Note - This comes from a hand-written manuscript I wrote out some years back as part of my life story project I have been working on for several years. I am adding some things to it as I document it here, as this is over ten years old and I have come a long way on some things since that time. I hope you enjoy it!
As a part of my personal life story, it is something I do judiciously being one's quirks and idiosyncrasies can offer the risk of vulnerability when openly discussed. Furthermore, in my case some of these quirks have become the substance of family legend, although they are at times either exaggerated by some family members but are still a favorite topic of conversation at family get-togethers. When I refer to "quirks" though, it is with a broad brush in my case, as some of these things are stuff I haven't really discussed at length - not because anything would be wrong with it, but rather that I never really thought of a way to articulate it. It also entails my personal likes and dislikes I possess as part of my identity as well, as they play a role in why I am quirky on some things. Personal preference and idiosyncrasies on an individual basis often are intertwined with each other, and they are endowments of God himself that make us who he intended us to be.
A good place to start this discussion is with the subject of food. Anyone who knows me knows I am probably one of the most finicky eaters around, and I have been since my youngest recollections. Almost everyone obviously has their own likes and dislikes when it comes to food, and the reality is that not everyone likes every kind of food. However - and maybe it is just me - I take my personal culinary likes and dislikes to a whole new level, and my food preferences could actually set up a therapist for life just
hearing about them. I want to digress from my notes on this now and address some issues with this over the years in lieu of certain foods I personally not only hate but hate with a passion. As I discuss this, I know that I have cousins and other relatives who may read this and may get their toes stepped on, because this relates to some of their behavior toward me over the years, which to them may not seem like a big deal but to me it is. It is where quirk intertwines with pet-peeve as a matter of fact, and other than perhaps with God and my own wife Barbara, I have not really expressed what I am about to talk about in detail, but perhaps it is time I do.
Although I am fairly finicky about a lot of things when it comes to my own food preferences, like anyone there are certain foods I just
hate, so much so that even
seeing or
smelling them makes me nauseous. In particular, these involve foods in which the integral ingredient is vinegar, and in particular pickles - I
despise those honestly. There are many foods I dislike but have no issue tolerating - for instance, beans. I don't like beans, but they don't repulse me either. However, when it comes to pickles, there is a serious reason I probably despise them more than maybe others would, and it has to do with conditioning. When I was very young - say, around 2 or 3 years of age - I more or less affirmed that I didn't really have a real affinity for cucumber pickles. Unfortunately, on my mother's side of the family, there tends to be a real insensitivity on the part of some who tend to take something like this and bludgeon it to death, and that is what some uncles, aunts, and cousins did to me. To be honest, had I not been teased or tormented about what originally was just a normal dislike, I may not have the hatred of pickles and other vinegary foods I have today. But, seizing on a dislike, my family just picked, and picked, and picked, and at my expense and also my discomfort they aggravated a normal dislike for a certain food and turned it into an outright hatred. As a result, today I cannot even stand a pickle on a dish as a garnish, as it taints the entire plate - many thanks to insensitive cousins and uncles for that! If I had it to do over again honestly, there would have been some relatives who would have been unable to bear children after attempting those hijinks, because I would have kicked them in their crotch for aggravating me like that, and they would have deserved it. At this point I am going to soapbox, because honestly this is a cruel thing to do to kids when they are young, and if you are doing it, you should be ashamed of yourselves and stop NOW. The damage you do to kids with that crap is something they have to live with the rest of their lives just so a jackass like you - blood may be thicker than water, but let's face facts that some people are jackasses despite being related to you - can get a moment of amusement. To some who perpetrate these actions toward those of your family, you may think it's no big deal, but you fail to understand the impact that has on others. Like I said, if one of my cousins even
tried that today, I would kick them so hard in the gonads that they'd be blowing their bollocks out their noses. And, if any of my relatives are reading this now, you know who you are, so be warned. And parents, don't let your relatives do this to your kids either, because by you tolerating such nonsense, you are no better. Anyway, intermediate rant is over.
