Saturday morning market.

Haven’t done one of these for a while. Today’s theme: The good ol’ days.

Me: So what does sassafras tea taste like?

Seller: About what you’d expect.

Me: So …boiled bark?

Seller: Yeah.

No sale, but amused.

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Posted at 9:26 am in Detroit life, iPhone |
 

45 responses to “Saturday morning market.”

  1. coozledad said on March 2, 2013 at 9:36 am

    It’s also a hepatoxin. Watch out!

    Wingnuts taking money from authoritarians abroad: Who coulda knowed?
    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

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  2. coozledad said on March 2, 2013 at 9:39 am

    sorry, here’s the link;
    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/joshua_trevino_malaysia.php?ref=fpa

    Wonkette has something on this too. Republicans can’t be trusted to do anything that puts them in the same environment as sweet, sweet treason dollars.

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  3. basset said on March 2, 2013 at 9:51 am

    Bark tea indeed… at least it doesn’t pass through some Indonesian cat’s bowels like $350 a pound coffee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

    True that sassafras tea doesn’t have much taste but down in Martin County they say it “thins the blood” after a long winter. Now let me tell you about persimmons and ginseng…

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  4. Snarkworth said on March 2, 2013 at 9:51 am

    Yes, sassafras (active ingredient safrole) is best avoided.

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  5. LAMary said on March 2, 2013 at 11:22 am

    When I was a kid I used to chew sassafras root. It tasted like root beer.

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  6. jcburns said on March 2, 2013 at 11:36 am

    Don’t you sassafras me none.

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  7. Danny said on March 2, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    Take me back to a south Tallahassee Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy.

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  8. coozledad said on March 2, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Hey, serial plagiarizer and Bush sycophant Ben Domenech was on the Malaysian government payroll, too.
    http://www.salon.com/2013/03/01/u_s_medias_malaysian_government_shills/singleton/
    Ought to be grounds for revocation of citizenship, followed by immediate deportation or incarceration.

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  9. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    Cooze@2: Yeah but, Billy Carter. Of course Billy the Bubba actually went through proper channels to register as an agent for a foreign entity. Maybe he was smarter than these “pundints” And why do they all pronounce with the second “n”? Drives me nuts. Do these self-proclaimed arbiters of opinion understnd tht “pundit” comes from very old Sanskrit and means “learned Hindu”? Didn’t think so.

    Sassafrass? Think I’ll stick to sarsaparilla.

    And this GOPer unwittingly explains why men should always recuse themselves from voting on anything whatsoever to do with women’s reproductive issues. Doan know shit beyond the end of his pecker, although I sincerely hope, for the sake of the gene pool, he always wears a party beanie if some woman is foolish enough to let him near her:

    http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/sean-duffy-ultrasound-bill.php

    What a dumbass.

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  10. alex said on March 2, 2013 at 1:04 pm

    Sean Duffy protests too much. I can just tell by that face that he’s got a moist manhole that could take a dildo the size of two ultrasonic wands plus a beer bottle.

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  11. coozledad said on March 2, 2013 at 1:13 pm

    Alex: In his defense, he looks more like a frat. Watersports getaways, faith-based all-guy weekends, calling each other “brother” and shit.

    On second thought…

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  12. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 1:42 pm

    How the deficit got where it is. Any economist of any flavor will say that only an idiot would combine war efforts with tax cuts. That is the ultimate economic no-brainer.

    Alex: A mental image I could do without. Cooze: I thought they call each other “Brah”. The doof reminds me of Marilyn Quayle’s comment on her husband’s attendance at a GOPer “retreat” that included hookers and strippers. She said as long as there was a golf course, Dan wouldn’t be interested in the women.

    Shirley MacLaine is coming back to Downton. Hope she gets some juicier writing this time around. I didn’t get upset about Matthew particularly, but the failure to make the Martha Levinson role into a star turn was pretty disappointing.

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  13. alex said on March 2, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    She said as long as there was a golf course, Dan wouldn’t be interested in the women.

    Just ‘cuz he hadn’t banged her in 25 years. Now that’s what I call one of those glass-half-full optimists.

