All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Read Online Free Page A

kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. “I don’t want anyone to know.” “What will people think?” “I don’t want to bother anyone.”
    Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.
    Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him
Deus Absconditus.
But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines—by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.
    “Olly-olly-oxen-free.” The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says, “Come on in, wherever you are. It’s a new game.” And so say I. To all those who have hid too good:
    Get found, kid!
Olly-olly-oxen-free.

 
     
     

    C HICKEN -F RIED S TEAK
    T HE WINDING DOWN OF SUMMER puts me in a philosophical mood. I am thinking about the deep, very private needs of people. Needs that when met give us a great sense of well-being. We don’t like to talk about these for fear that people will not understand. But to increase our level of intimacy, I will tell you about one of my needs: chicken-fried steak.
    You take a piece of stringy beef, pound hell out of it with a kitchen sledge, dip the meat in egg and flour, drop it in a skillet with bacon drippings, and fry it up crisp. There you have it: chicken-fried steak.
    Next you take the meat out of the pan, throw in some flour and milk and salt and pepper, and you got serious gravy. On the plate with the steak you lay peas and mashed potatoes, and then dump on the gravy. Some cornbread and butter and a quart of cold whole milk on the side are necessary. Then you take knife and fork in hand, hunker down close to the trough, lift your eyes heaven-ward in praise of the wonders of the Lord, and don’t stop until you’ve mopped up the last trace of gravy with the last piece of cornbread.
    Disgusting, you say. Absolutely disgusting. Sure. Like a lot of good eating, this began as a way to disguise a sorry piece of old meat so you can’t see or taste it. And you probably eat something that stands for home and happiness that I wouldn’t approach without a Geiger counter and a bomb squad. It’s okay. You eat yours and I’ll eat mine.
    Now everybody has some minor secret yearnings in life. And I’ve kind of been keeping my eye out for the ultimate chicken-fried-steak experience. You have to look in truck stops and little country towns off the freeway. Little temples of the holy meal out there in the underbrush, reached by blue highways or dirt roads.
    If you’re interested, one summer’s search produced these results:
    One Star to the Torres Bar and Grill in Weiser, Idaho—free toothpicks, too.
    Two Stars to the Farewell Bend Cafe in Farewell Bend, Oregon—with special praise for a side of “Graveyard Stew,” which is milk toast, and that’s another story.
    Two Stars to the Blue Bucket in Umatilla, Oregon—free mints afterward.
    Three Stars to the Roostertail Truck Stop on Sixth Avenue South in Seattle—the waitress used to drive a truck in Alabama. She knows all about chicken-fried steak.
    Five stars and a bouquet to Maud Owens’s Cafe in Payette, Idaho, where the chicken-fried steak hangs over the edge of the plate and is accompanied by parsley, a spiced peach, two dill pickles, and a fried egg.
And
free toothpicks
AND
free mints.
And
a map of Payette under the plate. The manager shook my hand when I left. The waitress gave me a kiss on the cheek. I left her a two-dollar tip. I don’t think anybody had ever eaten the whole thing before. I could still taste it three days later.
    The Rolling Stones