~and it might as well have been me~

I've had a craving for canned peas lately and yesterday I just gave up and bought some at the local supermarket here in town.  I ate the entire can, yes the entire 2.5 servings can, last night for supper.  I guess I must have been thinking of my mom.

Back in the good old days when I was just a little 5-year old kindergarten girl, my mom would always fix the same scrumptious dinner for me when I got out of school.  When that little red station wagon would let me off at the front door of our farm home in the sand hills of Harvey County, I could always trust that she would have made for me a meal consisting of two things.

~boiled potatoes and canned peas, swimming in butter with salt and pepper~

Each noontime without fail, that's what I could count on and oh how I did love them.  Even though I ate them literally every single day, it didn't matter to me.  There was just something about them that made me feel good.  I suppose it was my early day version of what we now refer to as "comfort food".  I always cleaned my little plate up and generally asked if there was any more.  

It tasted so good to me and now, 55 years later, I still recollect them.

Once, a couple of years before she passed away, I asked my mom why it was that we always had the same meal when I came home from kindergarten each day.  I told her that I wasn't registering a complaint as a now grown up 5-year old.  As a matter of fact, I loved buttered potatoes and peas!  It was just that I had always kind of wondered.  She had a big smile on her face and a twinkle in her eyes when she responded back to me.

"Oh Peggy Ann, didn't you ever figure it out?  With your dad and I, we had 9 mouths to feed each day.  Peas and potatoes were cheap to have on hand.  You ate that way because it was how we made out from paycheck to paycheck.  I'm glad you liked them!"

During that very same conversation, Mom went on to enlighten me as to the reason why we kids always had popcorn drizzled in salt and butter for our Saturday noontime meal.  It was a very similar explanation.  In those very early days, my father was a farmer and drove the milk truck on the route in the adjoining counties.  Payday was once a week on Saturday and by Friday night the cupboard at our house must have been a little bit bare.  Making a huge skillet of popcorn helped to fill our empty bellies until our father could get home with the groceries late in the afternoon on Saturday.  

7 years later we would move to our home in Haven, just up the road and into another county in south central Kansas.  There my parents would realize their lifelong dream of being business owners when Scott's Cafe and Service opened up in 1967.  There was always food aplenty and we never "wanted" for any thing to eat after that.  

I had to get much older before I was able to fully realize one thing.  Families go through good times together but they also endure some pretty lean ones as well.  My folks must have had plenty of tight times but I guess I didn't realize that was the case when they were going on.  It was just the way life was and my parents did the best they could.  All 7 of us kids learned early on that you can survive even the worst of situations really quite well.  It has been with a deep appreciation that I acquired that knowledge in my younger years.  It has served me well all of the days of my life.

You know, I'm glad that I was raised up in the way that I was.  We didn't have as much as others did but it really wasn't important.  We had enough and what more could a person ask for?

Not much.

That little tiny baby is now 60 years old.  We were well cared for and much loved.

I guess I should have eaten a couple of more helpings of peas and potatoes each meal.  I was a little on the "short side" back then.  Wait a minute.  I guess I'm still that way.  Hey, someone has to be on the front row.  Might as well have been me.