HERB BENHAM: My gift to you -- an only slightly smug holiday letter
| Thursday, Dec 15 2011 01:08 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Dec 15 2011 01:10 PM
I tried to remember the rules: Don't brag, don't do a victory dance in the end zone and keep the depressing news to a minimum. Violate the rules and your Christmas letter ends up in the trash or as the object of ridicule during a Christmas dinner.
I wrote the Christmas letter last week. Sue is extra nice to me before she asks me to do it because she realizes that for most people who lack my fluency, it is a chore and a source of exasperation. Have I told you I am a published writer?
We picked up our tree at Bakersfield College. We buy it from the baseball team. One of the team's pitchers helped us choose a tree and then carried it to the truck. I didn't fight him on it.
I asked him what pitches he threw and he listed the usual: fastball, curve and slider.
How about a knuckleball? I said.
No, coach doesn't like us to throw those," he said with a smile.
The knuckleball. That's a good metaphor for life. It's got a whimsical quality. You never know where it's going and just when you think you're parking it over the fence, the ball dips down into the dirt.
How am I doing? This is the non-threatening don't-make-me-work-too-hard introduction to the letter.
We had a good year. Good mainly means decent health, a few laughs and some family time. However, there were a couple of trips, too, but I'll try to go lean on the gloating part because not everybody enjoys our enormous Bill Gates-like affluence.
Note use of the word "good" rather than great. People don't want you to have a great year unless they had an even better one. Assume that they didn't. Somebody died, somebody lost their job and somebody else probably shrunk.
Argentina-Wow. If you go, and we recommend that you do, prepare for a boatload of graffiti and trash in Buenos Aires. That being said, the steak is really amazing. I had steak 12 out of 10 days. It's OK to disdain vegetables; vegetables are like fastballs, they are a dime a dozen.
Now we are testing the limits of Christmas card etiquette by mentioning The Big Trip. Notice how the author soft-pedaled the trip by intimating that it's so dirty you probably wouldn't want to go there anyway. You can see graffiti at the skate park at Beach. You don't have to spend a lot of money that you don't have anyway -- but that we happen to have because we are doing better than you are.
One night, to address the serendipitous quality of the knuckleball, we were walking after dinner toward one of the large squares in Buenos Aires when we heard a glorious soprano followed by a tenor. When we reached the square, there were thousands of people, hundreds of speakers, scores of big screen TVs and in the distance, on the stage, Placido Domingo and friends giving a concert. Magical, unexpected and welcomed.
We aren't good, we are lucky. Seeing Placido Domingo could have happened to anybody. All you had to be was in Argentina at the time and having eaten a fabulous steak while wearing your new leather jacket.
The boys are doing fine. Herbie continues to live in SF, work as bartender at Thermador and write music. He has a nice girlfriend named Kristin, who is learning to play the drums. Is that good or bad?
My kids are not making a lot of money. If yours aren't either, we're in the same boat. Did I mention that we went to Argentina this year?
Thomas works at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and expects to be promoted to a line cook this year. He's happy, works hard and lives simply."
Listen I can't poor-boy this thing forever. Our kids are super-talented. Did I say that Chez Panisse is one of the finest restaurants in the world? Have I mentioned Argentina recently?
Sue is enjoying her job at the hospital as a vice president and chief development officer. She's also happy that Billy Crystal will be returning to host the Oscars and that Bruce Springsteen, with whom she has threatened to run away many times, has announced another tour.
Translation: Sue makes the real money in the family, but I am feeling so good since my Argentinian trip that it doesn't matter.
We are lucky. We hope your year has been tolerable, and if it has been better than that, be grateful.
Don't complain. Even if you can't go to Argentina in a hundred years.
The knuckleball. It floats in every direction.
In other words, the knuckleball was a head fake. I'm throwing heaters. How do you feel about steak?
These are the opinions of Herb Benham, not necessarily those of The Californian. Email him at hbenham@bakersfield.com