Related to my like or dislike of foods, I also associate foods I hate or love with other things I like or dislike. For example, I hate mayonnaise - somehow my hatred of mayonnaise is associated with white socks, denim clothes, and rock music; I dislike those equally. My hatred of mayonnaise, though not quite as bad as my hatred of pickles, is still intense - even the
word makes me cringe, honestly. On the other hand, what is equally weird is how I associate other things with food I like - for instance, the smell of a good pizza for some weird reason makes me think of Christmas; don't ask me why, as it just does. Also, the smell of things such as blueberries gives me a fond memory of my great-grandmother's house in Hendricks, WV, where I spent a good part of my childhood. I know this all may sound a little bizarre, but I warned you that my quirks may be a little different!
Oddly, despite a rabid hatred of pickles, a fresh cucumber doesn't bother me at all - I have no real ill will concerning cukes; I don't really care for them, except when they are dredged in flour and deep-fried (those are delicious too - I share the affinity for those with my cousin Buzz and with my mother)
I did at one time like raw cukes too, but just grew out of the taste of them for some reason. A cuke to me is about as harmless as any other raw vegetable until you corrupt it by pickling it, and then it becomes something nasty to me. I don't know who came up with the idea that vinegar was fit for human consumption, but as a base ingredient to many recipes it is one of the
nastiest things in existence, both in taste and smell. Although its nastiest manifestation is in the form of a pickle, vinegar is also the reason I will not eat salads or sandwiches even today. Both of those have one thing in common - they are often loaded with condiments (mayonnaise, ketchup, prepared mustard, steak sauce, barbecue sauce, salad dressings, etc.) which in turn are loaded with - you guessed it! - vinegar. Over the years, I have given vinegar my own nickname - "apple piss" or "Satan's nectar." It does bear an uncanny resemblance (especially apple cider vinegar) to urine, and to me, it is almost as nasty. While it is certainly true that vinegar may even have some beneficial qualities - it has been noted as an effective glass cleaner and disinfectant (if you can stand the smell of it!), and some nutritionists swear by its beneficial properties in regard to the blood when it is consumed. However, I am sure there are other things which are just as beneficial and effective and much less repugnant, and I have made it a personal quest as a culinary aficionado to find out what those are. In the past few years, for instance, I have often utilized a pleasant alternative to vinegar called verjus, which is the tart juice of either crabapples or unripe grapes, and it provides the zing without the nastiness of vinegar. Also, I am a big fan of using lemon juice in recipes too with the same effect. With it, I have come up with my own versions of barbecue marinades, and even salad alternatives - such as microgreens, edible flowers, watercress, and stuff like fresh berries and pignoli nuts spritzed with lemon and olive oil. I have more information on that available on my culinary page if you are interested. It was my ambition to eventually come up with a cookbook of this stuff, and in a sense, my food blog has been an important step toward that over the past ten years or so. I have also been encouraged by others who have the same rabid dislike for vinegar, and oddly we even have a Facebook page as a sort of support network. Also, perhaps a positive that has come out of my own aversion to vinegar is a knack for gourmet cooking, which I have learned to put who I am on a plate and therefore I have my own unique culinary identity now as well. I am going to visit that briefly before I move on next.
When I was around nine or ten years old, my late step-grandmother died and I was able to "inherit" by default her gourmet cookbooks she had. One of those cookbooks in particular, which oddly I can no longer find anywhere, was a book entitled
Cooking for Everyday Life, and I recall reading through that so much that eventually the book fell apart. I loved to read anyway as a kid, and that led me to read some unique and odd stuff - people I went to elementary school with still kid me about reading the whole set of
World Book Encyclopedias we had in our classroom through so many times I memorized them. I also had a Bible story book that belonged originally to Mom, and I also had an affinity for atlases and maps (I can still sit even today and study a map for hours). The cookbook in particular though was something that really caught my attention, in that I could read through it and it expressed several of my own passions - a love of miniature things (especially in regard to hors d'oevres), the sense of accomplishment and enjoying seeing something you create yourself come together, as well as my own aforementioned peculiarities in appetite. Something too about reading that cookbook from cover to cover also alleviated the situation I was growing up in at around the time I was nine or ten years old - we lived in abject poverty then, and in addition to my own mother having alcohol issues at the time we had a neighborhood that was rife with poverty and dysfunction, and if you couldn't rise above it the whole thing could be dreary and depressing. Many years ago, an independent Pentecostal minister by the name of Mark Chironna said something that changed my outlook for good - the quote he had was "
