Betty’s Home Cooking

I have three editions of Roadfood, by Jane and Michael Stern, which might seem excessive, but—I just looked it up—there have been ten editions published—the most recent in 2017. You have to think that must be about it—they’re both nearing 80, I believe—and just the traveling… not to mention the sausage gravy. Maybe they have people assisting them now—I haven’t seen the latest. At any rate, I am using the oldest edition, 1977, for my purposes—more time travel than travel. Betty’s Home Cooking was in my hometown, Sandusky, Ohio—I’m not sure how long it stayed open, but it didn’t make it into the next edition. It’s an entertaining review—this was a storefront diner, with diner food—and they found a lot to like (but criticized the pies). I don’t remember if I ever ate there. I was in high school when this book came out, and the only diner I remember going to, in downtown Sandusky, was Markley’s—and that was because my dad went there. I didn’t start getting interested in diners, really, until being a regular at Jerry’s Diner, in Kent, Ohio, in 1981. After that I became a diner fanatic. I am a diner fanatic to this day.

According to the internet, there still is a storefront diner at this location (325 W. Market Street, Sandusky, Ohio) called the Port Sandusky Family Restaurant—which is good news! I imagine it’s not unlike Betty’s Home Cooking. I’m sure the regulars could straighten me out on that—tell me the progression of greasy spoons that thrived in this location over the years. I know I’ve eaten at one of them—maybe it was the Port Sandusky. It’s in the heart of downtown, just around the corner from the famously haunted Rieger Hotel—which now may be a senior living place—though they have no website. I guess you just show up there with your good intentions. It is one of my ambitions to move there, I’ll admit. No wiser words were ever said than “you can’t go home again”—but I think that means don’t show up for breakfast and expect your mom to make you scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast with grape jelly—especially if your mom has passed on, the childhood home has been sold, and there’s bird flu. Anyway, it doesn’t mean you can’t move back to the town where you were born. Especially if you remember where you hid the loot.

I heard, last week, that Michael Hurley died, which made me sad. He was old, but not that old, especially because he kept playing, kept recording. I only saw him play once and I would have liked to again. I first heard of him when Andy McCormick gave me a cassette of some of his music, which I loved—thanks, Andy! You can spend some fine afternoons watching Hurley videos that fans recorded and posted—no one else like him. I feel like I have to admit this—but this is the only time I’m going to come clean—I roughly based a character on him. (It’s in my upcoming novel, Around Desire.) I’d never met him, so it’s entirely my imagination, what he’d be like—and it’s a character—so, it goes without saying it’s fiction, a composite, and not intended to be connected directly to Michael Hurley—but he was my starting place. I love my characters, and I love Michael Hurley’s music, so there you go. Also, I wrote brief reviews of a few of his records while cat-sitting in the “North Woods”—so I just might include one here—if there’s one where I’m not just complaining about the lack of internet service. Okay. This one is on my DJ Farraginous site and is from December 27, 2017.

Michael Hurley – Parsnip Snips

Normally I would never put on a record called Parsnip Snips, but seeing how this is a Michael Hurley record and I'm a big fan of Michael Hurley, I know that it will more likely be the naked, dirty, hippie with a sense of humor experience than the deadly serious, naked, dirty hippie experience, which pretty much sums up why I like some hippie shit and not others. A sense of humor is crucial, and that goes for all entertainers, as well as dentists, co-workers, friends, family, and countrymen. Not that Michael Hurley isn't serious sometimes, and that's when he's better, but humor is the foundation. It says these songs were recorded on a Wollensak between 1965 and 1972—that would have been a portable, open reel tape recorder. So, naturally, it sounds like he's over there on the other side of the room, right now. That's even before I started recording, at age 12. (This is how old I am: my first tape recorder was a portable, open reel recorder (pre-cassette)—not sure if it was a Wollensak.) Too bad this guy wasn't hanging around the neighborhood—he'd probably been a better mentor than the old guy who got us to shoplift for him. If I recall correctly, he's lived all over, East and West, out in the sticks, mostly. This LP is on Mississippi Records, which would sound Deep South except the address is 4007 N. Mississippi, Portland, Oregon, which, if I recall correctly, is Deep Hipster.

Michael Hurley used to play at the bar across the street from where I lived in Portland (he probably still does—I'm the one that moved away). By the time I realized I should go see him, I could no longer tolerate being in a bar, in the evening, at all. For me, nighttime is not the right time. You'd think I'd be able to deal with it, for a guy like this, who is the very opposite of the spectrum of BluesHammer, but no. Bars have evolved, but it's still drunks, just a younger generation drinking much better beer, which is also much stronger, and much sweeter—essentially the craft beer movement has given us a new generation of sweet wine alcoholics—it's just now, instead of Night Train and Thunderbird, it's Flying Raccoon Butternut Squash Porter. This album is really, really good by the way; don't mind my diatribes. I pretty much love Michael Hurley (except when he's cawing like a crow; I don't even like crows when they're cawing like crows; but I suppose that's his version of Bob Dylan's harmonica). I've gone semi-colon crazy in this review, the influence, perhaps, of the first song on the record, “You're a Dog; Don't Talk to Me”—maybe the only time I've seen a semi-colon in a song title, and it works!

—Randy Russell 4.6.25