman Reynolds: "During the heyday of the Cabbage Patch doll craze, my mom made me a giant cabbage costume. Not the doll. Just a giant cabbage." (I should note that Kristin is my cousin in Georgia and so the mother in question is my aunt. As I recall from my childhood, my Aunt Karin baked an awesome chocolate chip cookie. So, in all fairness, it wasn't all cabbage, all the time.)

Brighid Moret: "I have a friend who is 6 feet 8 inches. One year he showed up at a party dressed mostly in black, and when we accused him of not coming in costume, he protested and pointed to his legs. He had purchased two children's costumes and cut holes in them, and then strapped them to his legs from the knees down. 'I'm two trick-or-treaters,' he explained."

Anthony Connolly: "Wear all black, tape colorful balloons all over your body, and cover in clear plastic sticky wrap. Ta-da: You're a bag of Jelly Beans."

Deb Mager Rickner: "When I was eight months hugely pregnant, I went to a grown-up Halloween party as Hester Prynne, complete with the scarlet A. My hubby went as the minister, complete with collar. And one year -- many years later -- our daughter, Hannah, went as Moaning Myrtle. She had a Hogwarts robe, some ghostly gauze over her head, and a toilet seat around her neck. We did buy her a new toilet seat; we didn't recycle an old one."

Amy Wiedenbeck Nash: "When my son, Nicholas, told everyone, 'My mom can make anything!' you bet I'd figure out a way to create any Halloween costume he wanted. So when he wanted a shark swallowing a man, he got one." Amy sent me a photo. It's terrifying, a nightmare straight out of "Jaws."

Kerry Skiffington: "This is just sad: I got dressed up as Rod Stewart one year, complete with gunk in my hair to make it wild and tight leggings. No one recognized me/him, and when I did explain, only the grandmas knew who he was."

Stephanie Takes-Desbiens: "Go to a party with semiconductor engineers. Did you know that you can make a costume representing a differential equation? And that other engineers will not only get it, but they'll think it's funny?"

Carole Goldberg: "I went to a party where a guy showed up dressed in white, with glasses with black lenses and a white-tipped cane. He would speak only in Italian, because he was a Venetian, blind."

Mary McLoughlin Guarino: "I work with kids, so this year I am thinking of hot-gluing Smarties candy all over my pants. Yeah, you guessed it: Smarty pants!"

I'll be handing out the candy tonight in Lincoln, and this year there won't be any bouillon cubes masquerading as caramels. I promise. Happy Halloween.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on October 31, 2010.)

The Superfund site in the closet

The other day my wife attacked another Superfund cleanup site in our house. (No, this has nothing to do with one of our five cats' litter boxes or the turd hockey arena the animals have constructed in the first floor bathroom.) She opened the very scary door to the corner closet beside a couch in our den to see what precisely we had amassed inside there in the nearly quarter- century we have lived in Lincoln.

Over the years, one or both of us have attempted what the Environmental Protection Agency refers to as "environmental remediation" in other parts of the house or the barn. To wit, one weekend we transformed the unruly skyscrapers of decades-old "Vermont Life" magazines that came with the house into attic insulation. (In other words, we laid them on the floor like tile.) Another day we borrowed a friend's pickup and carted to the town dump the great plains of Congoleum vinyl sheets that once upon a time had covered the bedroom floors in the house, but now were resting upright in our barn like theatrical flats.

And now my wife was tackling the closet.

I should note that this closet is not especially accessible because we have put a couch right beside it, so the door barely opens. This is called feng shui for the decorating-challenged.

The result is that we tend to store things there that we might someday need, but probably not any day in our lifetime. It hasn't been cleaned or the items inventoried since before our daughter was born, and she is a senior in high school.

The following is a short list of what my wife found there:

- Thirty six nylon tote bags, many from bookstores which have, sadly, gone the way of the village blacksmith. Most of these she pitched, but a few had sentimental value and so they went back into the closet when she was done. Those included one from Bristol's long-lost Deer Leap Books and the one from Oprah's Book Club that came with a novel about a midwife on trial for manslaughter. In addition, there were 33 paper shopping bags from department stores and 17 party or gift bags.

