The cartoon page today had a quote from Winston Churchill. He was quoted as saying that a lie is half way around the world before the truth can even get its pants on. The wife in the cartoon pointed out that it is very ironic that Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons) really said that and used a pseudonym when he did. Can you think of someone else that said a lot of "Truisms" and used another name to do it? How about Poor Richard's Almanac? I contend that Ben Franklin used the name Poor Richard so he didn't have to give credit to all the people he quoted (or misquoted).
With this being Father's Day, I feel compelled to report some of the things my father said and did to/for/at us as we were growing up. My Grandfathers both died when WWII was in full bloom. Both had served in WWI and I missed hearing all their tall tales of their time in the service. My Dad was drafted and served as an Airplane Mechanic at Barber's Point in Hawaii. He said when asked where he wanted to serve, he sais any place so long as it was on dry land. As Dad would tell stories about his time there, he would often get a tear in the corner of his eye. When I was on R&R during Vietnam, I visited his base. Hell, I too had a tear when I left there. His worse day had to be a hell of a lot better than my best day. When it was time to wake up in the morning he would shout "Hit the Deck" I think that means get down but what the heck do I know.
On Friday afternoons, it was always a challenge to see what was going to happen when Dad came home from work. He often would go to the kitchen sink and grab paper grocery sacks. He would give us all one and tell us that we needed to pack and in 15 minutes he was leaving for Arkansas. If we didn't pack everything, tough. For most boys, it wasn't any big deal to forget our toothbrush or clean underwear. My sisters were mostly too old to go with us so it would be a rush to me and Rick to fill our sacks and get out butts in the car.
I will never understand why my dad wanted Mom to fix that chipped beef gravy and then call it "Shit on a Shingle." Mom finally came up with a variant using hamburger and it too became known as SOS. Most of the time it was served on toast but on special occasions there would be biscuits. Dad would always coat it with Catsup and sometimes hot sauce. One meal that Dad loved was Navy Bean Soup with a little ham and almost always cornbread. That is one of my favorites today but I use pinto beans not white Navy Beans. That was one meal that dad didn't put crackers in but it would have a liberal dose of catsup. He would add corn bread until he was really eating corn meal mush with beans (and Catsup)
I know that a lot of the kids today think my mother was a bad cook but I remember that she managed to fix some great meals even if dad seemed to doctor or adulterate a lot of the stuff with Catsup, crackers and a few sprinkles of Tobasco. One thing he did was never spilled over into my diet. Dad loved fried eggs over easy and then he would put catsup on them. Somehow that runny yellow and red mess then wiped off the plate with toast was just more than I could abide. I love eggs and over easy or medium is my choice but never with catsup. I have even tried to cook them in the Spanish Huevos Rancheros style and just can't seem to find a taste for that. That style is basically eggs poached in salsa.
Mother said that Dad grew up without having a lot of fun as a child. Having met his mother, I can understand how that may have been true. I never met a person that seemed to have less fun that Bessie. She could make a birthday party sound like a murder with all her complaints. I always say that it makes me wonder what she says about us to others when she says so many bad things about them when they aren't there.
One time when Dad went to the Doctor he was in the middle of one of his lows (Manic Depression) and the Doctor wrote a prescription. Dad said he didn't need it as he could self medicate with beer. The Doctor pointed out to him that that was another problem not the solution. It wasn't until dad was in his 60's that the Doctors started giving him Lithium to help control his highs and lows. He turned into a really boring old man at that point and wasn't near as much fun. Dad was like the weather in Kansas. If you didn't like it today, just wait a day and it would change.
One thing about Dad that always amazed me was how handy he was in his younger years. There was very little he could not fix. In the early days of Television, Tubes went out fairly regularly. He would make a diagram and pull the tubes out. I would take them up to the local store (Womack's Grocery) and test them until I found the bad bulb. It was simple for me to count the pins on the tubes and plug them in the right socket. When I would press the test button it would tell me if the tube was OK or not. For three or four dollars we almost always got the TV fixed. If the tubes were OK, it was almost always the Picture tube and that meant a trip to Sears for their chance to repair it. I know Dad paid about $50.00 a year for the warranty package and the main tube (about $90) would go bad once a year. I think the TV ran from the time someone got up to the time it would sign off at night.
Oh well, I guess I had better go get cleaned up and find out what time the kids will be over for dinner. I will put the steaks in the marinade and figure out what the schedule for everything else is. I don't need a cooks worksheet to fix steak and potatoes. I think Barb bought some chicken and Brats also. They are so good as leftovers.
MUD
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