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Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Green Peas

Mom and dad had just returned from a short honeymoon after being married in Tacoma in early September. They arrived home at nearly midnight before dad had to head out to his brother’s butcher shop where he had worked the past two years. The day was busy as usual cutting meat as neighbors made their daily runs for the evening meal and dad and Uncle Auby filled their requests.

The day started with the meat truck arriving early. Dad and Uncle Auby got there around 4:30 AM to load the meat into the lockers and begin the preparation so that by the time they opened later that morning they would have freshly cut strips displayed and prime sections trimmed and ready to cut to the desired thickness. Dad knew this was not his future but for now, it paid the bills.

Everyone was asking dad about the wedding and the honeymoon and kidding him about “the little woman”. Of course, everyone from the neighborhood knew dad well since they had watched him grow up over the years and although many did not attend the ceremony it was only because they all worked hard during the depression and time was of a premium. Mom and dad both understood.

All in all, it was a good day. Dad was well liked and he could feel the love of the neighborhood as it wished him and his new bride the best. Dad looked forward to getting home to see what Betty had in store for their first dinner in their home and also finally getting a full nights rest in their own bed. But what Harold didn’t know, he was in for quite a surprise.

When mom was 14 and her sister Francis was 12, their mom died of cancer. Grandma had been dealing with the illness for close to a year and during that time she spent hours with her daughters preparing them to handle things for their father when she was gone. Francis was given kitchen duty and mom was responsible for cleaning the house. And in both cases it was important to do things just right so that had to be their focus. Grandfather was the President of a bank in Tacoma and not only did Grandma feel there were standards to be upheld because of Grand dad’s position, Grandfather ran his home much like the bank and although he loved his family and was a loving father, it was important to him that those standards were met – to built character and display pride.

As a result, Francis became quite a cook and mom never missed a beat when it came to keeping a home looking well cared for. But when it came to marriage time, there was one thing that dad didn’t know: Mom didn’t even know how to boil water.

Dad got off work around 6 PM and made the 5 mile trip home. He had eaten lunch but just a snack of sorts since his first day back to work was so busy with everyone wanting to know about the wedding and honeymoon. As he walked in the door he yelled “Betty, I’m home!” But there was nothing but silence. “Betty, are you here?” Dad walked to the back of the house thinking maybe mom was outside talking to a neighbor but he could see no one. Then he looked at the stove and nothing was in the oven. There was a knife on the counter and a small pan but nothing else. “Mmmmm…” he thought and just then he could hear something coming from upstairs. It sounded like whimpering. “Betty, are you upstairs”, he said as he started to take his first step.

Sure enough, mom was in the bedroom on the back side of the bed on the floor with her hands covering her head. She was crying like a baby. “What happened?” “Are you alright?” Dad patted her back and asked her again what was wrong. Slowly mom sat up and told dad her problem. “Harold, I have tried all day long to figure out what to do for dinner but I have never cooked before. And I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.” Typical of dad, he sat next to mom and put his arm around her and consoled her and said “It’s all right honey.” “It’s no big deal.” “Let’s go down stairs and see what we can figure out.”

Mom and dad made their way downstairs and into the kitchen where dad found the chicken and asked mom to take a chair. Then with the knife that mom had already set out, dad proceeded to gut the chicken and cut it into pieces being very sure mom could see each step. Then with directions and mom’s help they floured the chicken and baked it and then added potatoes and green peas. They both laughed after words as they sat at the table and enjoyed their first cooked meal. Mom wrote out the instructions so that she could remember and all was good.

For the next three weeks, mom and dad enjoyed their fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green peas and there was no doubt that mom had this meal mastered. And if you knew my father at all, every evening (and this continued to the day he died) it didn’t matter what he was eating he would sit there and quietly show his contentment with satisfying sounds saying “Betty, you have done it again, THIS is absolutely delicious.”

At work one day, he was talking to his brother and telling him about the dinner meal and asking how was he ever going to tell Betty that he was getting tired of the same meal every night. Auby suggested finding the right moment and suggesting adding a little variety to just change things up a bit. So that evening, dad did just that. After dinner, dad suggested they take a nice walk around the block and he even brought home some flowers to put on the table and paid special attention to mom and complimented her on how she looked and so on. Then as they were sitting out on the porch enjoying some coffee, dad mentioned to mom how much he appreciated her cooking and suggested that maybe it was time to add some variety to the meal and mom quickly perked up “I was thinking the same thing and actually was going to try something different tomorrow night. But I don’t want to say anything right now, let it be a surprise.” Dad was so relieved. I guess mom too was getting sort of tired of the same thing every night.