your present position doesn't determine your future potential." I have lived by that as a part of my personal manifesto since, and in doing so I realized that my way of living that back then was in self-education - reading was a nice escape from the adversity that surrounded me, and it was also my ticket to rising above my circumstance and striving toward something better. And, it wasn't just the cookbook - I read very widely as a kid, and things I read ranged from classic children's books such as Robert Newton Peck's
Soup books to more controversial material - Mom had a collection of books I read at a young age that many would not think a kid of that age would read, such as Vincent Bugliosi's covering of the Manson murders in his book
Helter Skelter, as well as the Jonestown tragedy in a book entitled
People's Temple, People's Tomb, written by a survivor of that cult by the name of Phil Kerns. As a result, I often amazed my teachers in school with knowing things far beyond my years, and that has stuck with me since - today, it is not unusual for me to read as many as ten books within a week. Reading then also instilled in me a propensity to express myself in writing and drawing, and today I still have an extensive portfolio of things I have created in both areas over the years. I got made fun of a lot by less-intelligent relatives for my abilities here as well, and I also endured patronizing and assumptions that I could help this one or that one out with homework, etc. Just because one is an avid reader though doesn't make one omniscent, although a person who is widely read will certainly be more informed and intelligent. And, in this day and age, ignorance is often touted as a virtue, as is seen by people in California and elsewhere who actually
think that Jesus was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald (the guy who assassinated JFK) in the year 1300! If more kids were encouraged to read and expand their horizons a little instead of tinkering with gadgetry, our nation might be in better shape.
My affinity for reading cookbooks, along with my own unique tastes, likes, and dislikes, led me to also get into wildcrafting. In case you are not familiar, wildcrafting is the gathering of wild plants for medicinal and culinary purposes, and along the way I had help from my late step-grandfather Lonnie, who taught me how to harvest poke, mushrooms, and other things in trips to the woods. These interests also led me to earn a culinary certificate in 1992 while being part of a paid JTPA program in Dothan, AL. That all being said, I also have other seemingly weird culinary practices - for instance, if I eat a stick of pepperoni, I don't want it pre-sliced, but would rather slice it myself. And, although I like pepperoni, and I like pizza, I don't have a taste for pepperoni pizzas. I also don't like ground beef and onions together, nor can I eat a lot of potatoes or other starches - one serving usually of a baked potato or fries, or one or two pancakes, will suffice, and even then I won't always finish them. And, these days a large bag of potato chips can last me for weeks. I also don't like mixing food together - I may actually like a couple of things individually, but don't like them touching on my plate. These constitute a few of my culinary quirks, but I also have quirks in other areas as well.
Anyone who either has known me a long time or has kept up with my articles over the past ten years or so also knows I am a music aficionado. My
biggest passion in that context is vintage dance bands, and I have been collecting recordings of those for about 36 years now as of this writing. One thing about my passions is that I can get obsessive about them, and over the years I have probably invested more into my
huge music library than I probably should have - that now encompasses approximately 1230 CD recordings, and around a thousand vinyl LP's which I have housed in two
huge cabinets in my office. There is no need to chronicle that story, as it has been well-documented already, but the point is my musical tastes, much like my culinary preferences, would be considered by some to be pretty eccentric - I am probably one of the few people my age, for instance, who is a
huge fan of big bandleader Freddy Martin, and I am a pretty regular viewer almost every week of both the old
Lawrence Welk Shows on PBS and
Molly B Polka Party on the RFD-TV network. As a teen in the mid-1980's, this was not lost on my peers either, as at that time many of them were into Madonna and Michael Jackson, neither of which I could stomach. I honestly could never get into rock music, despite my growing up in a generation that worshipped at its altars. I caught a lot of flak and endured a lot of persecution concerning that when I was in middle school, although ironically some of those who gave me a rough time all those years ago now like Michael Buble (go figure on that one, as he sings a lot of the same stuff I used to collect!), but I stuck to my guns and still love that great music today. As the story has been told before, you know that the Rio Mall in Rio, WV, as well as Henry Boggan's Sunday night radio show on WBT-AM in Charlotte, NC (later replaced by Chuck Cecil's "Swingin' Years," which was a better program) were my genesis as far as collecting that great music was concerned, but we've moved far past that in recent years - with CD's coming into popularity, I have now switched venues to buying new stuff from Amazon. I also owe that interest to God himself, in that I have come to believe that he gave me the taste for good music based on his transcendental properties (truth, beauty, goodness) of which the big bands were one of the last popular music forms to utilize, and I feel like I was set apart in that regard for my own protection. Granted, I was not perfect in cultivating that interest - on occasion I spent a lot of money and made dumb decisions to buy CD's rather than taking care of something more important, which I regret. Also,
