Should Have Gone with the Chicken

The expression goes “practice makes perfect” (shouldn’t it be “perfect practice makes perfect”?) which is why when someone asks about my religious beliefs I usually respond with ‘a Perfect Catholic’ (because I’m no longer a practicing one).

I grew up in a church that required you to abstain from eating meat on Fridays and not being a fan of seafood I developed a still-firmly-held fondness for grilled cheese sammiches and a wary regard for what I assumed even as a child was a very powerful fishing lobby.  The distinction between star-struck and Star-Kist wasn’t lost on me.

It seemingly escaped the notice of Howard Cosby, nearly a neighbor but actually a resident of a correctional facility down the road in Uncasville which is sort of midway between right here,  and New London.

You might assume people who live in New England, and Howard does live in New England, might have some knowledge of and/or affection for seafood, but I’m a fish sticks guy and have learned to live with the askance looks that I get so I’m giving him a mulligan on not knowing fish was a meat. It can happen.

I was assured by Jacques Cousteau in confidence many years ago during a dream one of us was having that sharks refer to fish as ‘the other white meat.’ That was a revelation that left me very uneasy to this day which is why I never apply tartar sauce before swimming in the ocean. And if I get sunburn, I get sunburn. You have some dill on your eyebrow. Just sayin’.

I’ve been reading this story in a variety of news outlets and a shared commonality (what other kind are there, I wonder, aside from ‘shared’?) is in recounting the why he is an inmate part of the story, as a reader, what I always call ‘the compulsory program,’ (Dick Button would be so proud) the mention of the nearly two decades of sentence he has for sexual assault catches my eye. It’s heartening to realize anyone can change, or attempt to at the very least.   

On the other hand, he may well be hedging his bets against a future life where his skandha takes the form of a flounder fillet as part of a less than Good Friday incarcerated kitchen combo platter. Probably tastier than roast dukkha with w(h)ine sauce.  

-bill kenny