That next day, dad went to work to tell Auby what happened. They both chuckled about having to eat fried chicken for 22 days straight and had quite a time chiding each other as the day went on. “How about a chicken sandwich for lunch…?” “No, I’m too chicken for that.” “Is that a cackle in the back room or another one of your chickens?” The day continued…

Dad was looking forward to seeing what mom had come up with and so on the way home he was trying to guess what she had done. Pork chops…a nice roast…some sort of beef stew…lots of possibilities… As dad walked in the door, mom greeted him and asked him to stay in the front room till it was time to serve dinner. She even handed him a nice glass of red wine and had his favorite chair all fluffed and ready for him to plop into. “This was sort of fun…” he thought. The anticipation was killing him.

Mom talked with dad from the kitchen about her day and asked all about dad’s work as she cooked away and dad sipped his red wine. Then mom appeared at the doorway and everything was covered and set on the table ready to be revealed. Dad was in for quite a shock. As he opened each lid to serve up each plate he found variety all right. Mom had found some food coloring and everything in every dish was a different shade of blue. Blue fried chicken, blue mashed potatoes, and, the specialty of the house, dark blue green peas. She was so proud of her accomplishment and again, if you knew dad, it was all about making mom happy and making her feel good as he commented “Oh my goodness Betty, you have done it again, this is absolutely wonderful!” With that encouragement, and the secret to variety that next week mom went crazy and used a different food coloring for each day of that week. It took over 20 years for dad to recover before he could face fried chicken, mashed potatoes and peas again.

Mash Potatoes - An Elephant - MyHatt an International Experience

An Elephant Sat On the Hood of My Car

It was 1981 or 82 and we had decided to visit some friends in Southern California. We weren’t much for traveling in those days. Not that we didn’t enjoy it; we just didn’t really have the money and living in Phoenix during the summer, driving 500-600 miles in 115 degree weather just wasn’t very appealing. But Janice and Andy had been insisting that we visit since they were such good friends of ours before they left our neighborhood due to his company transfer. Jane and Janice, in fact, were attached at the hip the 7 years they lived two houses down and the kids played together virtually every available moment.

Jane convinced me that July this was the year to visit our good friends. I made the arrangements for the time off from work and we were western bound that last week of August in our trusty camper. We took our time and drove the southern route to San Diego stopping several times to stretch our legs and walk a bit arriving in San Diego that evening around 5 PM where we spent a couple of nights at a very nice RV park near the water and enjoyed two days of Sea World and the San Diego Zoo before heading up the Freeway to the Mariner’s home in Costa Mesa. The days were warm but with a cool breeze and the nights were absolutely delightful. Jane slept like a baby after walking both parks for a solid 8 to 10 hours but I was up and down both nights not being used to the coastal air.

Driving north on the fourth day between San Diego and Los Angeles we noticed one of those drive-through animal parks and Jane insisted that we check it out. It was quite interesting with animals walking everywhere. You would drive from one section to another waiting for each gate to open to take you to another animal grouping. Many were walking freely through the park with others just laying in the sun or in the shade and you could stop and take pictures and just take your good old time working your way through the park. It was fascinating to watch the animals in this environment as opposed to the previous day at the zoo.

At each gate, there were clear warnings to keep your hands inside the windows, keep them rolled up as animals came close to the car and by all means do not honk your horn. Unfortunately, there was a car of young adults slightly ahead of us that were having quite a time trying to stir up the pot with the large cats. You could see them taunting the lions that were in the distance in hopes they would come closer. They would call them, stick there arms and heads out the door and wave their arms furiously to get the animals attention. Fortunately, for the most part, the animals paid little attention with just a slight lift of the head, a short glance of disgust and then laying their heads back down paying basically no never-mind.

But that did not hold true for Mr. Elephant. Although the people were not trying to get his attention, he was the one that had had enough of this nonsense. He gradually made his way toward our cars but to our surprise the young couples either saw him coming or got fed up them selves with being ignored and took off just in time. But there we were between the Elephant and the cars behind us. Not sure what was about to happen we rolled up our windows and watched as Mr. Elephant strolled to front of the camper, slightly raised his trunk, gave a slide nod, then turned and proceeded to sit on the front or our hood. “Oh my goodness, what do we do now?” I could hear Jane speak. I must admit I was at a complete loss. The big fella did not over do it. He made his statement quite clear then stood back up and moved on with absolutely no fan fare. A couple of tons on my hood left quite an impression, if you know what I mean.

