Monthly Archives: July 2012

Social Media

It’s just a popularity contest

I’m taking a break from blogging this month and sharing some words from friends, some posts from the past and other assorted bric-a-brac. Here’s a list of the Top 10 Most Visited Posts at ButterscotchSundae.com!

  1. “Four fun places in Atlanta to visit with your kids.”
    February 23, 2011. That was a fun trip.

  2. “The schoolroom is starting to take shape.”
    August 9, 2010. The room didn’t stay that way for very long.

  3. “How to choose a baseball team.”
    March 3, 2011. A lot of people Google that very phrase.

  4. “On loneliness, ice skating champions and bed assembly.”
    January 31, 2011. Something else people Google frequently? The Ikea Kura bed.

  5. “Things to do by 2018.”
    March 10, 2008. It was the beginning of my Mighty List.

  6. “Exaggerations and silver linings.
    June 3, 2011. The one in which I do not explain how to build a Rapunzel tower, much to the disappointment of all the people Googling it, I’m sure.

  7. “What kindergarten looks like at our house.
    August 3, 2010. I’ll need to write a revised version of this one this year, when Pete starts kindergarten.

  8. “Things to do with the kids this summer.”
    May 1, 2012. We’re doing pretty well on the list so far.

  9. “How to quiet a cough.”
    February 18, 2009. I still use the VapoRub trick. This is also the second most-searched phrase that brings people here. (The first is “butterscotch sundae.”)

  10. “In which I begin dating my husband again.” February 16, 2010. We never did finish that project.
Family matters

Confessions of a Hall Boy done good

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Today’s Summertime Rewind guest writer is a close friend of the Butterscotch Sundae family. Rockford and I went to high school with Don, and now he and his family live less than 2 miles from us. Don is in a lot of our summer memories, but none of them involve quite as much cole slaw, grease and debauchery as the story you’re about to read.

It all started the day I decided to begin work during the summer of 1990 at the age of 13. It was a tough decision in June of that year. It also violated child labor laws.

You see, my friend James and his family had tickets to see an Atlanta Braves / San Diego Padres game in Atlanta. Me? I decided to skip the game and begin work at a restaurant in North Georgia. Getting paid cash under the table was not something I was familiar with, but it spent. And that was more important than baseball at the time, even though the Cubs were coming off a division championship.

I was the restaurant’s official Hall Boy — which I assumed at the time was some rite of passage that would pay dividends in the form of lots of chicks, a Grand Prix with a built-in CD player and subwoofer, a pair of Oakley’s and a Starter jacket, and enough cash to buy all the baseball cards and Grateful Dead bootlegs I wanted from the nearby Flea Market.

I wore a black Mark Grace t-shirt and a pair of jeans to work that first day. They were ruined.
Continue reading Confessions of a Hall Boy done good →

Reading

I wonder how you make kudzu jelly

I’m taking a break from blogging this month and sharing some words from friends, some posts from the past and other assorted bric-a-brac. This post, written by Rockford, was originally published on July 27, 2008, as “Green, mindless, unkillable ghosts.”

"Triumph of the Kudzu" by John Perkins

Where I grew up, kudzu is inescapable.

At this time of year the trees along the highway stop being trees and they become big green shapes, as if someone threw a leafy tarp over all the oaks. Some of them look like other things, like oversized animals with a general shape but no real detail. Like looking at clouds miles and miles away that look like dragons or clowns or something. This is summer in the Southeast, where kudzu is king.

Some people I grew up with actually found uses for kudzu besides “erosion control,” which it was originally brought to the region to help with. Some old ladies at the local flea markets would use the big rubbery vines to make baskets or other such things. Other capitalist ventures included using the blossoms to make kudzu jelly. It tasted a lot like grape jelly to me.
Continue reading I wonder how you make kudzu jelly →