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  14. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 2:35 pm

    I always thought the ability of (very few) people to sing and play bass at the same time was amazing. incredible performance by Esperanza Spalding. Pristine vocal, too. Purely gorgeous.

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  15. beb said on March 2, 2013 at 2:45 pm

    Gee, has Mark given up trying to bash the President over the sequester already?

    In addition to the news that conservative pundits have been working as lobbyists for Malaysia, Talkingpointsmemo has the following titbits:
    http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/03/whats_with_some_people.php?ref=fpblg
    and this:
    http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ca-goper-pregnancy-from-rape-rare-because-body?ref=fpa

    Where do they find such people?

    Sassafras not only grew like a weed on Dad’s farm when I was growing up, but was pretty much a weed in terms of keeping the woods out of the fields. I recall having sassafras tea a time or two. I liked it. Was surprised to find out years later that it had a toxin.

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  16. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 3:03 pm

    Speaking of bass playing, this is a beautiful, percussive and propulsive bass line by one of my favorite bands ever, Yo La Tengo (non-literal translation: I got it. as in baseball), featuring a great woman drummer, the wonderful Georgia Hubley. Great fingerpicking and funny faces by Ira Kaplan, Georgia’s hubby.

    In fairness Alex, Quayle was always clearly intimidated by his wife’s intellectual superiority. She knows how to spell potato. If one of those two should have been VP, it was Marilyn. Same grotesque conservative ideas, but not bone simple. I’d think any married guy would find a public statement from his wife like that one excruciatingly embarrassing.

    There is no sequestration had the GOPers not threatened to trash the full faith and credit of the USA. They’ve decided to obstruct by moving from one economic crisis to another every two or three months, with complete disregard for the economic wellbeing of the US. GOPers in Congress are so blinded by bilious disgust at having a black President after Kommissar Karl told them a few years ago they’d achieved “permanent loyalty” they don’t give a shit how they damage the country so long as they think they can get away with blaming the black guy. It’s clearly dereliction of the duties they swore to perform and for which they are paid large salaries with Cadillac benefits. Treasonous shitheels.

    And everybody’s turning the verb sequester into a noun is causing me gas pain.

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  17. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 5:15 pm

    Last Thursday, the Senate voted on a balanced plan to replace this year’s indiscriminate cuts with a mix of targeted cuts and new revenues from ending loopholes for the very wealthiest Americans and corporate special interests. This plan got 52 votes and should have passed but Republicans blocked it by insisting on a 60-vote margin. Fracking GOPers filibustered it, without opening their ugly pieholes. Garnish their paychecks.

    Where is the “wasteful” in any of this spending. And after that VAWA nonsense, GOP is apparently perfectly happy to make sure no Native American ever votes for a GOPer again. Shitforbrains.

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  18. Deborah said on March 2, 2013 at 6:45 pm

    This is a good article in the Times about riding the Train on long distance trips: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/magazine/47-hour-train-ride.html?_r=0

    I actually took the train from Chicago to Santa Fe this trip. It cost half as much as plane fare and I have nothing but time, so I thought I’d try it. It wasn’t that bad, not great either. It took 24 hours but the leg room is amazing and seats recline really far and it’s fine if you recline because the person behind you has tons of leg room too. I brought season 4 of Breaking Bad and watched all of it on the trip. I also had a good book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Little Bird travels by train most of the time because she HATES to fly and she has it down to a science. I took her advice, had one of those neck pillows, a big wool scarf which doubles as a blanket. Snacks like cheese and salami, peanuts that you keep in a small cooler. I also brought some yogurt, granola and a couple of boiled eggs for breakfast the next morning. It turns out I didn’t eat very much though. Since I keep clothes and toiletries in Santa Fe, I really travel light so I didn’t check any luggage and only had a small carry on and my small cooler. There were a ton of Amish people on the train from Chicago to Kansas, then there were fewer. There were some incredibly cute Amish guys sitting in the seats in front of me, really Hollywood handsome. I’m not a talker on trips, I wear earplugs even when I’m not listening to anything. I’m kinda dreading the trip back though, it’s always that way even when I fly, I hate the trip back.

