An important voice in the dark

I got my first giggle of the day today when I read the Facebook status update from my friend Julia Jackson McCready: “For those of you who are following along at home, I stared at the page for about an hour and a half this morning, thinking I had nothing to say. I guess I did.”

My first thought was that of Seinfeld, the television comedy widely described as the show about nothing. I responded to Julia that many people have written extensively about nothing, implying that she too could fill a page on nothing if she needed to.

But it was my mistake in reading her comment as an obtuse double negative; as Julia stared and stared at that empty page, she did indeed come up with a topic for today’s edition of her blog, Village Green/Town Squared: “I don’t buy it.”  

As I have shared more than once in this space, Julia is my blogging hero. She is a disciplined and well-read writer who uses her gift of the written word to praise, promote, criticize, inform, educate and challenge her community on many different topics and issues.

She is a wife and mother; an educator of the smallest of the littles (which in itself is worthy of gold-medal status, in my opinion); an active member of her community and her church; an activist who is often advocating for the LGBTQ community, Muslims, people of color and any other “other” group that might need a little extra support and understanding. 

Pretty much every day of the week, every week of the year, Julia yanks herself out of the warm (or cool, depending on the time of year) comfort of her bed at what I figure has to be 4 a.m. or so to hit the keyboard so the rest of us can enjoy her daily dose of information. 

When she hits the road at 7-ish (at least in pre-Covid school days), she already has several hours of braining under her belt.

Perhaps Julia knows there are many of us who look forward to her posts, so much so that, on the rare occasions she can’t come up with anything or — gasp — oversleeps, she tattles on herself and lets us know there will be no blog post that day.

I have said time and time again that I want to be like Julia when I grow up. It’s time for me to admit that just isn’t going to happen. I created this blog five and a half years ago and in that time have published the same number of posts Julia produces in two months.

My first blog post, ironically enough, referenced the nothingness of Seinfeld.

I first met Julia in 2011 when I was the editor of Columbia Patch and she was a fledgling blogger who was kind enough to post her musings on the Patch site. My interactions with her at the time were to mainly “approve” the publication of her posts (and never as quickly as I should have) as I was trying to learn the ropes of a new, demanding, never-ending job and a new community while trying to stave off supervisors hell-bent on quantity and “clickability” of content.

Because there was so much going on, I failed to realize what a gift Julia is to her community. She is whip smart, well-educated and well-read, a thinker and questioner, an empathetic and passionate lover of and believer in the Rouse ideals of her planned community, a mother bear to her family, friends and other loved ones, the aforementioned educator (at a school and her church) and an advocate, also as mentioned, for any oppressed or downtrodden individuals or groups.

She, like many writers, is a sensitive introvert. But she sets that aside and puts on her badge of courage when it comes time to speak out on something that she knows will bring criticism at best and mean bullying at worst. Julia steels herself as best as she can against the criticism, but sometimes it’s hard to do, especially when she puts her identity out there and some of the worst criticism comes from folks with fake names hiding behind a computer or phone screen.

For the sake of her community, and her desire to inform and expose, Julia perseveres. She will get up at 4 a.m. tomorrow and the next day and the next day to share her thoughts with her community. Whether she’s encouraging people to vote in a village center council or presidential election, bringing attention to a littered nature trail or thanking an elected official for a promise kept, Julia provides a much-needed voice for her community.

While Julia is not a journalist providing hard-core local news and is the first one to remind her readers of that, her voice and the voices of others like her are becoming more and more vital to our communities as local news outlets either die or surrender to their death beds for prolonged hospice care.

Thank you, Julia. And write on!

E tu, McCormick?

Oh, McCormick! Why must you play such games?

I, of course, am talking about the “limited edition” Old Bay Hot Sauce 2.0 release.

In January of this year, a mere six months ago but a lifetime of lifestyle changes ago, the Hunt Valley-headquartered, world-renowned spice company hyped and then released a limited amount of hot sauce flavored with its famous and extremely popular Old Bay Seasoning.

The newborn Old Bay Hot Sauce (left) with its big sister, Old Bay Seasoning.
Photo by Marge Neal

We in the Delmarva region would probably die if the company ever chose to discontinue the life-sustaining substance. We have a container in the spice cabinet, a container on the boat, one with the camping gear, a back-up in the pantry and a back-up to the back-up. Some folks stocked up when the company announced it was going to switch from the iconic metal tins to plastic containers. It gets shipped to friends across the country when they can't find it in their local stores. It's in shakers in Maryland restaurants, right along side the ubiquitous salt and pepper. We don't get asked if we want fries with that; we get asked if we want Old Bay with that. And we ask for it if it isn't offered.

So the powers that be at McCormick had to have known in January that the “limited edition” hot sauce would be hoovered up faster and more efficiently than Brooks Robinson ever handled the hot corner at Memorial Stadium.

And sure enough, indeed it was. The bottles with the instantly recognizable red and yellow labels flew off store shelves into the welcoming arms of hoarders who then immediately advertised the stuff for $50 a bottle and up on eBay and other digital marketplaces.

And this was BEFORE Covid-19 shut down the world and made finding toilet paper, paper towels, flour, yeast and freezers, for God’s sake, a competitive sport.

You can’t tell me that isn’t exactly what McCormick officials hoped for. You can’t pay for that kind of publicity — even for a tried-and-true product that needs no introduction.

If this was some crazy, off-the-wall product created by a little mom-and-pop shop with little capital to work with, I could see this kind of treatment.

But this was a deep-pocketed, well-established business toying with its flagship product. They know it’s going to sell and they can afford to have product sit on shelves in every grocery store in the land.

But they had to play us.

I completely missed the first wave but was invited to join an email list so I could be “among the first” to know about a second release! Right! I’m sure I got that email a couple of days before millions of others got it.

I can always find basil without packing a knapsack for a day-long hunt. Ditto turmeric, paprika and even cream of tartar.

So why do we need to don safari gear and hire a Sherpa to find this hot sauce?

Make enough of the damn stuff to supply the demand, insist it have a fairly uniform retail price (instead of $3.49 at Weis and $5.99 at Giant) and keep it on the shelves.

I think the second release lasted for about 10 days before it was pretty much gone. I saw an article on myrecipes.com that stated more was due to hit shelves July 6. We’ll see. But I got enough to last for a while and to send a couple bottles out of state.

But there’s just no reason for McCormick to be doing this. Especially now. 

Right now, our lives have enough uncontrollable life-and-death stress without a beloved, trusted, popular company playing head games with us. We expect more. We don’t expect another kick in the teeth when we’re already in the dentist’s chair getting the last damage repaired.

Anyhoo, gotta go ... gonna sew bottles of hot sauce in my trench coat liner and hit the road.

Stay safe. And enjoy that hot sauce.

Some steamed shrimp (center), accompanied by White Marsh Brewing Company's seasonal  blueberry ale (served in a Union Brewery Divine glass, left) and the Old Bay sisters.
Photo by Marge Neal