Dinner Time -

I love my mom with all my heart; I got my personality from her. But, she wasn't a good cook. Now when I tell people this, the first one to defend her is my wife. She points out that my mother never had her driver’s license and so my father did all of the grocery shopping on the way home from work. You need to know that he would go to the smallest market in town because he knew the owner and it was next to his office. Because money was tight I'm sure we would eat what was on sell most of the time. I'm sure she did the best she could under the circumstances. But, even with all the benefit of the doubt, she wasn't a good cook. My mother passed away a few years ago at the age of eighty. So I know I'm not hurting her feeling, as a matter of fact she would probably agree with me. When she cooked she also had to make large portions to feed our army. Don't get me wrong, I ate and loved everything she cooked. I don't think I knew she wasn't the greatest cook until I got married and found out I had married some kind of chef. When I came home with groceries once I was told that I should take back the margarine, no matter how poor we are, we will always use butter. Someone should have told Mom things taste better with butter. Mom use to make her own pizza sauce - maybe they didn't have it already made back then. I think it was more like stewed tomatoes on a crust, there was cheese but I think the only meat we ever used was hamburger. There is no doubt that Mom had a hard job to feed all of us and make due with what Dad brought home. The meal its self was an event; we almost always had a sit down dinner together. I remember kneeling in prayer before we would start and after amen it was like eight panthers springing to make the kill. I'm bigger than all my brothers because I have longer arms to grab the food. I have a vague remembrance of forks being stuck in the back of my hand - but perhaps that is a suppressed memory that could come out with thousands of hours of counseling. The only protected entree was the meat, which was under strict supervision of our father. This probably was a good idea or my meek little sister wouldn't have gotten any meat at all. As it was we would have encouraged as many siblings as possible to be vegetarians. There was special consideration given to curtain siblings, I don't know it that was to shut them up or if it was intended to protect the weak for the savage boys. But for the most part I loved to sit down as a family for dinner, those that didn't have their months full the whole time would talk about the day and what's coming up. Mom and Dad were almost always the last ones to leave the table - it probably was the must relaxing part of the day. The kids weren't asking for food and weren't hanging around or they would have to help with the dishes, even though someone was always assigned to do them. Despite all of the excitement and confusion, it boiled down to the fact we loved each other and this was the time we were mostly together in some degree of contentment.