- Four sets of computer, keyboard and printer covers -- 12 items altogether. Does anyone even use computer covers anymore? The covers themselves were interesting from both an antiquarian and a spatial perspective. Apparently I once owned a personal computer shaped a bit like a Mini Cooper.

- A big bag of birdseed from a supermarket that no longer exists. The seeds had been devoured by mice, but plenty of shells remained.

- The purses and pocketbooks our daughter used to take to preschool during the Clinton presidential administration. Here was a surprise: They were all Barbie pink.

Inside one of them was a neon purple bubble wig from Old Gold, circa 1998.

- Three shopping bags of photos from 1994, 1995 and 1996. Between the birth of our daughter and the death of my mother, we never got around to putting them in albums. And there was a surprise here, too: Back then I had hair. My forehead had not yet become a rentable bill board.

- The instruction and warranty cards for coffeemakers, irons, and VCRs long gone, as well as the box that came with the first cell phone I ever owned. Judging by the box, the cell phone was the size of a sneaker.

- Cat toys. Lots of cat toys.

- Our daughter's feather boas from her dress-up trunk, all of which were discolored and molting and -- I have a feeling -- had served as a nest for mice. There was also an American Girl bed and mattress that I am pretty sure had most recently been a pillow for a bat, a squirrel or Boo Radley.

- A Raffi videocassette. Tossing it in the closet was not my finest hour as a dad, but I had probably heard Baby Beluga one time too many.

Completing the project gave my wife an enormous sense of satisfaction -- and it gave us both a great many memories. I can't wait to see what we find in there in 2025.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on October 24, 2010.)

Pumpkin Picasso Shares Her Secrets

There are a lot of reasons why the Celts of old used to carve pumpkins this time of year and use them as lanterns, but the main one was that it was really hard to hollow out a tomato. My wife's family is part Scottish, and so I am a little familiar with ancient Celtic traditions. Once, the two of us went to Scotland to learn more about her clan. In a store that sold kilts and sweaters to tourists, we were told that her ancestors were known for being fierce warriors, but not especially good ones. Apparently they lost a lot.

In any case, Halloween is two weeks from today, which means now is the time to carve your jack-o'-lantern if you want it to shrink to the size of a tomato by Halloween and become a shrunken head on your front porch. Now those bad boys are scary.

And even if you don't want to carve your pumpkins for another week or so, it's not too early to start thinking about your pumpkin pattern -- what you want your jack-o'-lantern to look like. (As a point of information, the jack-o'-lantern is not named after the actor Jack Nicholson, though his smile can be deeply disturbing, especially when he's in a movie like "The Shining" or the Los Angeles Lakers are losing.) My Lincoln neighbor, Judy Brown, is a real talent when it comes to the fine art of the pumpkin. When her son was younger, she would exquisitely carve eight to 10 pumpkins every year as Halloween neared and line her front steps with them. When my daughter was born in 1993, she carved what she says to this day is one of her favorites: A remarkably detailed and vivid baby carriage.

Here are some of her tips on how you, too, can become a Picasso of the Pumpkin.

"Although you can't go wrong with a jack-o'-lantern with triangle eyes and nose and a smiling mouth with three teeth, don't be limited to the traditional standbys," she said. "Think about bats and cats. And we have enough scary stuff in the world: Go with the whimsical, too." In other words, this Halloween consider a Christine O'Donnell pumpkin. O'Donnell is the Republican candidate for a U. S. Senate seat in Delaware, and she is both whimsical and scary. She also admitted on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" that she once "dabbled in witchcraft," so she is a particularly appropriate choice.

