I mentioned in an earlier post about Dad that when he was young he would often have to go to bed hungry and he resolved that when he had a family that would not be the case. He said that we might not have a lot of different things to eat but that we would have plenty of what we had. He kept that promise through the years too. I remember once that Louis Woods came to the house to buy a gallon of coal oil. Dad kept two fifty gallon barrels of coal oil all the time because Mom cooked with it and of course we built fires with it in the winter time. I was a little kid wandering around outside while they were talking and I heard them talking about how hard the times were. Louis said, "Herb, I have eat so much poke salat that every time I go to the toilet it looks like a brush pile!" Can you imagine the picture that flashed through my mind? Probably the same one that you just had. We never had it that bad that I remember.
Mom was an excellent cook and we grew up eating about the same foods that others in our area ate. I have mentioned earlier how many huge biscuits (I called them cat-head biscuits and so many didn't know what that was) she made every morning. I was an odd one I guess but I didn't like eggs and gravy and still don't. But, when Mom would open one of those half gallon green jars that was packed with canned sausage balls and fix them for breakfast I could eat that, Pride of Dixie syrup with butter stirred up in it, and buttered biscuits and felt that I was fed like a king. We ate about three different kinds of beans, potatoes, every kind of vegetable that one could think of almost, pickled beets and other kinds of pickles, etc. and we fared sumptuously every day like the rich man in Luke 16. We ate about the same thing every day and it was just wonderful!
Then, the Herman Junction boy went off to Searcy, Arkansas to Harding College. I was introduced to some things that I had never seen before and I am not good at all at trying new foods. Boiled Okra! Mom had always fried hers and I loved it. I took one bite of that boiled okra and that was it. I never did like anything in my mouth that I couldn't spit out if I wanted to and I couldn't do that with slimy boiled okra. I knew then what E.D. Smith meant when they told me that he took a bite of boiled Okra and then leaned over and looked under his chair to see if it went straight on through. I went in the dining hall one night and there on my plate was a pile of white, stringy, stuff with a little wad of red sauce looking stuff right in the middle of it. They told me that it was spaghetti but I had never seen any like that and I wasn't about to eat it. So, I walked down to Bill Bob's dairy queen and got me a chili dog. A few days later I went in the dining hall for lunch (Dinner at Herman Junction) and there were some tables at the side with sacks of stuff piled high on them. I learned that our dinner (they had done replaced supper too) was in those sacks. There was a sandwich, apple, and potato chips. It was off the Billy Bob's again that evening. I don't know how in the world that I gained about 40 pounds down there because I thought that I was starving to death and would have if it had not been for Billy Bob's.
My Lady and I married and moved away to Michigan City, Indiana. It was there that I first met something called, "PIZZA." Some folks had us over to eat one night and they had Pizza. I could not stand the smell of that stuff. I didn't know what to do because this wasn't a regular staple at Herman Junction and just the way it was spelled looked silly to me and the fact that they called it a pie was outright ridiculous because I had eaten pie all my life and none of them were like this. Do you know what I learned to do? I put peanut butter on it and I liked it fine! But, My Lady made me stop doing that and I learned to eat it as long as I could choose what they put on it.
We moved back to Arkansas and a Dr. and his wife at Manila, Ark. took us to supper one Saturday night at Paragould. They ordered 'Filets' for us and I had never heard of that either. Here I am in another dilemma and I hated it. But, when they brought that filet it was wonderful and I ate every bite of it.
Then, My Lady, two children and I moved to North Little Rock, Arkansas. The second week that we were there some folk took us to Mexico Chiquito to eat. I had never seen nor eaten Mexican food. It was dark in there! I couldn't see what they were bringing. They brought a Guacomole salad with all that lettuce and stuff and a wad of Avocado stuff sitting on top of it. I looked at that and thought that it looked like where a goose had been eating Johnson grass all day and put his droppings on top of that lettuce. No way am I going to eat that! I would not touch that main course either and I apologized profusely but I just could not eat that stuff. Two weeks later the same folks took us out again to another place and they and My Lady ordered Mexican food again and I ordered fried chicken. It was light in there. When they brought that big plate of food, it looked like chili! I loved chili! I took a bite of My Lady's stuff and I have eaten five tons of Mexican food since then! It makes a difference when I can see what I am eating. A few weeks later I took My Lady and kids to the Holiday Inn for supper one Friday night. There on the menu was that word again, "Filet". I was glad to see that ordered one and my mouth watered the whole time that we had to wait. But, when they brought my food it was FISH! AWFUL FISH! No one had told me that they made filets out of fish just like they did beef and I had no idea on earth what HADDOCK was so that was a disappointing ordeal.
In recent years I have worked a lot in Romania but I learned very quickly that I could not eat their food. So, every time I go it is back to 'under the cotton wagon' food for me...Beanie-Weenies, Peanut Butter and Crackers, baloney sandwich etc. and I'll tell you what, it is mighty good over there.
After my travels in the world I have really learned to appreciate the fine dining that I grew up on at Herman Junction and My Lady still fixes regularly. That is what makes everything just fine at Herman Junction.
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