Black walnuts better than stars as stocking gifts

I did not find a star in my stocking on Christmas morning. But I'm not complaining.

Of all the many ridiculous "gifts" pushed during the holiday season, in my opinion, the selling of stars takes the cake.

Under the scheme, for "only $48," you could have a star named for you or for a friend or relative and receive a bona fide certificate of registration for each star that bears your name.

It's hard to imagine anyone investing in this sort of ego trip, but I'm sure the promoters laughed all the way to the bank.

I thought the fad of a few decades ago when people gave millions of pet rocks for Christmas was the ultimate in foolishness. But apparently there is truth in the adage that a fool is born every minute.

At least the owners of the celestial real estate won't have to pay property taxes on it for a few years.

Speaking of gifts, I was most turned on by one from Lynne Weaver, my wife's Northwestern University roommate, who sent us a package of "hand picked" black walnut kernels from Sparta, Wis.

Now talk about a gift of love! This good friend -- who consistently beats me at Scrabble -- gathered the walnuts, shucked off the outside cover, cracked and picked the meat from what must be the world's toughest nut to crack.

The gift took me back to my childhood when, just before Christmas, my mother would set me outside on the sunny side of the house with a hammer and a big bucket of black walnuts gathered from an ancient tree in the pasture.

For hours at a time, I'd sit there, my back against the side of the house, an upturned flat iron between my legs, pounding away at the walnuts and then tediously picking the nut meat out with a bobby pin. Smashed fingers were an accepted part of the ritual.

The payoff was a piece of delicious black walnut cake on Christmas Day. I contend that much of the incomparable flavor of some memorable foods has as much to do with nostalgia as with the ingredients.

While ruminating at 3 a.m. one night recently, I realized there is a Biblical parallel with the Sen. Trent Lott foot-in-mouth fiasco.

Remember how, in Genesis, we are told that Lot's wife was turned to a pillar of salt because, against God's orders, she looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah?

Now, in the year 2002, it is Lott himself who is being punished for looking back, not at sin city, but on an ugly chapter of history and, according to critics, finding it palatable.

While reading Gil Troy's "Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons," I came across the results of a poll taken in 1958 during the Eisenhower administration. The poll asked which famous people Americans would like most to have to dinner.

Will Rogers was the only show business celebrity who made the top 20. He came in 17th, behind Winston Churchill, Jesus, eight presidents and two first ladies -- Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower.

But as Troy noted, there were premonitions of things to come.

Three quarters of those surveyed knew that it was the Long Ranger said "Hi Ho Silver!" and that Mae West said, "Come up and see me sometime." But only a third could attribute "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

OK, dear readers, I've been a good boy all year and I'm entitled to subject you to my end of-year-pun, which should sustain you throughout the New Year:

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.

This made him ... what? A super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

(Forgive me. But Happy New Year!)