Brown also suggests "letting the pumpkin warm up before you carve it, rather than starting work on it after it has been sitting around outside on a 40-degree October day." The reason? "The goo can turn your hands numb in a matter of minutes." I know what she means. When my daughter was very little and I didn't want her handling a serial killer quality knife, I would suggest she take responsibility for pulling out the cold, slimy pumpkin guts. I thought this was being a good parent; she thought this was child abuse. I think she was right.

Brown also likes the patterns in the carving kits that are sold in stores. One safety tip? "Be sure you actually saw with the little saws that come with the kits, otherwise you will break the blades." In other words, don't try and use them the way you might a knife. She says she broke a lot of those saws when she was carving eight to 10 pumpkins a year. In addition, she recommends against wasting any time at all with the plastic scoops that come with the kits. Use a sturdy serving spoon instead.

Finally, Brown says to "borrow a child or two if you don't have one of your own at home anymore. It makes the process a whole lot more enjoyable."

She's right. Kids are great -- especially if, unlike me, you can convince them to reach inside and clean out the pumpkin guts.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on October 17, 2010.)

Life in plastic, it's fantastic

Parents can be divided very precisely into two categories: There are those who believe the Barbie Doll is the anti-Christ, a plastic Satan who gives girls eating disorders, low self-esteem, and an unhealthy obsession with stiletto heels.

And then there are the moms and dads who view the doll as, well, a doll. It may or may not empower their daughters into believing they can be super hot astronauts when they grow up, but it does kill a lot of time that might otherwise be spent with the Olsen twins. Just for the record, in my opinion neither of the Olsen twins is Satan either, although I'm also not sure I would have hired them as either detectives or fashion stylists.

My wife and I fall into the latter category when it comes to Barbie. We never had any objection to her. We objected to her shoes, but only because they are small and sharp and we stepped on way too many of them in our bare feet. But in the late 1990s, my wife and I spent a lot of time playing Barbies with our daughter -- and figuring out the most outlandish sex positions possible with the different dolls when our daughter wasn't looking. It made the Dream House a lot more interesting. And we were honestly saddened when our daughter packed her Barbies up and exiled them to the attic. It meant both that she was growing up and we could no longer violate Barbie blue laws.

All of these memories came pouring back when I read Tanya Lee Stone's absolutely delightful new book for young adults, "The Good, The Bad, and the Barbie." Stone is the South Burlington writer who has helped young adults learn more about the first women to be considered for the space program ("Almost Astronauts"), Ella Fitzgerald ("Up Close: Ella Fitzgerald"), and Elizabeth Cady Stanton ("Elizabeth Leads the Way").

The book is an unauthorized history of the doll "and her impact on us." It is rich in interesting minutiae and anecdotes about the doll, and filled with photographs that will intrigue any baby boomer -- many by Hinesburg's Karen Pike, using Barbies from the collection of St. Michael's theater professor, Peter Harrigan.

Stone insists that she never played with Barbies as a little girl, but she sure did her homework, both in terms of her secondary research into the doll's history and the numbers of adults and teenagers who shared with her their recollections.

Among my favorite stories Stone shares? There is a section about the ways artists, musicians, filmmakers and jewelers have used Barbie in their work, including Deborah Colotti's creation "Queen Size Barbie," and Ken Goldberg's and Tiffany Shlain's film, "The Tribe." There's a revealing chapter titled "Banning, Bashing, and in the Buff," which explores the creative ways some children (and, apparently, their parents) play with Barbies.

"I was playing 'nudist colony Barbie' ... with another neighbor friend. Barbie abandoned all her fancy outfits and was vacationing in a nudist colony," recalls one woman Stone heard from in her research.

And then there are all the details that have marked Barbie's ups and downs since Ruth Handler introduced her at a toy fair back in 1959: The Barbies that rocked ("Midge") and the Barbies that failed (the 1986 Astronaut Barbie in her pink, puffy sleeves and "Flash Dance" leggings). There are stories of humans so obsessed with the Barbie look that they resort to cosmetic surgery to replicate the doll (Cynthia Jackson).