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  19. Deborah said on March 2, 2013 at 6:49 pm

    Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing to take on the train is small wine boxes. You’re really not supposed to bring booze on board but everyone does. If you drink the wine with a straw it looks like a juice box, you wrap it in a paper napkin to help conceal it. It helps you sleep. Also bring a sleep mask.

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  20. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 7:21 pm

    I’ve gone by train from Savannah to Boston and back a few times, and love to travel that way, but conservative kin have made me aware that any federal Amtrak money is entirely wasteful spending, like USPS. I bring a flask of whiskey, Baby Ray’s jalapeno jerky, fruit. Oh, and a couple of tins of Altoids Always have earphones, because I have chronic bad luck with seatmates. Once met a woman on that trip that I ended up spending more time with. The seats are like Barcaloungers, and I’ve found that generally I prefer staying up to sleeping on the train. It bugs the crap out of me that people don’t understand that building the interstate system was a political gift to the teamsters and did serious economic damage to the USA by decimating the rail system (and that is almost a literally correct use of decimate). The I system was sold as a defense mechanism, as if, when them Russkis nuked our airbases, we’d use the interstate highways as B-52 runways and smash the commies back. I used to love to fly, but it’s no fun any more. For one thing, I’m 6-1 and my legs are long, and some evil seating arranger always puts some obnoxious person that keeps adjusting the seatback right in front of me. When I must fly, I go 1st or business, but the whole airport thing is so bad a pain in my ass now, I still hate it.

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  21. Mark P. said on March 2, 2013 at 9:00 pm

    Prospero, I’m with you on airline travel. I pretty much hate it. In my line of work, we used to be able to buy fully-refundable tickets, and the upgrades were reasonable, maybe $50 one way. Now we have to buy the cheapest tickets available, and upgrades are more like $200 one way most of the time. And “cheap” is a relative term. It’s still between $900 and $1000 round trip for East Coast to California, mainly because we end up having to buy tickets close to our flight times.

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  22. Prospero said on March 2, 2013 at 11:46 pm

    It seems to me that I’m not short, but not all that tall, and airplane seats did not used to be excruciating, as they certainly are now. At 6-1, I worry on any flight over two hours about DVT, even though my cardiovascular health is excellent. Compared to those La-Z-Boys they have for seats on Amtrak, airplane seats in current, greed-driven configurations are akin to medieval torture devices.

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  23. Dexter said on March 2, 2013 at 11:53 pm

    Passenger trains are coming back, with great speeds. Hallelujah! Turntables for playing 33 and 45 rpm vinyls are roaring back as well. Baseball stadii and baseball uniforms now harken back to a simpler time. New street lighting looks like old-time gas lamps. People are abandoning margarine and going back to real creamery butter. I am in The Matrix.
    Is that Doc Graham walking past the movie house that is playing the hit of the year, “The Godfather”?
    Hell, wages are heading back in time as well. It’s on.

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  24. Dexter said on March 3, 2013 at 1:21 am

    I keep hearing people say that Kirkland’s Vanilla Ice Cream is the world’s best ice cream. Apparently it’s what is sold at costco. We don’t have costcos around here. Anybody buy it? Is it really that good?

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  25. Dexter said on March 3, 2013 at 1:50 am

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CNn8wChsbAs

    Smart kid in this video, making sassafras tea. I grew up in the wilds of DeKalb County, Indiana, and along with picking and eating truck like wild strawberries and mulberries and many other wild-growing fruits and plants, we’d dig up sassafras roots and take them home and boil up some tea.
    Hell, nobody even told us, ever, that it was a toxin.
    “Stills: Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
    Crosby: Yes, I’ve been eating them for six or seven weeks now,
    haven’t got sick once.
    Stills: Probably keep us both alive.”

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  26. Mark P. said on March 3, 2013 at 10:31 am

    Prospero, I worry about DVT, too. Everyone in my immediate family has had one except me. I take an aspirin a day, but still. On Delta, they are offering slightly increased legroom for a cost. But they have to get that extra legroom somewhere, and the only place I can figure is that they take it away from someone else’s seat. I kind of doubt that they are taking a row out.

