Rutabagas for Ten

By Susan Hanafee

Looking for a quick read to make you chuckle or give you pause, Rutabagas for Ten explores the humorous and sometimes thoughtful side of life in a series of essays and short stories by award-winning former journalist Susan Hanafee.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543980226

Susan Hanafee

Susan Hanafee is an award-winning former journalist whose career as a reporter for The Indianapolis Star spanned three decades. She formerly headed corporate communications for IPALCO Enterprises and Cummins Inc. She resides in southwest Florida. Hanafee's blogs can be found on www.susanhanafee.com. Her previously published books include Red, Black and Global: The Transformation of Cummins (a corporate history); Rachael's Island Adventures (a collection of children's stories); Never Name an Iguana and Rutabagas for Ten (essays and observations on life); Leslie's Voice (a novel) and the Leslie Elliott mystery series, including Scavenger Tides, The End of his Journey and Deadly Winds.

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This book is a commentary on current events, happenings and life in Florida and a collection of short stories by Susan Hanafee, who also writes under the pen name of E. C. Thomas at www.ecthomas.com.

Copyright © 2019 by Susan Hanafee

ISBN (Print): 978-1-54398-021-9

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-54398-022-6

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Table of Contents

About the Author

Rutabagas for Ten

Rutabagas for Ten

Port-a-Potties in Flight?

Will the Real Oprah Step Forward?

Remembering Rita Wright

There Goes Miss America

Cell Phone Idiocy

The Tragic Tiler

Reflecting on the Fourth

The Rats Explain It All

Deciding Our Elderly Fate

The Bottled Water Barometer

Golf Cart News

Cosmetic Counter Faux Pas

Red Tide and EMPs

Facebook and Blind Hogs

Book Cachet

My iPhone Says Muchas Gracias

White Pants Woes

Don’t Mess With Us

Oldies and Goodies

Being There for Friends

Perilous Paradise

No Tentacles for Me, Please

Tribute to a Tightwad

Words with Friends Run Amok

The Real Poop Deck

Failed Workouts

My Shirtless Wonder

As the Memory Lapses

The Doc’s Good News

The Bitmoji Challenge

The State that Ate my Shoes

My Movie Hangover

Farewell to German Cars

My Toothbrush is Smarter Than Yours

The Dark Side

Back Up, Fellow

Ditching the Cheese

The Case of the Missing Cane

Politics As It Always Is

The President Is Writing

Not-So-Silent Skeptic

Native or Not

Silence the Crickets

No More Texts, Mr. D.

Is it Ted Turner’s Fault?

Bring on the Young Blood

Short Tales

Miss Orr’s Life Lessons

String of Pearls

Doris Hopkins’ Window

Stage Four

The Devil’s Road Rage

About the Author

Susan Hanafee is an award-winning former journalist whose career as a reporter for The Indianapolis Star spanned three decades. She formerly headed corporate communications for IPALCO Enterprises and Cummins Inc. She resides in Boca Grande, Florida.

Hanafee sometimes writes under the pen name of E. C. Thomas. She describes him as a former newspaperman who quit his job 20 years ago to look for a spot where happiness and peace prevail. Finding no such place, Thomas ended up living in a beach community where he dusted off his old laptop and began writing.

Hanafee’s blogs can be found on www.ecthomas.com. Her previously published books include Red, Black and Global: The Transformation of Cummins (a corporate history); Rachael’s Island Adventures (a collection of children’s stories); Six Weeks from Tuesday, an E. C. Thomas novel, and Never Name an Iguana, essays and observations on life.

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Rutabagas for Ten

December 30

Rutabagas for Ten

When my dear friend invited us for Christmas dinner, I was anticipating a lovely meal with other couples whose children weren’t visiting for the holidays. The waifs and strays, as my man calls us.

What can I bring? I envisioned my hostess asking for a rich dessert. Or green bean casserole with crunchy onion topping. Or sweet potatoes with brown sugar and melted marshmallows on top.

I was reaching for the scrumptious recipes in my Southern Living Christmas edition when she said: Rutabagas!

Rutabagas? What are rutabagas? I asked.

Bob loves them, she enthused. You boil them and mash them with butter. But be careful. The skin is very tough. Don’t cut yourself with the peeler, honey.

I hung up and went immediately to Wikipedia.

The rutabaga is a root vegetable that originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip. The roots are eaten in a variety of ways, and the leaves can be eaten as a leaf vegetable. The roots and tops are also used as winter feed for livestock, when they may be fed directly, or by allowing the animals to forage the plants in the field.

I’m bringing cow feed to Christmas dinner?

During my next visit to the Publix grocery store, I inquired about the questionable vegetable. Perhaps it was unattainable in the winter. I could only hope.

Alas, an employee directed me to a small stack of rutabagas near the onions and potatoes. They looked like wax-covered softballs with lavender edging. There were eight of them. Pity the poor farmer who planted that crop thinking he’d make a killing.

My friend Candace, standing nearby in a chance meeting, laughed when I picked up one of the orbs and thrust it in front of her, saying, This is what I’m taking to a fancy Christmas dinner. The expression on my face must have said it all.