And, of course, the book explores why so many young girls have spent so much of their childhood with Barbie: The aspirational nature of the doll, and the way that Barbie can be an astronaut on Monday and a fairy princess on Tuesday.

And, yes, a nudist on Wednesday.

As the Danish pop group, Aqua, sang in "Barbie Girl," their biggest American hit, "Life in plastic, it's fantastic."

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on October 10, 2010.)

Big Easy Gets the Big Cheese

When someone asked mountain-climbing legend George Mallory in 1923 why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, allegedly he replied, "Because it's there."

Indeed, the "because it's there" drive within us all has compelled individuals throughout history to push the envelope of human accomplishment. Without it, Johnny Knoxville and the "Jackass" crew would not have tried to drive a rocket-powered shopping cart, Lindsay Lohan would not be angling for the worst celebrity mugshot ever, and Betty White would not be striving to become the world's oldest cougar.

The Guinness Book of World Records exists because of humankind's desire to boldly go where no person has gone before.

Sometimes, however, there is actually more than mere hubris behind the longing to be the biggest, fastest or dumbest, or setting the record for most drunken, incomprehensible tweets from a nightclub at three in the morning.http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/

To wit, take Vermont's Cabot Creamery. Late last month in New Orleans, on Sept. 23, Cabot produced the world's largest mac and cheese: It was 2,100 pounds, including 286 pounds of Cabot cheese, 575 pounds of cooked macaroni, 1,100 pounds of milk, 56 pounds of butter, 61 pounds of seasonings, and 26 pounds of flour (supplied by Vermont's own King Arthur Flour). This smashed the old record, which was a lightweight 414 pounds. They cooked it at lunchtime in the Big Easy's Fulton Square.

I am a big fan of mac and cheese and applaud what Cabot and renowned Louisiana chef John Folse accomplished. First of all, they used a cast iron kettle from 1797 to make a batch of mac and cheese big enough to serve all of Bristol and Lincoln. That's impressive. They also had NBA cheerleaders and roller derby dames ladling out the mac and cheese once it was cooked, and we all know that pretty girls and complex carbohydrates mix well together.

But it's actually the story behind the Paul Bunyan-size kettle of carbs that I found most appealing, a tale that -- like so many New Orleans stories these days -- goes back five years to Hurricane Katrina. According to Roberta MacDonald, senior vice president for marketing at Cabot, after Katrina devastated the city, Folse called Cabot and said if the company sent food, he'd prepare it. "In three days, thanks to many New England food companies and our trucking company, Cabot sent three truckloads of food to New Orleans," MacDonald recalled.

Five years later, when Cabot decided to go for the mac and cheese record, they decided to partner once again with Folse -- and with New Orleans. An all-you-can-eat helping of the massive mac and cheese cost a person $5 and all proceeds went to the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity. Leftovers were given to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans. And the meals were served in colorful ceramic bowls made by hand at the Magnolia School, a nonprofit organization that works with adults with developmental disabilities. "The (bowls') simple beauty was a real bonus to the event," MacDonald said.

Cabot also holds the record for the world's largest grilled cheese sandwich: In 2000, they were responsible for a 5 foot by 10 foot sandwich that weighed in at 320 pounds. That creation was produced in Everglades City, Fla.

I asked MacDonald if the company had any plans to try to topple a cheese record here in the Green Mountains. "We did contemplate the World's Largest Cheese Ball, and rolling it down one of our ski slopes, but somehow that just didn't sound real tasty -- and both of our records were truly tasty," she answered.

Still, I hope someday Cabot will set a record here in Vermont.  The world's largest cheese fondue hails from Wisconsin and began with 1,250 pounds of cheese and 12 kegs of beer. We can top that. Likewise, the world's largest cheese blini and cheese quesadilla are ripe for the taking. Sure, the price might be an angioplasty. But I love my cheese -- and I celebrate the great work that Cabot accomplished last month in New Orleans.http://www.cabotcheese.coop/

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on October 2, 2010.)