The Tongue.

By Russell Neyman.

I WAS STANDING in front of the butcher’s counter at Jim’s Fallbrook Market in Woodland Hills about to learn a lesson that would serve me for nearly fifty years. It was a Monday, and I had feigned illness to avoid going to school. The Charles Evans Hughes Junior High School Science Fair was just ten days away and I hadn’t done a thing. Mother sniffed it out and took mercy on me, agreeing to let me stay home, but no television or radio or messing with my car models. I had to help her do the week’s grocery shopping at Jim’s so we could talk things over. I didn’t like it, but it was better than facing the science teacher.

“So, what’s going on at school, Russell?” She sensed that I was in avoidance mode, and tried to get to the bottom of it. I had magically fallen ill on countless Sunday afternoons and she knew my tricks: I’d snack before dinner so that I didn’t have an appetite; or hold a heating pad to my forehead so it would feel hot when put her hand to it; and sometimes even dump a soupy brown concoction in the toilet so that it looked like— well, you know. This time, I could tell that she wasn’t buying it, but kept me home nonetheless.

So, here I was in Jim’s Fallbrook Market on a school day and Mother wants to know why. “Oh, well, I guess I should tell you that my science project was due today and I kinda got behind on it.”

“It was due today?” she said, in an ah-ha moment. “How far along have you gotten? What else do you need to do to complete it?”

Deep breath. Long pause. Reaching as deep into myself to find the truth as I dared, I fessed up. “I haven’t even started it,” I said, angry with myself and embarrassed, too. “And the project I proposed at the start of the semester – a thing on fish, I think – can’t possibly be completed this week. I’m already late, and I’ll probably get a big fat F.”

She was disappointed, but not surprised. I had pulled this stunt before. “Hmmm. We’ll have to figure something out.” Several seconds of silence passed while we both considered the situation. For a split second, the crisis was put on hold. Things were desperately bad, bordering on hopeless. Silence. Now, what special cut of meat did she want the butcher to package for her…?

♦ ♦ ♦

“Hey, what’s that thing?” I asked her, pointing to an oblong lump of pinkish meat in the front of the butcher’s glass display. It was almost the size of a football, and sat limply on the pile of shaved ice amid the steaks and fish. It looked a little like a large slug.

“Oh, that’s Lange de Boeuf–” she said in a rusty French dialect. “– a cow’s tongue, actually.  Some people really like it. You cook it with carrots and vegetables. Do you want that for dinner?” she replied, surprised I asked.

“Ugh—no. But it looks kinda cool. You can see all of the taste buds and little pores. It looks like, well, my tongue!”

Mother paused, considered the conversation for a second, and then turned to Jim, who had patiently been waiting for her order. “Please package up the tongue.” I certainly didn’t want to eat the darn thing; I just wanted look at it. He wrapped it in white paper and we dropped in into the shopping cart. “We’re going to take this home and you’re going to do a science project on tongues.”

I liked the idea.

♦ ♦ ♦

Fifteen minutes later we were at home and the prized specimen was surrounded by liquid sealed in an extra large canning jar, probably a good twelve inches tall and six inches in diameter. It was one of those she used to can stewed tomatoes or large batches of soup stock. I cleaned it, trimmed off the edges, and arranged it so that it bent around and back, the end of the tongue positioned nearest the top. At Mother’s suggestion, we added some disinfectant to water – it might have been hydrogen peroxide or vinegar – to reduce the chances of the beef going sour and creating a stink, but I wrenched the lid onto that jar pretty aggressively so I was sure it was airtight. The jar sat, upside down, on the dining room table, allowing maximum viewing from all sides. The extra thick walls around the parts of the jar that would normally be its bottom acted like a magnifying glass. Luckily, this particular jar had a minimum amount of cast-in lettering at its base, so it made a good display container.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon digging through the World Book Encyclopedia and my biology book, collecting the basic facts about tongues. Papers and project supplies were spread about as I assembled information. I learned about the muscle structure of the mouth, the nerve endings, and the taste buds. I plotted the different types of taste buds on the different parts of the tongue. I learned that the senses of smell and taste are critically interconnected, and that even a fetus has a sense of taste. It took me only one or two hours to create some diagrams and labels to go with a three-page written report. The truth is, this part of the process was a snap, and much of my effort was not much more than re-writing what the Encyclopedia offered. That was pretty much how all schoolkids did their reports, right?

