"Ginger or Mary Ann?" That was the choice posed at the end of dang near every listener's call to Tommy Smith's Magic 105 morning radio show.
It was a drive-time radio show that was funny, informative, controversial, and, OK ... perhaps a little sophomoric at times. But sophomoric in a wonderful way. Unlike the plethora of "Buffy and Kip" airheads that dominate the local Little Rock radio spectrum today, Tommy was, by comparison, college sophomoric. Einsteinian even. Buffy and Kip--prepared prepubescence.
Oh, how he would launch into a tirade when wannabe redneck sports aficionados would dare challenge him on some statistic, team, or obscure sports trivia that only the most ardent jock junkie could possibly know. The well-deserved comeuppance zipped from his brain to his mouth on a synaptic superhighway at lightning speed. I'm not a sports guy, but I loved it when he did that ... the sports thing.
But the best part of those call-ins was the closing. With his trademark deadpan monotone, the masterful Mr. Smith would conclude with "AMF." Most callers knew. His apostles of the airwaves. His posse of the preposterous. His true amigos. We would simply reply, "AMF." If you don't know what it meant, my email is at the bottom.
Back to "Ginger or Mary Ann?" In a subliminal way, Tommy was telling all of us that life is filled with choices. Some perhaps not as blatantly simple as choosing who is more babe-a-licious--Ginger or Mary Ann (from the old Gilligan's Island). Sometimes we are challenged to make much more complex choices. Philosophical choices. Moral choices. Choices that carry with them dire consequences: "Guilty or not guilty" when we are selected to perform our civic duty and serve on a jury. That elemental choice can, and oftentimes does, bring about life-altering if not life-ending consequences. Democrat or Republican? Witness our national dilemma earlier this month. Talk about life-altering.
Ford or Chevy. Packers or Cowboys. Ned Perme or Ed Buckner. Yes indeed, life constructs options that challenge our intellectual capacities at any given juncture. Dire consequences lurking.
Perhaps no decision we shall ever be called upon to make carries more weight at this time of year than the one suggested in today's title--dark or white? We're not talking about piano keys, bread, or ethnicity here. No, we're talking about the life-altering choice that, once made, divides us into one of two culinary camps. Of course, we're talking about meat. Or more specifically--turkey meat. Dark or white?
Researchers have found that many of the choices we make as adults mirror those of our parents. Your daddy drive a Ford? You're probably gonna drive a Ford. Your momma wear tight leather skirts? Chances are good that you're probably gonna wear tight leather skirts. Your sister will probably wear them too. Your folks Buddhist? Presbyterian? Baptist? Or Snake-Eater? You're probably Buddhist, Presbyterian, or Baptist. Or an aficionado of snake meat. And so--by extension of the preceding line of logic--do your folks prefer dark or white? Then you will probably prefer the same. And there you go. Your choice of breast or thigh is darn near a religious experience.
The white-meat camp has been perniciously gaining ground on us dark-siders. In no small part the blame falls to the food industry itself. Everything from chicken tenders to chicken soup. Zaxby's to Wendy's. Nearly every poultry dish that the "industry" serves up falls to the white-meat camp. God bless Popeye's and KFC. Dark-meat purveyors of the palate-pleasing pleasures that result from a choice executed by something so simple as pointing to the massive overhead lighted menu and, bucking the national norm, proudly declaring: "Number Three, please. Two thighs and a leg."
As profit-driven entrepreneurs, enterprising poultry producers have exploited this national preference in a most inhumane way. In their top-secret industrial laboratories deep inside some bunker under a mountain west of Denver, they have developed GMO chickens and turkeys into grotesque balloon-breasted fowl. These foul-looking birds, according to the taxonomy dictionary, are classified as Mayus Westissimus. Their bulging white-meat breasts project such forward ballast that their lives are fraught with face-plants and broken beaks.
At our house, we are unanimously in the dark-meat camp. And like all preferences in life, extremes are inevitable. We crave the darkest meat possible. Dark is synonymous with delicioso. Last year we fought bitterly over it until eventually a Thanksgiving meal broke out. Fork stabs to the back of too-slow hands are not uncommon. It is not considered to be a successful holiday meal at our house until an ambulance arrives to take some feisty aunt or semi-comatose brother-in-law, mellowed by merlot, to the ER for a fork extraction.
This year Joanne is well prepared. Our festive Thanksgiving table, replete with dried oak leaves that have been pressed somewhere between 1 Corinthians and 2 Thessalonians since August and cute little Hobby Lobby pumpkins and multicolored gourds, will be plied with piled-high porcelain platters of pulchritudinous protein. Slabs of meat darker than a Stephen King plot. Slow-roasting in the Kenmore for five and a half hours at 350 degrees. A savory 7-pound pot roast.
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Bill Rausch is a freelance humor writer from Little Rock. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 11/24/2016