Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
us kids drive around the yard, to the distress of his chickens and the older women. In the
winter he would attach a sleigh to the back and take us for long cold rides down snowy
roads. In the evenings we would all play cards around the kitchen table and stay up late. It
was always Christmas at my grandparents' house, or Thanksgiving, or the Fourth of July,
or somebody's birthday. There was always happiness there.
When we arrived, my grandmother would scuttle off to pull something fresh-baked out of
the oven. This was always something unusual. My grandmother was the only person I ever
knew-possibly the only person who ever lived-who actually made things from the recipes
onthebacksoffoodpackets.ThesedishesalwayshadnameslikeRiceKrispies'n'Banana
Chunks Upside Down Cake or Del Monte Lima Bean 'n' Pretzels Party Snacks. Gener-
ally they consisted of suspiciously large amounts of the manufacturer's own products, usu-
ally in combinations you wouldn't think of except perhaps in an especially severe famine.
The one thing to be said for these dishes was that they were novel. When my grandmoth-
er offered you a steaming slab of cake or wedge of pie it might contain almost anything-
Niblets sweet corn, chocolate chips, Spam, diced carrots, peanut butter. Generally it would
have some Rice Krispies in it somewhere. Mygrandmother was particularly partial to Rice
Krispies and would add a couple of shovelfuls to whatever she made, even if the recipe
didn't call for it. She was about as bad a cook as you can be without actually being hazard-
ous.
It all seems so long ago now. And it was. It was so long ago, in fact, that my grandparents
hadacranktelephone,thekindthathungonthewallandhadahandleyouturnedandsaid,
“Mabel, get me Gladys Scribbage. I want to ask her how she makes her Frosted Flakes
'n' Cheez Whiz Party Nuggets.” And it would turn out that Gladys Scribbage was already
listening in, or somebody else listening in would know how to make Frosted Flakes 'n'
CheezWhizPartyNuggets.Everybodylistenedin.Mygrandmotheroftenlistenedinwhen
things were slow around the house, covering the mouthpiece with a hand and relaying to
the rest of the room vivid accounts of colonic irrigations, prolapsed wombs, husbands who
ran off to Burlington with the barmaid from Vern's Uptown Tavern and Supper Club, and
other crises of small-town life. We always had to maintain the strictest silence during these
sessions.Icouldneverentirelyunderstandwhybecauseifthingsgotreallyjuicymygrand-
motherwouldoftenbuttin.“Well,IthinkMerle'sarealskunk,”shewouldsay.“Yes,that's
right, it's Maude Bryson here, and I just want to say that I think he's an absolute stinker
to do that to poor Pearl. And I'll tell you something else, Mabel, you know you could get
those support bras a dollar cheaper in Columbus Junction.” In about 1962 the telephone
company came and put a normal phone without a party line in my grandmother's house,
possibly at the request of the rest of the town. It drove a hole right through her life from
which she never entirely recovered.