But what did I really have? A tongue in a jar and some papers? It needed something more. What it needed was some packaging.

♦ ♦ ♦

The woodworking bug had gotten to me years before when I helped my father build a garden gate and, again, constructing some bookshelves, so I understood how to use a saw, a hammer, and glue. It struck me that I could possibly make a display to hold everything. In the garage I found four scrap pieces of plywood left from another craft project, so I nailed them together. Two long narrow ones, canted at a slight angle like a poker player would hold two cards, served as the basic backdrop, and two others attached to the top and bottom held it together. I painted it all a light green – that was the only can of old house paint I could find on Dad’s paint shelf that wasn’t dried up – let it dry, and set about to mount the project.

Some pieces of contrasting dark green craft paper were mounted behind the various report pages and drawings, slightly overlapping to give it an artful array. The words, “THE TONGUE,” were stenciled in deep maroon across the top of the two-panel display, and the specimen jar was placed directly in the center at the base. It looked great!

So, roughly five hours after having absolutely no project to turn in, I had a sharp-looking, display that was easy to read and rather unusual.

The next day Dad went to work late so that he could help me deliver the project to science lab. It was placed amid various biology-themed projects: strings of DNA chains, clay models of nerve structures, and dissected frogs. There were, perhaps, two-hundred different exhibits from all of the school’s science classes combined. I proudly placed mine in the center back of one of the tables that contained mostly small projects. The green and maroon theme, with the icky-looking piece of meet in the center.  stood out.

♦ ♦ ♦

A few days later the science teacher opened the classroom to a school-wide science exhibition, and various ribbons were placed on some. I was just happy to have gotten something done, and was hopeful I might have gotten a reasonable grade. My last-minute effort had been, after all, both late and off-topic. I was happy with the result, but knew that I hadn’t really put in a full effort.

The winning project was an astounding experiment by one of the science geeks that must have taken him months of intensive effort. He had captured houseflies and exposed them to radiation – sounds dangerous so I assume his father was a nuclear scientist or something like that – allowing them to breed and lay eggs. The second and third generation flies had all sorts of deformities — extra wings and misshapen heads and things like that. It was, truly, an amazing effort. There was a huge blue ribbon laying over the project. Deservedly, first prize at the Hughes Junior High School Science Fair of 1962.

Next to it was – much to my astonishment – The Tongue, and there was a beautiful red second place ribbon on it. Wow. One guy works for weeks and weeks, and narrowly beats out a guy who didn’t start until after the deadline had passed.

♦ ♦ ♦

I am convinced that what made my project a award-winner was not the substance of it but, rather, the display and presentation. The wooden stand with the pleasing paint and “magnification” jar drew everyone’s attention and made it interesting enough to look closer. The information was well organized and easy to read, and it stood out from the crowd. And that’s the lesson I learned; that people do pre-judge a book by it’s cover, and if it isn’t packaged in an appealing way — even if the material within is critically important — too often they won’t move on to the content. A little sizzle helps the communication process.

Needless to say, I built on that science fair experience and the skills used to complete the assignment. And that lesson has served me well. For a decade I owned and ran an advertising/marketing firm specializing in brand identity. I designed corporate logos and product packaging, often thinking up the names for the companies or products. In college, I won several awards for innovative newspaper designs, moving away from the old eight-column “slab of type” look into dramatic graphic displays. Now, as my career moves from sales and marketing to doing artistic woodworking, I understand the value of a snappy display. Even in my personal life I invest a little time to create a pleasing personal business card or party invitation.

Funny how one seemingly inconsequential transaction can teach you so much about life and the nature of people. And it all goes back to that one distracted moment at the butcher’s counter. Good idea, Mom. Thanks.

Postscript: I should add that I still haven’t fully resolved my tendency to procrastinate. But, it goes without saying, that’s a subject for another day!

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