(Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) takes a bite at the Annual Hot Dog Day Lunch in the courtyard of the Rayburn House Office Building July 23. The event draws hundreds of people from Capitol Hill, including members of Congress, their staffs, journalists and lobbyists and possibly a couple honest Americans. Image courtesy Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)
“Mary has been waiting for this for a week,” growled Jim. He had just gotten into it with a guy down the bar who use to come in here frequently enough to be an irritant but not a local. The discussion was not about what Mary was waiting for, which was sort of what I was waiting for as well, but the length of the days.
The guy was insistent that the days were getting shorter, and I know better than to go down that road with Jim. As a poet, he is a stickler for accuracy. The days don’t get shorter; they are exactly the same length all the time. Well, except for the fact that the earth is losing angular velocity and rotational energy through a process called tidal acceleration, which leads to a slow lengthening of the day.
“A century ago, the average day was about 1.7 millisecond shorter than today, you ass-hat,” snarled Jim. “But it is not a steady progression of more or less daylight at this latitude.
“38.88 North,” I said.
That was after the guy had gone to his smart phone to prove that the days in fact had less daylight in them after the Spring Solstice, which was a trap that Jim had set for him. My phone was already out, since K2 was looking for Boston hotels at less than $400 a night, which had been a challenge, and I did a rudimentary search while Brett the Bartender with the movie-star good looks was getting a reinforcement vodka-lime-and-diet-tonics for me and Jon-without.
Normally we don’t abide people getting all Googly in our bar discussions- accuracy always slows us up. Jim is of the opinion that if it is on the Internet, it is probably wrong, but I handed over my phone to display the graphic that demonstrated his contention to see if we could get the know-it-all to shut up. Jim glanced at the image, which confirmed what he had been saying. The reduction in daylight hours is all smooched up against the advent of the Autumnal solstice.
He nodded. “No shit.” The guy down the bar continued to voice his opinion and Jim finally told him he didn’t give a great goddamn what he found on his stupid phone and turned back to his Budweiser long-neck.
I felt the same way, and the vodka was not acting fast enough to make me less cranky. There was no parking near Willow when I got there, and the Police Cruiser was parked a couple blocks away. My legs hurt, and the day had gotten away from me; no decent story despite it having been the anniversary of that awful day in 1967 when my home town of Detroit had decided to commit suicide. the unseasonably nice temperatures and low humidity and a magnificent swim, I was out of sorts. Maybe it was the half-heard discussion between K2 and the former EPA official in back of me. He had been responsible for cleaning up some of the Manhattan Project horror sites, but started on a story of how hard it was to get the environmental jihadis to back off when the cost-benefit equation didn’t make any rational sense.
I cursed under my breath. Under the new EPA rules, the agency is claiming jurisdiction over all ponds and streams, and all I need is to come to the attention of some pencil-necked True Believer about the two little streams that abut my property and start fining me for something, anything, or insist that I re-mediate my part of Culpeper County.
I needed a hot-dog, which is what Mary had been waiting for, as she hopped on the stool next to Jim and looked happily at the tulip glass filled with golden Cabernet. “Finally. National Hot Dog Day.”
I smiled and pushed the flier about the specials across the apex of the Amen Corner to show her what Tracy O’Grady had cooking to honor the day. There was a beer special, of course, sponsored by Hardywood Park Craft Brewery of Richmond. “What goes better than a cold beer with a hot dog,” I asked with a rhetorical flourish.
“Vodka,” said Jon-without. “Always.”
I turned the flier around so it was right side up for Mary to inspect. “ Sahlen’s hot dogs, fresh from Buffalo, where Tracey grew up. Fifth generation family cranking out the best dogs on the planet. They have them in three versions here at Willow tonight: the kraut dog, the chili smothered model and the Plain Jane with spicy brown mustard.”
There was an extended discussion of the merits of all the varieties. I was going with the kraut dog, myself, since that had been one of my fad diets back in the 1980s. “The Super Kraut Dog Miracle Diet: 30 Days to Thinner Thighs and Victory Over Fascism.”
At the time, I had read that any book that had a swastika on the cover sold more, as did diet and self-help books, so I figured it was a sure-fire winner. I don’t imagine that is the case any more.
The guy down the bar started in on the fun facts about National Hot Dog Day, including the fact that the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council sponsors one of the hot-ticket political events on the Hill, a rare bi-partisan area of agreement where our elected representatives pork out on pork products. I could almost feel Jim’s growing reaction to the boor.
The guy looked at his phone and cleared his throat: “ Each year, Americans buy over 837 million packages of hot dogs at retail outlets, and over 24 million hot dogs at baseball stadiums alone. “
I thought Jim was going to actually throw his bottle at the fellow, but it would have been a challenging toss to hit him, since he would have had to throw over Mary. I decided the time had come and asked Brett to put in an order for me, and Mary did too. My mouth was watering over the idea of that Sahlen’s frank with the crisp casing sitting on one of Kate Jansen’s house-made rolls smothered in savory Kraut with caraway seeds and mustard.
When it comes to condiments for a kraut dog, the only thing you need is mustard. And the good news is that National Mustard Day is coming up, first Saturday in August. I am going to have to talk to Heather and see what she has planned for the next big Holiday.
When my dog arrived, I was so excited that I actually took a bite out of it before Jon-without reminded me to document it for history. The Staff at the Daily Socotra is deeply apologetic for the error.
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303