At first I was most concerned about my radiator but once outside of the park where we could stop there was no indication of anything leaking. I pulled up to the office, the people were very apologetic and both the park and ourselves made a few calls to the insurance companies and within an hour or so we were off and on our way to Andy and Janice’s.

As we pulled onto the San Diego freeway heading north, we had not gone more than 3 miles and a car about 4 cars in front of us got impatient and tried to switch lanes not noticing the car next to them and before they knew it there was a three car pile up that we just barely missed – two cars and a camper. After seeing that everyone seemed to be just fine, we noticed that cars were starting to drive onto the shoulder to get around the crash site. We decided to follow them since we were tired and running a bit late after being held up at the park. What we did not notice was that for some reason, the camper also left the scene of the accident before any Highway Patrol arrived.

It was close to 4 PM in the afternoon and typical of the Los Angeles basin, traffic was already getting quite heavy and so things were quite slow as we tried to make our way up to Costa Mesa. We proceeded for about 5 miles before I saw flashing red lights in the rear view mirror. I stopped and tried to make way for the vehicle to pass but then noticed he just pulled in behind me and opened his door. The next thing I knew, he was accusing me of hit and run and wasn’t too interested in my story about an elephant sitting on my hood. Another patrol car arrived and soon we were guided to the nearest police station where they talked to us further and then made a few calls to substantiate our story before releasing us with their apology. For two people that were not seasoned travelers, this was turning out to be quite a day. We got directions back to the Freeway, tried to call our friends but there was no answer so we just left a message that we were again further delayed but getting closer.

I was absolutely exhausted having had little sleep that past two night and not handling, quite frankly, any of this very well at all. I asked Jane if she wouldn’t mind driving the rest of the distance since at this time of day it was still going to be a good 45 minutes to an hour in traffic before we reached their place and I thought I would take a short nap. I crawled into the back of the camper, took off my pants and lay down to get some shut eye and I was asleep in no time.

Jane had the instructions but it was getting later in the day and with so much traffic and not being used to LA driving, it was a bit stressful. She had rolled down both windows to get some cool air flowing through the cab which may have helped her to stay focused on the road but she was not paying attention as the instructions went flying out the window. She saw the signs that said “Costa Mesa” but she could not remember the turnoff and when reached for the piece of paper it wasn’t there. She had only one choice and that was to pull off the freeway and see if the instructions were on the floor as she put in another call to Janice. It took a minute or two to work her way to the shoulder but she finally made it and came to a complete stop turning off the engine just as Janice answered on the other end of the line.

I was off into dream land when the camper came to a complete stop and I could hear the engine being turned off. Although it still sounded like traffic a bit outside, I knew it was LA and traffic was supposedly everywhere. So that did not hit me. What also did not hit me was that my pants were on the floor of the camper. I got up, opened the camper door and stepped outside to see where we were. Just then, Jane, got her instructions from Janice, started the engine back up and before I could react to anything she was back on the freeway and on her way. There I stood in my boxers, t-shirt and sheet-wrinkled face with no shoes on. “THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING TO ME!” is about all I could say to myself as I embarrassingly looked around at the rubber neck traffic.

It was only about 20 minutes later when I heard the siren again approaching my position. Thank goodness it was the same Highway Patrolman who couldn’t help but believe my story since I was the only idiot he had met in that whole day. Fortunately for me, I had taken down the original instructions and so I knew the turnoff and the address and so the patrol man offered to drop me off in my boxers and all as we both laughed about our crazy day.

Jane had found the turn-off but she turned left when she should have turned right and so before she knew it, she was about 4 miles out of the way. She knew Janice was not at home yet so she called her cell and got new directions and was soon back on track. In the meantime, I was dropped off at Andy and Janice’s home by the patrolman but now it was starting to get somewhat dark outside. No one was home so I sat on the front porch and waited. About 20 minutes later, Jane drove by, noticed someone in boxer shorts sitting on the front porch of her friend’s house. Jane did not stop but drove around the corner, and called Janice who then called the police and you can just guess the rest of the story.

We enjoyed the evening with our friends laughing our heads off but that next morning we quickly packed the camper back up, and headed back to Arizona never to see the California coast again.

Mash Potatoes - An Elephant - MyHatt an International Experience

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