Green Tea is Better for Your Uterus

I really enjoy my first few moments back in the Midwest: even when the setting is the Northwest terminal of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. After months of living out of my van on the West Coast, people finally look familiar to me again.

An elderly couple sitting across the hallway is speaking into the same cell phone: their heads are tilted together, he’s holding the phone, and her hand is on his knee. My guess is that they’re speaking to a grandchild, and when I hear the man say, your Pa said ya jumped off the ruf, I smile. Memories from my childhood of jumping off the roof of my best friend’s house, into a giant snow bank, flash like wholesome postcard photos through my mind. I see my best friend, Drew, bundled up in his snow gear—chubby, flushed cheeks squeezing out the sides of his tightly secured hood—urging me to climb a latter onto the ruf. Back then roof and ruf sounded the same to us.

Also in the same terminal, leaning against the wall, is a boy in a brown, well-worn Carhart jacket, with his father (or uncle?) standing next to him: the elder’s stringy, grey beard brushes the top of his enormous belly, and his eyes light up as he laughs at something the boy is saying. I’m convinced the boy went to school with me, riding his snowmobile to school in the winter and his tractor to school in the fall. But, alas, he’s much too young. Is your last name Popa? Or Noonan? Or Novak? Maybe I went to school with your cousins.

My phone rings in the bottom of my computer bag, and I dump the entire contents—five books, a wad of receipts, wallet, several coins, comb, and brittle orange peels—onto the floor, saying “hello” just before the last ring.

“Chase, buddy, I’m going to the store before I pick you up,” my Dad says. “I promise I won’t be late.”

“Okay, Dad.” Grocery shopping? My mom and sister warned me Dad had changed. Mom claims he cooks dinner most nights. In his words: nothing but vegetables and healthy whole grains. What about the TV dinners, Dad? And the Slim Jims, Mountain Dew, and Fig Newtons? Those were the only food items you ever bought, when I was a kid.

Dad is way different now, I can hear my sister say. He started calling me on the phone sometime last year, and it almost feels familiar now. Apparently he calls my sister everyday, just to check-in. The hillbilly dad that raised me didn’t even answer the phone when I was growing up. But here we are, talking on our cell phones, about the homemade cream of mushroom and French onion soups he’s going to make this week.

“Any special food requests?” Dad asks.

“Is there tea in the house?”

“What kind do you want?”

“Black, but only if it’s easy for you to find.”

“Black tea? What about green tea? Green tea is better for your uterus.”

Pause, followed by giant heaves of laughter on my side of the phone. “Dad, did you just say uterus?” I glance nervously around the terminal—concerned the elderly couple nearby overheard the name of the said body part.

“Yeah, better for your uterus,” he replies nonchalantly.

I picture him on the other end of the phone, grinning through his thick Grizzly Adam’s beard, which is red with a hint of grey. He’s proud of the reaction he elicited from me. He knows, as well as I do, that Dad’s from small towns in the northern Midwest DO NOT say uterus. They either use the term “beaver” to refer to that entire region of the female body, or they don’t say anything at all.

Essay written December 2008