Even during the worst of the depression, there were degrees of poverty. Our family
was about the middle of poor people. We knew several who were better off and some
who were worse off than we. When we would have a social function that called for
bringing food, you could tell how people fared by what they brought to eat. The
"well- offs" would bring hams, the "middles" would bring chicken, and the "worst-offs"
would bring sausage biscuits. I always felt sorry for the folks at the bottom
of the ladder because people would flock to the ham first, and when that was gone,
they would go to the chicken. The sausage biscuits would sometimes go untouched.
The poor people were providing the best they could, and I'm sure their feelings
were hurt.
Once I decided I'd try to cheer them up, so I ate one of the
sausage biscuits. It was delicious! I had another, and then a third. Other people
figured I must have discovered something, so they started eating them, too. Soon
they were all gone. After that, I craved sausage biscuits and begged my mother
to fix them for us. My father could do almost anything, but he had never learned
how to make sausage. My mother thought she was doing us a real favor by packing
our school lunches with nice sandwiches made with lunchmeat, tomatoes, lettuce,
pickles, and mayonnaise. Only the very poor kids had sausage biscuits in their
lunch boxes. When lunchtime came, Sam and I would swap our fancy sandwiches for
sausage biscuits, making both parties happy. This went on for a long time before
our mother found out about it. When she did, it upset her tremendously, as it
should have. Why would any kid want to trade the nice lunch she had made for us
for something that most people thought of as poor folks food? We apologized and
promised never to do it again. We loved our mother, and we didn't want to make
her unhappy.
That was almost seventy years ago, but I never lost my taste
for sausage biscuits. In these days of having to watch our cholesterol, it is
not wise to indulge in such fatty foods. I have already had an angioplasty to
clear my arteries of the dangerous waxy substance caused by partaking of such
fare. Still, every once in a while, I ask my wife Penny, "Could we, just this
once, have some sausage biscuits for breakfast?" |