good music doesn't always equal exemplary lives in the ones who create it - the big bands had their share of those addicted to alcohol and drugs obviously (which was a shame, as a lot of great talent was lost to those vices), and some personalities were involved in other things that were morally questionable too ("Jelly Roll" Morton being a pimp in New Orleans, for instance, as well as arrangers Ralph Burns and Billy Strayhorn being openly homosexual), but the challenge comes in separating the talents and the music created by such individuals from their personal shortcomings, which can be hard given the tendency of human beings to hold up people they like as role models and then finding out when they do something questionable in such a way that it can be devastating. The lesson I have learned from that over the years is this -
never put a fallible human being on a pedestal, because you can be easily disappointed if they don't measure up to some preconceived standard. I have learned to appreciate good talent without always accepting or agreeing with people who possess it because despite their own personal choices God still endowed them with the talent they have. The huge difference though with today's standards is that often among celebrities vice and lack of talent are both held up as idolatry, and as a result you have tone-deaf jackasses such as Simon Cowell determining what constitutes "talent" rather than
real talent actually being cultivated and encouraged.
Good music that expresses creativity and
real talent is sadly in short supply these days, as a bygone generation that understood those things is largely passed on now. Therefore, when I am asked (as I often am) the question "
how does someone your age come to appreciate vintage dance bands (or big bands)?" I honestly have been at a loss for words as to how to answer: simply, I just like it, and it more adequately represents my own identity as a person. Music like that has a sophistication and aesthetic variety that draws me to it - a group of diverse instruments playing together is uplifting and inspiring, but I cannot articulate how. I will go further to say that my eccentric interests are also reflected in my religious faith - I have never been one to "go with the crowd," I value and treasure tradition, and my faith reaches beyond myself to something that transcends me - again, this is expressed in the attributes of beauty, truth, and goodness. And, it also doesn't just encompass big bands either; I like the works of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev, as well as Strauss waltzes, for the same reasons. When I hear them, it strikes a chord within me (no pun intended, BTW!) and I am taken to different places and my imagination is awakened - whether it is listening to Katchaturian's
Valse Masquerade, Stravinsky's
Le Sacre du Printemps, or Shostakovich's
Seventh Symphony, or I could add Komitas'
Little Partridge, Copland's
Appalachian Spring, or Strauss's
Emperor Waltz. Something in those great works of music captivates me, and I can be enraptured for different reasons (depending on the circumstance) for hours as those sounds play over in my mind. It is important to remember that just because "everybody's doing it" doesn't mean
you have to, and if you don't like what your peers listen to and are drawn to other sounds, embrace that, as there may be a reason for it. I have learned not to be ashamed, despite how you may be dismissed are derided for it, of what you like. People who belittle you for that have their own issues, and you are not the problem. Same holds true in other areas of life as well.
I have other quirks and habits as well, and one relates to music. For years, I had thought I was weird because I could "hear" colors in a piece of music - honest to God, some music "sounds" yellow, red, white, or orange to me! When I looked into it though, I actually found out I was not alone, and that it is actually more common, and it has a name -
chromesthesia. Basically, the dictionary definition of chromesthesia is when "heard sounds evoke involuntarily an experience of color," and it is part of a wider trait called
synesthesia. I have
never shared that experience with anyone, as in the past I would have probably been fitted with a sleeveless jacket and stuck in a padded cell had I mentioned it, but it is how my mind actually operates. When I hear a certain sound, for instance, I immediately associate it with a color. Oddly, if the song has a color in the name - let's say, "Red Sails in the Sunset" - the color I experience in the tune of the song may not reflect the title of the song. For instance, when
I hear "Red Sails in the Sunset," I associate it with the color orange rather than red. If I were to associate a tune with the color red, one that immediately comes to mind for me is Charlie Barnet's 1939 recording of "Cherokee." Oddly too, although Duke Ellington's 1932 recording of "Mood Indigo" is about a dark shade of the color blue, when I hear it I "see red." That is probably going to sound so bizarre to some of you, but that is OK too. I am sure you have some bizarre traits of your own, and no one thinks you are crazy for those, so don't judge!
