Confessions of a Strawberry Frosted donut addict

Published 4/25/06

I was just a schoolboy bookworm when I read a story—one I will never ever forget—about a donut machine. Honestly, I do forget the title of the story, its plot, its characters, its setting, its impact on the American breakfast.

What I do remember about the book is that from the time I read it, I wanted to work for the donut industry. Whether in donut research, donut development, donut supervision or donut middle management, I knew I wanted to labor within reach of those tasty rings of cooked dough.

Of course, everybody loves donuts. But I…I…idolize, if not deify, donuts. I like to look at them through the bakery cases and push my nose up to the glass. I enjoy window shopping for donuts and experiencing them voyeuristically. I dote on donuts. I am devoured by donuts. I…I…it’s a problem.

And if I can’t blame it on that book, I can point a finger at my beloved grandmother. With her own version of a storybook donut machine, she spoiled me with home-made, deep fried right before your eyes donuts. After which she would place them in a brown sack filled with powder or sugar. She let me do the shaking. I shook for a long time just thinking about the crumbs to come. I still shake from time to time.

To make matters worse, when I arrived at college, now some two or three wars ago, I discovered the pearly gates of a Dunkin’ Donuts outlet just a block from campus. Over the next four years I spent a lot of semester hours at the donut bar, studying the varieties…Apple Crumb, Bavarian Crème, Sugar Raised, Jelly Filled, Blueberry Crumb, Chocolate Frosted, Apple N’ Spice, Chocolate Coconut Cake, Cinnamon, Boston Kreme and, of course, my favorite, Strawberry Frosted.

And then, because there is justice in the world, one of my hallmates began seeing a classmate who worked at Dunkin’. Now I’m not saying there was calculation in his choice of sweethearts. But I knew the guy to have a passion not only for women, but for the Maple Frosted as well. Anyway, when he learned that leftover donuts went to the dumpster on Saturday around midnight, to make room for fresh product, well, he had a weekly date. A few of us always went along to secure the leftovers in garbage bags and to make sure the bags were properly topped off and sealed with a twisty tie. When we returned to our dorm, entrepreneurs that we were, we invited the rest of the hall for a midnight donut sale, charging a quarter for the cake varieties and just a dime for the yeast-based, those being mostly air anyway.

But you know how it is with anything, the first dozen or two are delightful. After that, you think you’ll never eat another donut till…tomorrow. So with one bag of leftovers remaining, we would pitch donuts down the hall in a variation of dodge ball. In Donut Dodge Ball, points were scored when the thrower hit an opponent with a donut or when said opponent caught a donut in his mouth. So you can see why sorting through the practice bag to find the right donut and then rearing back to fire Boston Kreme filled fastballs made for a much more interesting game. And I know what you’re thinking. A jelly filled donut is a terrible thing to waste.

So when I finally graduated into the work world, I could immediately consult with my supervisor on how he could get more bang for his Dunkin’ buck on Friday morning corporate casual and pastry days.

Of course, where there’s justice, there’s injustice waiting in the wings. “Injustice” is what I cried when I was diagnosed with diabetes and had to confront my donut dysfunction. But, now that I’m wearing an insulin pump, it’s simply a matter of counting the carbs per donut, multiplying by 12 and pumping to my blood sugar’s content. True, my insulin pump is now the size of an oxygen tank, but as someone once said, there is no adversity that compares to a life without an Apple Crumb.

And no, I never found my way into donut manufacturing or donut distribution. But that doesn’t keep me from being an end user.

It’s the season to volunteer at the old ballgame

Published 4/11/06

What with stories about Barry Bonds making a mockery of the major league home run record and the Duke University scandal involving the lacrosse boys and a hired stripper, you may be tempted to hide the sports section from the youngsters in your house.

But, in fact, our boys and girls need to read about their spring and summer youth sports options. And they need to know when to head to the firehouse or the community center to sign up. No, this is not an opportunity to get the kids out of the house and out of your hair. Because if you read between the lines of the sports page announcements, you’ll find that that these leagues need moms and dads to make the games happen.

As I’ve read through the youth league announcements this year, I couldn’t help but remember the times when Jesse and I signed up for baseball as father and son, the son preferring infield, the father begging to play anywhere but the umpire position.

We came up through the farm system together, from T-Ball through Babe Ruth. While Jesse rounded the bases, I made my rounds as an unsure base coach, scribbler in the team scorebook, chalker of zigzagging foul lines, concessions clerk and giver of incorrect change, occasional board member, and the official scorekeeper and scoreboard operator ensconced in the tower while praying that the plate umpire wouldn’t have a statistical question. But my favorite role was that of, and this is one the paper can use in my obituary, “dugout dad.”

In the early years, as a dugout dad, I had the responsibility of relaying messages to parents in the bleachers, breaking up minor bench brawls, keeping the reserves occupied, lowering dugout volume from time to time and raising the chins of players who had been asked to sit for a few innings. When we were at bat, it was my job to keep the players seated according to our offensive lineup to prevent anyone from batting out of turn and causing embarrassment to the franchise. I did all this while hiding my ignorance about the difference between a screwball and a knucklehead.

