I’ll just bake a cake

“Oh, well, a-bless my soul, what’s wrong with me?
I’m itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree.
My friends say I’m actin’ wild as a bug,
I’m in love … I’m all shook up.”

— 1956 Song lyrics by Otis Blackwell

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Someday, I want to be a famous column writer. When I grow up.

Wouldn’t it be amazing? To be like those gifted writers who create something out of nothing. Individuals who can write about anything at the drop of a hat. Any subject. Any time. Just crack my knuckles like a concert pianist and start creating magic with the keys. 

Someone like songwriter Otis Blackwell who wrote hits for many of the 1950s recording artists. Songs like “All Shook Up,” which he reportedly penned after a Shalimar Studio exec opened a bottled soft drink, shook it up to make it bubble over, and challenged Blackwell to write a song using the line, “All Shook Up.”

He did. In two days. The song was pitched to Elvis Presley and was his second-biggest hit after “Don’t Be Cruel,” also written by Blackwell. 

“Are you one of those writers who can create a column about anything,” a friend up in Mount Pleasant asked me last week. While I was thinking about writers who possessed that exact ability.

“Just sit down and write something?”

“No,” I said. Then I shared with him how I had been thinking about that very thing. And how I would like to write like that. Someday.

“OK, so right now,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do. Without thinking about it. Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”

“Mixers,” I fired back. Without thinking about it.

Silence. He looked at me. “Mixers? What kind of mixers? Where did that come from?”

“The kind my mother used in the kitchen to make cakes and other good things to eat. The kind your mother probably used, too. The kind for which I watched every move Mom made when she baked. Waiting. Hoping. That I would get to lick one of those beaters covered with cake icing. I had to be fast, though. With two sisters and mixers with only two beaters, last one in the kitchen was the loser.”

“But a column about a kitchen mixer?” My friend was a little mixed up.

“I won one,” I told him. “I bought a $20 raffle ticket for Rene Kay’s quilt raffle at the Poultry Festival in Center a couple of weeks ago. The one she does to support her autistic son at college to learn life skills and an occupation. He wants to be a chef. Last year, she raffled just the quilt she made. This year, she made another beautiful quilt, but she added more prizes. Soft-sided coolers, a shotgun, original oil paintings.

“But I won a mixer.”

“A mixer,” my friend said flatly. Obviously still not understanding.

“Not just any mixer,” I replied. “It’s one of those professional commercial over-the-top kind that costs a gazillion dollars. More than all the kitchen appliances in the world put together. And it’s bright red.”

“What are you going to do with a mixer,” he chuckled. “You don’t even cook.”

“See,” I said. “That’s the funny part. I used to cook and enjoyed it. But I quit after the kids grew up and moved out. Left all my cooking to the restaurants. But my kids still remember my secret recipe chicken we grilled. Saturday nights on the back porch.

“Then just recently, I started a remodeling project on my kitchen. New appliances, new counter tops, new sink, new cookware. New mop and broom. New junk drawer. New everything before it’s all done. So, I decided with a new kitchen in the works, I might as well start cooking again. What could have been a better prize than a new mixer?

My friend shook his head.

“The other funny part is that Rene came by the office a few days after the drawing,” I continued. “I could tell she had something on her mind. Then she said she was fearful a mixer might not have been such a good prize for me. That she didn’t know if I even cooked since I was a single man. She was right in the middle of apologetically suggesting how she might be able to arrange for an alternative prize when I interjected, ‘I like my mixer.'”

“You’re happy with it, then,” Rene asked?

“You can’t have my mixer,” I laughed. “I love it.”

“We laughed. She left with a smile. I still have my mixer.”

“Guess that was a lucky ticket,’ my friend commented.

“Not my first one this year,” I replied. “I won a big prize drawing at the chamber banquet in January. I also won some cool door prizes at the North and East Texas Press Association convention in April.”

“Maybe you should write about being lucky in drawings,” he said. “But a column about kitchen mixers? Is that really something you could get all shook up about writing?”

Pondering his point for a minute, I admitted I wasn’t sure whether that would work or not.

I don’t know,” I said slowly. “You’re probably right. That would be hard to pull off.

“Maybe I’ll just go home, bake a cake, and think about it.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, The Fort Stockton Pioneer, and The Monitor in Naples.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.