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  27. Little Bird said on March 3, 2013 at 11:03 am

    I don’t hate flying, I’m TERRIFIED of it. I’ll do it if I have to, but that requires me to find a friend with a prescription for Valium or Xanax and beg.
    When it comes to the train, I’m the person you want to sit next to if there’s a delay. I have food, booze, a first aid kit, and movies on my Netbook. But I do require the window seat. I tend to lean when I sleep, and I’d rather lean on the window than a stranger.

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  28. Prospero said on March 3, 2013 at 11:05 am

    Mark, I’d pay extra for the bulkhead seats in a flash. Regular seating, I can barely make it off the plane. I’ve got friends that are 3 or 4 in. taller than I and I can’t imagine how they fly in coach. Last time I made a steerage flight (SFO to BOS) there was a kid with a tape player and no headphones, about seven, whose parents allowed her to play Hakuna Matata over and over while she constantly changed the seatback position in front of me. I know now, for a fact, I’d never resort to murder.

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  29. Prospero said on March 3, 2013 at 11:08 am

    Blue meanie alert:

    http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/rachel-maddow-calls-antonin-scalia-troll#sthash.fLf8u0WW.dpbs

    And Fux News comes to baby Nino’s defense.

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  30. Prospero said on March 3, 2013 at 12:37 pm

    Tomasky, on how Woodward gets way withlying his ass off.

    David Frum on GOPer sequestration duplicity.

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  31. Dexter said on March 3, 2013 at 12:39 pm

    Yes! A caring government really does care about its fatsos.

    From Yahoo! Sports…

    “2014 World Cup in Brazil to have special seats for obese people…from the Brazilian government’s world cup site:

    The twelve 2014 World Cup Arenas are designed to offer the highest comfort and convenience to supporters. Accessibility is an important item for inclusion, also a requirement by the Brazilian government and FIFA. The Castelão in Fortaleza is an example of how football may bring about this type of legacy in the country. From the total of 63,903 seats, 1,675 are reserved for obese people, or people with disabilities.

    This number corresponds to 2.4% of the stadium’s capacity, which is more than the minimum requirement of 1% anticipated by the World Cup General Bill and administrative rule No 205 of the Ministry of Sport, that regulates the issue. At the Castelão, 335 seats are reserved for wheel chair users, 1,220 for people with reduced mobility and 120 for obese people. The seats are spread throughout the lower ring and cater for views from all angles of the pitch.”-END-

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  32. Sherri said on March 3, 2013 at 1:19 pm

    Why there’s not going to be a compromise on the sequestration anytime soon: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/02/this-is-why-obama-cant-make-a-deal-with-republicans/

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  33. Catherine said on March 3, 2013 at 2:55 pm

    That right there is the beauty of Twitter. When you have to boil down your case to 140 characters, what you’ve got left is “we don’t trust him,” which isn’t so much an argument as a prejudice.

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  34. David C. said on March 3, 2013 at 3:48 pm

    I’m a nice mid-sized 5’9″ and I am uncomfortable in an airplane seat. I really feel for anyone taller. I design interiors for military trucks, so I’m very familiar with transportation ergonomics. We have to design for 5th percentile women (about 4’11”) to 95th percentile men (about 6’4″). My guess is that airline seat pitch is designed for about 70th percentile men and width for about 60th percentile men. Right of the bat, then, 40% of men are going to be uncomfortable. Passenger cars (drivers and front seat passengers) have to fit 1st to 99th percentile, by law. I don’t really understand why there is no similar requirement for aircraft. It’s a safety issue as much as a comfort issue. You are going to have a really tough time getting that much meat in that little area to egress efficiently.

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  35. David C. said on March 3, 2013 at 3:51 pm

    More GOP genius. WA state rep says biking causes more pollution than cars due to increased respiration.

    http://seattlebikeblog.com/2013/03/02/state-lawmaker-says-bicycling-is-not-good-for-the-environment-should-be-taxed/

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  36. brian stouder said on March 3, 2013 at 4:04 pm

    Sherri – that was a great link, about the Michael Murphy/Ezra Klein (et al) exchange; very enlightening.

