Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
I sat on the front deck watching the lawn sprinklers fighting their incessant battle against our arid climate on Friday morning.
After a four-mile walk between 4:45 and 5:45 am, I was a bit hungry. Yes, the experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I often skip it. That morning, as is a practice about twice a month, it was bacon and eggs, with a third cup of Joe on the “veranda” as our granddaughters call our walk-around-deck. A more atavistic term is “widow’s walk,” in reference to Cape Cod houses with the same style that the widows of mariners lost at sea often walked forlornly, hoping against hope for the return of their husbands.
Well, that was a little dark for a perfect late July morning in central Wyoming.
Have you ever noticed how your mind darts around like a hummingbird on a flower when you’re relaxed?
Friday, it took me back to at least 60 years, and maybe a few beyond that. The bacon smoke in the kitchen and the sizzling of the eggs brought thoughts of breakfast long ago with my grandmothers, Clara Gasser and Sally Tucker. To say a memory can be delectable is as easy as a familiar smell from long ago wafting on the wind that transports you back to a time and place from long ago.
The bacon did that.
Grandma and Grandpa Tucker smoked their own bacon and hams. It was saltier, more seasoned, and just better than anything sold on a supermarket shelf. The sensitive palates of today wouldn’t care for it much, but it was perfect for a youngster experiencing life in the Arkansas bottomlands.
Grandma Sally didn’t like people sleeping in when she was up and already working. Her morning kitchen sounded like a steel mill pounding out iron ingots. The pans banged, the plates clashed, heaving on the 1950s floral design metal table, and the coffee pot percolated like a locomotive steam engine.
It was a great way to wake up because all that noise was creating mounds of bacon, eggs fried in bacon fat, homemade biscuits (catheads my grandpa and great uncle Fred called them), and ample supplies of home-churned butter, along with blackberry, strawberry, or apple butter all made and preserved by Grandma Sally.
You can’t buy that dining experience in the finest restaurants, it’s just not possible.
A scant 1400 miles to the northwest, another culinary delight awaited in Grandma Gasser’s kitchen.
My dad was an only child, his young sister Goldie passing from diphtheria when she was only five years old, so I didn’t have any first cousin down in the cottonfields and thickets I often wandered along as a kid.
That wasn’t the case in Wyoming. Grandma and Grandpa Gasser had five children. Uncle Gene and Aunt Mary had eight children, six boys, one I never met, who passed at six months, and two girls; they were good Catholics. Ruth had four, Ralph three, Nellie two, and then there was my sister Susie and me. I was roughly in the middle.
Dad would get a 30-day leave from the Air Force, and we’d head to Riverton. The aunts and uncles coordinated their visits so the three living in California were there when we were. Uncle Gene’s family lived in the Midwest, so it was a quick run across the desert and the fun began.
Epic games of kick the can, near fatal wrecks diving out of the swings to see who could go the highest and sail the farthest, plus nausea-inducing rides on the merry-go-round that grandpa built from an old truck axle with a couple of boards attached to some angle iron for seats.
Those were memorable times for all of us, but the best waited for mealtime when Grandma Gasser would work her magic.
As a young woman, she regularly fed work crews at the Bar Gee Ranch, where my grandfather was homesteading for the Murray family. She knew how to cook for big groups, and when her 19 grandkids were all there, it was a big crew. Adding in grandpa and the five kids and their spouses meant grandma was making meals for 30 people three times a day.
All she ever did was smile, but if you were a little out of line, she had a vice-like grip and could make the strongest man bend at the knees.
My mom and aunts helped her in the kitchen, but it was her domain. My cousins would most likely agree that her donuts and cream puffs were the favorites, but everything she made had a magical flavor.
A decade later, we moved to the farm between Pavillion and Kinnear, and grandpa was gone. Our gatherings weren’t as grand. Life does that to big families. We had a couple of memorable reunions before grandma passed, but we were adults with problems, obligations and children of our own. The old days were gone forever.
I had a brief respite as a teenager and college kid.
My friends and I would drive to town for late-night adventures, usually triple features or dusk-to-dawn marathons at the Knight Drive-In. We’d often stay in the cabin out back. The cabin was a line shack from the tie hack days in Dubois that my grandpa had hauled to their place.
My buddies learned of Grandma’s cuisine many times. She’d even break out the “minute steaks” as she called them, little sirloin medallions fried in a pan. Incredible.
As a college kid, I worked in Riverton for three years at the Louisiana Pacific Mill and later as a construction worker for Alder Construction at the Riverton Water Treatment Plant.
When I worked the night shift at the mill, I’d get to Grandma’s house around 2 pm every day. We’d watch “Days of Our Lives” (she was hooked) and I’d sample her homemade bread with her fabulous raspberry jam before heading off to my shift.
At the water treatment plant, we worked 7 am to 5 pm five days a week (I appreciated the $13.50/hour overtime), and most days, my college roommate, Frank Schmidt, and I would stop by Grandma’s house after work.
We were so filthy that we didn’t come inside, we just sat on the front step or lay on the lawn. She’d bring out iced tea, and more of that incredible bread.
We usually fell asleep on the grass for a brief 20-minute nap.
A couple of times I bought grandma her favorite flour from Safeway (no where else.) She had a white, porcelain “Hoosier Cabinet” with a 50-pound, tilt-out, flour bin.
I surprised her with a 50-pound bag of flour a few times, cutting the strings and emptying the bag into her flour bin.
It was the best investment I’ve ever made. That flour turned into, well, you know…