Many of my other idiosyncrasies are also unique to me. One in particular I have is that I will
not go barefoot in public - it is a very huge challenge for me, for instance, when I visit one of those houses where people make you take off your shoes, and it just feels weird to me. Even just wearing socks with no shoes is weird (to me there is no difference between socks and going barefoot anyway). I also do not wear t-shirts in public either - a t-shirt to me is either an undergarment or a nightshirt, and I just feel inappropriate with wearing one outside of those contexts. I also don't wear denim and haven't even worn a pair of jeans since I was 11 or thereabouts. Additionally, I don't wear shorts in public either - even wearing a pair of swim trunks to the beach is a rarity, and it took my wife a lot of effort to convince me to even do that. Additionally, I am also highly possessive of my belongings - I have to know where everything is, and even my wife cannot have one of my books to read without my own close monitoring of it. These are my own unique quirks, but I have a couple of final ones before closing the discussion.
For many, a driver's license is a big deal, and for most, it is a routine thing to drive a car. However, it is probably going to shock most people to learn I have never had a driver's license, and to be honest I have a fear of driving on busy highways. I do know how to drive a car though, as I did take and successfully passed driver's ed in high school. But, prior to being married, and for a number of years after, I never had a car of my own, and living in the city at the time I managed by using public transportation and just never had the chance to take the test and get a license. It is a bit embarrassing to me honestly - here I am with a graduate degree and almost 50 years old, and never had a driver's license of my own. I am, however, in the process of getting one, so that is a soon-to-be past challenge. I also have never learned to swim, and actually, have a morbid fear of water that comes up past my knees. Much like I was teased with pickles when I was a kid, I was also teased with water too, and therefore never learned to swim. Again, a bunch of jackass family members contributed to that (thanks, cousins and uncles!). Again, to soapbox, some of you who have family members that struggle with swimming and such need to not make such a big joke out of it, and if it were you, how would
you like it?? Many a time I wanted to stick firecrackers down the pants of certain relatives for acting like complete jackasses, and it still irks me to this day. Oddly though, I love visiting aquariums and observing underwater life - it is actually quite therapeutic to have a fish tank in an office, as something about it just is calming. There are probably other things I didn't touch on either, but these are definitive as far as my personality is concerned.
Quirks and idiosyncrasies are unique to all of us - often people misunderstand why many of us are as we are, yet they fail to see their own quirkiness. God gave each of us certain attributes of our personalities that are unique to us, and it is what makes each of us an individual and a person who is whole in ourselves, an end in ourselves, and also subject to the basic rights fundamental to all human persons. Therefore, if you find you have a unique quirk that is all you, and you face criticism for it, just ignore it and remember that God doesn't make junk. Your "weirdness" makes you, well, you - you are not required to conform to the standards of others in those areas, and anyone who forces you is violating you. God created you as you are, so don't be afraid to
be yourself. Also, don't fear your limitations or imperfections either - no one has arrived yet anyway, so you are in good company. The more you accept who and what you are, the better you can fulfill your vocation in life. Now, that does
not mean we don't have room for improvement, and we should always strive to strengthen those areas we are weak in, but even our weaknesses can be a reflection of God's continual work in us. Also, a quirk is
not synonymous with a
fault either - faults are those things we have that maybe are negative and need work, and they reflect our fallen nature as human beings. The best remedy for faults is simply one thing - supernatural grace. Supernatural grace heals faults, enhances "quirks" to make them more in line with what God intended, and it also perfects us, strengthening the best in us and buttressing those areas where we may be weak. Too many people are quick to confuse faults and quirks and thus condemn others for the latter, which is why it is important to know better. If someone refuses to do that, they are not needed in your life, even if they are blood relatives; the less condemnation you have, the more you can focus on what
you need to focus on without being burdened with the jeers, criticism, and persecution of others (including relatives sometimes). And, that is the word of wisdom for the day.
