Nostalgic Lunch

An argument this morning has made me regress to a somewhat childish mentality. Crawling to dark corner on my psyche I am recalling few memories of my childhood. A faint smell on the way down to smoke recalled mealtimes at grandma’s. In particular, lunch. The morning was usually dull. Grandpa retreats to the “pot” after breakfast and eventually makes his way to the rocking chair by the window with the paper. The smell of breakfast usually faded around 9:30 or so. The coffee and bacon scent dissipating in the events that would shape our day. You could usually find me playing with my matchbox cars, GiJoe or playing war in the backyard. Grandma would usually start cleaning something. She scrubbed her floors once a week and vacuumed every few days. At times I would find her in the garden, pulling up cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers destined for dinner or the window seal to ripen. As 11-o clock rolled around, my stomach would often start to twitch. The cream of wheat or pancakes didn’t hold as long as one would think. It was about this time I would start hovering around that kitchen like a hungry wolf. Grandma, after finishing her morning chores would start to make it into the kitchen, for the second meal of the day. She had a way of getting one’s mealtime clock so exact, you could set Big Ben to my stomach. My lunch would usually consist of several things, usually Spaghetti Os or hot dogs. It was a treat to get the Spaghetti Os. I loved those fun little Os, eating them one by one. I see now, what the advertisements mean by lunchtime “fun”. On special occasions, special in my own mind and no one else’s, grandma would make hotdogs, for herself and grandpa as well. If I were lucky, she would cut up a hot dog and put it in the Spaghetti Os and this was by far, my favorite. I enjoyed the practice of doling out the wieners in such as way as to have one piece with my last bite. As tempting as it was to go through and eat them at once, I learned early on, this led to a disappointing lunch. Ah but the smells that pervaded the kitchen and living room are what I recall the most. It was usually a combination of hot dogs, simmering beans and the left over vinegar funk from her floor wax she had put on an hour ago. Once my lunch was prepared, she set me a place at the table, sometimes with grandpa, sometimes by myself. It depended on the chores he laid out for himself that day. If he was cutting grass, he would often not have lunch until 1 or 2 simply because he had to wait for the dew to dry off before cutting the grass. This was so very important if he was to get a good clean cut. He prided himself on grass cutting and soon passed his skills and the keys to the John Deere on to me. “Keep it in gear #2” he would say. The minute he turned his back and headed for his basement lair, I usually cranked it to gear #5 and had that huge backyard done in about half the time it took him. He was always baffled, or at least so he led me to believe that I was done so soon. He made me feel as if I had done such a good job. He had to of known. Anyway, once my lunch was prepared, grandma would usually take hers, a diet coke and handful of chips to the living room to watch her “stories”. It was well known this was her time. Everyone was taking care of. If grandpa was not eating at that time, his lunch, usually tomato soup or left-over dumplings, was sitting in the microwave with the appropriate time set. All he had to do was hit start. Lunch smelled different from dinner. Dinner smells usually started around 3-4pm, often laced with my Vanilla wafers and peanut butter snack as I watched afternoon cartoons. The beans or peas that she had been simmering all day, possibly catfish or chicken creeped through the house. I gagged at the catfish smell, I was a picky little bitch but I was confident that had I liked catfish, it would have been the best catfish around. Another fond smell that I recall was when she made greens or cabbage. The vinegar scent ran rampant minutes after she set it to simmer. This scent had a more mature feel about it. Where as lunch seemed more childish. Perhaps hot dogs and Spaghetti Os are more childish in nature. Perhaps dinner, combined with an evening chill and brewing iced-t made for a more mature and adult like scent. Lunch was always served with milk until I was 10 or so, then iced t was served and later on in life I was allowed to drink coke. Iced T was not good for little kids my grandfather would say. But he also said he was a “growing boy” while cleaning off the remainders from dinner. He has been growing for along time now. Whenever I see my grandfolks now, it’s a retreat into nostalgia. Often she keeps a can of Spaghetti Os handy, either for me or one of the other grand kids who live in Atlanta. I try my best to relate all of these memories to my wife, I can actually demonstrate to her, being there, but she seems to patronize me and admire what boyish love I have for my grand parents.