GOODBYE CURLY TOP

GOODBYE CURLY TOP

Sheryl J. Bize Boutte

February 11, 2014

By the time I saw my first Shirley Temple movie, she had been in the business for almost twenty years.  Starting out as the child star who brought smiles to beleaguered Americans still trying to recover from the Great Depression, she began a new life in, what were by then, old movies for baby boomers like me.  

The little girls I knew in the 1950’s did not see Shirley Temple as a relief or distraction; we saw her as one of our first icons of girlhood.  She was well spoken, smart, inquisitive, and talented.  All the things a girl should be.  She set the tone for us and we followed suit. She was on screen proof that asking questions of adults was not taboo and that curiosity was a way to learn and solve problems.  Even if we did not process it quite that way at the time, it left an imprint along with other things we carried into adulthood.

 It was Shirley who set our little girl fashion trends with the swirly dresses, coveralls and little cardigans.  It was Shirley who made us request Campbell’s tomato soup with animal crackers on a regular basis. It was Shirley who made me beg my parents for tap shoes until they gave in.  I could not dance a lick, but I remember my father’s best friend Smitty dancing with me up and down the three steps to our front porch just like Shirley did with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.  

But the most endearing memory was her hairstyle.  Those “Shirley Temple Curls” would be why we called her “Curly Top” and  they would be emulated in many forms from the time we first saw them, to this day.   This is me at age four with my mother’s version of the famous coif. 

So it is with the same smile that I wish you safe passage, Curly Top.

 Rest well, my friend.

SELF NUMBER ZERO

Self Number Zero

Sheryl J. Bize Boutte

February 5, 2014

You believe the sun serves

As your personal light

And when the moon comes up

It is merely a reminder from the universe

That you need your rest

You travel through the world

With complete freedom

Riding the wave of distraction

Hiding in the cracks of memory

Pimping the familial

The friend

The weakness

Undetected until you strike

Your smile seduces

Your prowess seals

The manipulation completed

Leaves gaping mouths

Fractured feelings

Closed accounts

Without a care

You continue your quest

To have it all

At our expense

And when we are empty

You will simply move on

Until it is all gone

And as you think it should be

 You are all there is

FOR MY FATHER ON VETERAN'S DAY

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FOR MY FATHER:  NORICK J. “POPS” BIZE

ON VETERAN’S DAY

November 11, 2013

*My father joined the Navy after his father, by then a very wealthy farmer, refused to send him to college.  According to my father, because neither the town of Marksville, La. nor the hospital kept birth records, he was able to go to the parish priest and get a “birth certificate” with a date inserted that would make him old enough to join the military.  While this birth certificate showed him to be 18 years old, in truth my father was only 15 when he went off to war. 

He told me stories of his travels in the Navy and about the beautiful women of the Philippines he met along the way. He even had an album filled with pictures of his Filipino “girlfriends.” This Filipino connection would be the underpinning of his Navy career. But one of the most haunting stories was how he described walking through the ruins of bombed-out Hiroshima and he swore that the metal fragments on the ground were still warm.

Once, while working in the ship’s galley (an assignment he got because the Navy thought he was Filipino and that the French he spoke must have been Tagalog), he could not resist the temptation to steal a slice of the roast being prepared for the Admiral.  He was caught and punished for this lack of judgment; a court martial consisting of a piece of paper in his file with a large red “X.”  When he was discharged from the ship, he was handed his file and promptly tore out the sheet with the “X.”  That was the end of that. 

By the time my father was honorably discharged from the Navy he held the rank of Chief Petty Officer mainly because he was super smart, but also because the Navy never discovered or acknowledged his true ethnicity.

*Excerpted from the book in progress “From Nestier to Oakland, An Ongoing Journey", author Sheryl J. Bize Boutte @2011

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PANCAKES WITH PERSONALITY

PANCAKES WITH PERSONALITY

Sheryl J. Bize Boutte

sjbizeboutte@2013

On a recent New Year’s Eve and my husband, daughter and I decided to satisfy our pancake joneses at the Oakland Grill. * Brunch at this welcoming and homey bistro located in the heart of the Oakland produce section is one of our favorites for the short stack; two stacked pancakes with a choice of sides.

After we had talked and laughed and ate all we could manage, I could not help but notice how our individual personalities were reflected in the way we approached and finished our buttery, syrupy entrees.

My husband, the designer and mathematician’s pancakes are cut precisely down the middle.  He eyeballed it, but I’ll bet you if you measured and could somehow recreate the portion he had already eaten, you would find that each half would be exactly the same size.  A true perfectionist with a creative bent, for him symmetry and neatness with just a little something akimbo mark his life approach. Note the off-center placement of the melon rinds in this pancake still life.

Our daughter, the scientist and artist, approached her pancakes by starting at one edge and moving to the inside.  This is much the same way she conducts experiments; purposely making her way from the outer perimeter to the inner core to find the answer to the question.  All the while she is multitasking, getting a forkful while maneuvering the cakes by removing the top stack to see what lies beneath.  All of this is done with minimal mess and disruption; as smooth as the way she moves through the world.  A colleague once described her as being like a duck: paddling furiously underneath the water while maintaining a silky fluidity on the surface.  She leaves randomly sized pieces and a fork with an asymmetrical lean. She is truly the best of both of us.

I started my pancake with evenly spaced pie cuts, which I approached from the outside.  A true Gemini, I quickly became bored with that and moved toward the center.  I change my mind like that all the time and usually get to the gooey middle of everything right away.  This is the trait that causes people to describe me as a “bottom line” kind of person.  When I look at this picture I think I must have been thinking about seafood because my pancake looks like a giant prawn.

Of course, this is no scientific study.  But it was a fun thing to do. While we differed I how we cut, sliced and left our pancakes on the plates, sharing this meal reminded us of the different ways in which we approach life and situations.   Those differences feed and enrich our relationships and bring joy and vitality to our discourse.  Our individualities joined with our commonalities form the mix that makes us family and at "the grill", community. 

Here’s hoping life brings you pancakes just the way you like them and that you always get to eat them your way

*Oakland Grill

301 Franklin Street

Oakland, Ca  94607

Sjbb 9.2013

A KISS UNDER THE MISTLETOE

MY STORY "THE DRESS" 

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"A KISS UNDER THE MISTLETOE"

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