Remember the Fat Man

Remember the Fat Man

I learned a lot of things from watching my dad.  When dad needed to have his gall bladder out, he simply used some of his accumulated sick days to take of a couple of months off from work.  So, in the six years I worked at Arrow Door, I missed three days.  When dad went on vacation, he took his family everywhere he went, or he didn't go.  So, my kids will report that their childhood is studded with little vacation trips where we packed up the car, lined the back seat with three child car seats, and drove somewhere.  Goshen, Morley, Traverse City, Charlevoix, and Fayette State Park in the Upper Peninsula.  We didn't have much money, but we went as far as a half days driving and a full tank of gas would take us.

Some of the things I learned from dad were less fundamental, and some of these things I can't say I kept over the years.  For example, dinner time was supposed to be eaten at exactly five-thirty in the afternoon, at the table in the kitchen with the news on.  Apparently, being a dad meant eating with your head at a ninety degree angle to the family, so as not to miss anything Howard K. Smith said.  The plate was to be arranged consistently, trisected into meat, potatoes, and (canned) vegetables, with a slice of buttered white bread propped on the top right hand quarter of the plate.  It was milk to drink, with no exceptions, well maybe sometimes.

There were actually quite a few "different" meals, rotating on infrequent and low frequency intervals.  For example, we ate venison when dad shot a deer and trout when he went fishing.  If I came home to find dad shredding bread into the casserole dish, I knew we were having meat loaf, made with either hamburger or salmon.  In the sixties, we did not eat pizza.  We had something special, though.  Up on South Division, just across Maplelawn Ave. from the old Meijer's, one over from the Dunkin' Doughnuts Shop sat an ugly yellow cinder block building with gaudy neon signs from an earlier time.  It reminded me of something, but I did not know what, because it "reminded" me of a time I as to young to have seen.  Apparently, after the big war, everyone came home and opened their own business on the spot.  From the look of some of the buildings around my side of town, they constructed their own buildings too.  The ugly, gaudy building was called Fat Man's Fish Fry, proof that heaven sometimes appears in strange packages.

To the uninitiated, Fat Man's deep fried fish.  To the experienced, Fat Man's provided perfectly golden, steaming nuggets of savory white filets from the bounty of seven seas, skillfully seasoned with salt, pepper, and malt vinegar, if you like.  I like.  When I was a kid, dad always ordered ocean perch and fries.  It came in paperboard boats, generously double wrapped in real butcher paper.  Each time we unwrapped a package, it like a birthday present.  When the butcher paper was folded back, the steam rose in a visible column, sending sharp scents to every corner of the kitchen.  Our cat Tom always appeared, tail stiff as a flag, wearing his friendliest face.  There were never any leftovers.

As a young adult, I had to fetch my own Fat Man's fish.  I discovered there were more items on order than fit within dad's narrow view of food.  I counted over thirty items, including baby turbot (no idea what that is), and frog legs.  Absolutely everything was run through the fryers.  I gorged myself on liver, smelt, and perch, of course.  There were vegetables, too.  I loved the pressed veggie sticks, cauliflower, and mushrooms.  (Don't argue, I know that fungi are not vegetables.)  As for condiments, I have never before, or since seen such a gigantic collection of tartar sauces, mayonnaises, ketchups, and a couple of things I didn't recognize.  I used to joke with my friend Scott that I would one day order "a pound of everything."  Sometime later, he told me he actually came home with two full grocery bags of "everything" after having a few beers.  Knowing his wife Lori, I could easily imagine her response in the morning.  (I was not married at that time.)

Full decades have passed, and with them, my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.  In all my marriage, we only visited the gaudy yellow building once.  It was years ago.  I had waxed so eloquent upon the wonders of Fat Man's that we had to try it as a family.  Funny, (strange) how things change.  We sat together and chowed down some perch and fries.  It was sort of similar to my memory at first, when the steam rose.  We were in the car, and the wonderful smell was overpowering, and the windows steamed up.  As we dived into the fish, everyone raved how good it was, at first.  We had been very hungry and it was tasty.  As we ate, though, we were not exactly transported to fairy land.  It was good fish, and prepared correctly, but my wife pointed out that it was, essentially, just deep fried fish.  What!  It was "just" deep fried fish?  No, it was a wonderment, food of the gods, it was…a break from the meat and potatoes that dad insisted upon.  But that was a long time ago and I was small.  And I don't mean that mom's cooking needed relieving.  It was something different, something related to trying new things as a kid.  I try to imagine what the Fat Man's kids would think; (I presumed they ate fried fish every day).  Did they, on occasion, try a little Swiss Steak, and find it magical?