That’s the great thing about volunteering to help with your son’s and daughter’s leagues. More than a game strategist, you just need to be a mother or father who wants your kids to learn to be part of a team, develop some athletic confidence, get aerobic exercise, and master the fundamentals of the grand old game.

Jesse had some good coaches back in the day. I’m thinking now of Keith Etherington and Ron Buckner on the west side and Gary Brown, Matt Goodpaster and Guy Haynes on the east side. Unlike this dugout dad, they had a head for the game. But they taught the kids to love the game first, thereby getting to the head through the heart.

One of Jesse’s first coaches made it clear early on he didn’t want to see any of his players cry. Jesse and I had pretty much made it through the season dry eyed when, in one of the last practices, I was coaching first and caught a bad hop square in the nose. You know that feeling of getting smacked in the schnoz—and how it automatically activates the tear ducts. I wasn’t sure if the no tear policy applied to dugout dads but I suddenly knew I had left something in the car.

In the Madison Avenue league, dugout dads helped mow the diamonds each week during the summer season. So there I was, riding back and forth from left field to center to right with my headphones on listening to my Grand Funk Railroad collection. Suddenly I noticed a couple league officials waving me down from home plate. Unbeknownst to me, the mower’s deck was on fire and I was charring an ugly black logo into the green outfield grass. We suddenly looked like the home of the Los Alamos League. For the sake of the facility, I was promoted to head coach that day.

Well, I don’t think they let civilians mow anymore, what with that being the highly technical and mechanical procedure that it is. But they still let mothers and fathers help with game day operations and the organizing of sunny blue Saturdays so kids can run and play.

In the bargain, dugout dads and moms get the best bench seats in the house.

Tornadic activity, March madness, global warming

Published 4/4/06

Everybody talks about the weather, and I’m quoting here, but nobody does anything about it.

Don’t look at me. I talk—on paper—for a living.

And today I’m a-talkin’ about March weather madness, the baiting of new business to central Indiana, the Global Wacko Weather Liberation Front and little Yorkies twisting in the wind.

Trust me. I’ll pull this together. But first a trip down barometric pressure lane…

In the good ol’ days, when I was a lad, spring was spring, summer was summer, fall was fall and winter was a snowy sled ride down a big icy hill and into the ankles of unsuspecting friends. Then after a normal winter of a ton of snow, you’d have a nice spring season transition with some gentle breezes for lifting kites aloft and some last shoots at the hoop before swinging into baseball season.

Oh sure, into each life—and each planted petunia—a little rain would fall but back then the meteorologists knew how to be fair and reasonable even if their forecast wasn’t fair and mild. And as true Hoosiers we all have fond memories of tornadoes ripping through our towns and relocating our county courthouse in the adjacent county. But in the good ol’ days you always knew that, whatever the existing atmospheric aberration, the weather pattern would snap back into place and conditions would return to normal. Even though the weather page might predict a full week of fog, drizzle and chill, you could tolerate it because a front was moving through Thursday night and Friday would be…“pleasant.” It was a forecast you could depend on.

Nowadays, it seems that by the time Friday arrives, there’s a change in the wind…and the rain…and the soccer ball sized hail. This is not normal.

Case in point: Last week, for example, if I understood the forecast correctly, the prognosticators were calling for a weekend warm up with days that would be partly cloudy—and by implication, one would suspect, partly sunny. Of course, as we all know now, it was partly tornado-y. I suspect this forecast of disinformation is really an international conspiracy to keep those of us who are climate sensitive from committing anarchy when the weather calls for five straight days of both tropical and clinical depressions.

Here’s what worries me: last weekend Indianapolis played host to thousands of NCAA fans from around the country. Oh sure, some of them were seized by March madness, looking to party in the name of collegiate basketball, but others may well have been suits and veeps looking to relocate their businesses in Indy or any of its bedroom communities. Wink! Wink!

So, what happens? Our business prospects are greeted by a hail-filled gully washer, downed power lines, office towers with blown out windows, twisted traffic signals, streets full of debris and toppled trees as 82 mph twisters danced around the Circle. UCLA and Florida fans had to be thinking, “This is not normal.”

And I was thinking, “This cannot help the ailing the Hoosier economy.”

The Indianapolis Star quoted a man who was watching out the window of a restaurant when the first of the major squalls hit. “Two ladies got stuck outside and were pinned up against the building,” he said. “I ran out and grabbed them.”

Yeah right, buddy, go back to Baton Rouge. This is not normal.

Here at home, I put the Yorkie out on the back porch Sunday evening so he could hike a leg. A few minutes later, the lightning and thunder rolled through and he was squawking like a chicken.

This is not normal. They say animals will be the first to relay the signs of global warming.