    Today Grant and I attended an event wherein a friend of his made Eagle Scout. I’d never been to one of these, and it was somewhat strange; sort of a cross between a wedding ceremony and a trial.

    Anyway, it was great; made me more emotional than I thought it would.

    Speaking of “more emotional than I thought”, I’ve got a funny little school story to share, too; gotta go, so maybe in a little bit, eh?

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  37. Deborah said on March 3, 2013 at 4:28 pm

    I think I accidentally got caffeine this morning which has probably contributed to my foul mood but some of the articles that I’ve read in the links here in the comments are making me furious. I really hope the Republicans enjoy the the loss of services they are going to have to live with. I’ve gotten kind of used to street lights and maintenance of parks etc. I realize these things are not at the federal level but it will trickle down to the most local level. I don’t have children in public schools, in fact I never did since my daughter always went to private schools (long story) but I never thought twice about the necessity of my tax dollars going to public schools etc.

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  38. Prospero said on March 3, 2013 at 4:36 pm

    Ezra Klein, the other night, subbing for either O’Donnell or Maddow, made the point that should really be obvious to any living, breathing human. Blaming President Obama for this budget mess requires magical thinking. One must believe that election to the Presidency imparts some sort of superpowers. At this point into five+ years of mad dog GOPer obstruction, I’d be satisfied if the Constitution provided for a Praetorean Guard the President could dispatch to tell the asshats to agree to compromise or fall on their swords. Or maybe just take away Oompa’s MaiTais and smokes until he behaved like an adult and a member of Congress. Somehow, from observing Boner, I just know he likes oriental parasol drinks. Or sloe gin fizzes.

    We just watched Holy Motors. I liked it a lot, S not so much. It’s surrealist a la Fellini, but I think more straightforward. I actually think it has a discernable plot. I think the movie is clearly about making movies and has a lot in common with 8-1/2 (wish my Apple Keyboard had a 1/2 character like the one the Bushies claimed never existed on Selectronic IIs, the lying sacks of shit). In fact, the Intermezzo portion of the movie has a scene of roving street musicians that is straight out of Nights of Cabiria and an obvious homage. Pretty cool movie all in all.

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  39. beb said on March 3, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    A shorter and possible clearer version of Ezra Klein is at Booman Tribune
    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/3/3/121641/1947

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  40. Deborah said on March 3, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    What the hell does chained CPI mean?

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  41. Jolene said on March 3, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    Deborah, here is a link to an article that explains the chained CPI concept pretty well.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chained-cpi-222051643.html

    Shorter version: It’s a way of calculating SS benefits that would reduce costs to the government and, of course, reduce benefits to seniors somewhat as well. The difference isn’t huge, but, across, many millions of beneficiaries, the savings would be substantial. For the individual, of course, any decrease is undesirable, but may be necessary/desirable for the nation’s fiscal health. At least, that’s the argument.

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  42. Connie said on March 3, 2013 at 8:53 pm

    Brian, those Eagle Scout things -honor court?- are like a wedding with a bad church basement reception.

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  43. LAMary said on March 3, 2013 at 9:44 pm

    I just flew Alaska airlines to Seattle and back. The service was ok and all that but man, my legs were feeling bad when I got off. I’m five ten and I know I have long limbs, both of the arm and leg type. I don’t know how anyone over six feet could stand a long flight.

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  44. beb said on March 3, 2013 at 10:17 pm

    Some NYT writer suggests that Mitt Romeny should be appointed to be Detroit’s Emergency Manager….

    I can see it now, Romney trying to sell off Hamtramack thinking that because it’s surrounded on all sides by Detroit that it must be part of Detroit. And how is he going to extract any management fees from a city that has no money?

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  45. Lynn Perry said on March 4, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    Nancy…you should try sassafrass tea. My grandfather had a sassafrass tree and used to make tea for me. Delicious!

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