A rutabaga! My husband loves them, she said.

What is it with these men?

Yeah, but how do I fix them?

They’re kind of stinky, she said, crinkling her noise. Lingering.

Our house is for sale. My mind went to a home showing in which the Realtor and prospective buyers are trying to determine What’s that smell? two weeks after the holiday decorations have been stowed away.

I wonder if I should buy these eight rutabagas now in case there’s a run on them closer to Christmas, I mused aloud. Will they still be fresh?

You can buy them now, Candace said, giggling. I’m fairly confident they have a shelf life of at least 50 years.

I couldn’t bring myself to make the purchase. Instead I returned home and called my friend Marsy, a great cook who makes a fabulous Harvest Salad and knows about things like rutabagas.

How do I cook them without smelling up the house? I asked.

My friend Ellen once shared her recipe for rutabagas. She says you cook ‘em all day and then throw ‘em away, Marsy advised. Open up the windows afterward.

My angst grew as Christmas Day approached. I couldn’t let my friend down. She was counting on me to bring – by this time I could barely say their name – rutabagas for ten.

When December 24 dawned, I headed for the grocery store and filled my cart. My last action was to pay a visit to the bin by the potatoes and onions. The eight rutabagas – still looking inedible – had not been snapped up by some other patron hoping to surprise and delight her family on Christmas Day.

The next morning I got up early and cut up the carrots, turnips, sweet and white potatoes, beets, Brussels sprouts and the rutabagas I’d bought from Publix. I coated the vegetables with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and herbs and stuck them in the oven at 425 degrees.

After 20 minutes, every vegetable passed the fork test for doneness except for the few rutabaga slices that were –predictably – still hard as rocks.

Perfect, I said to myself, as I scooped them off the cooking sheet and into the trash, just as Ellen’s recipe had said to do.

When I arrived at the dinner party, I removed the aluminum foil to reveal my special Christmas dish: L’essence de rutabagas.

Or more commonly known as vegetables that hung out with rutabagas in the oven for 20 minutes and then struck out on their own to create a tasty dish for ten.

It was a Merry Christmas dinner, especially for me.

***

May 7

Port-a-Potties in Flight?

When we drove over the bridge, leaving the southwest Florida island we call home to the vagaries of Hurricane Irma in mid-September, 2017, a thought crossed my mind. What will they do with the port-a-potties?

Based on the number of properties under construction in our area, there could be 60 of the mobile toilets scattered throughout our seven-mile strip of land – too many to collect with short notice. And if they did pick them up where would they put them?

A scenario took shape in my mind. Waves crashing into the shoreline. Wind howling through the palm fronds. Port-a-potties taking flight; their doors flapping in 120-mile wind gusts, tumbling bottom over top, fertilizing the southwest Florida coastline.

I’d always feared that the clay tiles on my neighbor’s roof would be launched like tiny missiles in any strong wind that came our way. Now I pictured the port-a-potty in her front yard for a remodeling project coming to rest in the middle of my driveway. Or worse.

Would my hurricane impact windows stand up to an airborne structure filled with human excrement?

Curiosity got the best of me. I called the sanitation company that distributes thousands of porta-a-potties from Punta Gorda to Bradenton, Florida.

The pleasant woman who answered the phone explained that the mobile restrooms are considered rental equipment and the contractors who use them are responsible for securing them in a storm – even a hurricane.

An exclusive club undergoing renovation work on our island did request that their port-a-potties be collected before the winds picked up. Other than that, the toilets were on their own.

After 10 days of forced evacuation, we returned to a house that was intact and had power. The giant ficus tree in the front had dropped all its leaves but not lost any major branches. And the neighbor’s port-a-potty was as we left it; standing tall next to a large hedge.

A drive through our littered streets revealed similar good news. Except for some landscaping issues, the island had been spared and so had its humble gray port-a-potty brigade.

There were incidents. In front of one home under construction, the neighbor reported that the port-a-potty had scooted eight feet alongside the side of the road but managed to remain upright.

The next street over, another had fallen. And its contents? Not a problem, said the woman who stayed in her house during the storm. I watched ‘em come by and empty that one before the hurricane hit. It was a big relief.

To her and everyone else in the neighborhood, I’m guessing.

***

May 20

Will the Real Oprah Step Forward?

I stopped short at the checkout lane in the grocery store. It was the cover of O Magazine that brought me to a screeching halt and prompted me to reach for my glasses.

That can’t be Oprah Winfrey on the cover, I thought. I peered closer at the attractive, very slim woman in tight jeans, t-shirt and sweater and shook my head. Isn’t Oprah supposed to appear on the cover of every issue of her magazine?

It had to be her, but this was not the Oprah I had seen on television at the Royal Wedding days earlier. The Oprah live at the nuptials of Harry and Megan was resplendent in a pink dress by Stella McCartney. Her very large bosoms and hips to match were cinched into an hourglass figure, and she looked terrific. But she was no size 8 like the woman on the magazine cover. No, not even close.

This was obviously a