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An open letter to my mother on April 15, 2020
Dear Mom:
I’m beginning to understand more about you and your
generation.
I think of you when I make the breakfast – my favorite
breakfast – the way you used to do it.
It was creamed eggs on toast – or Eggs a la Goldenrod, as
you used to call it.
What I realized lately is that this dish, as well as so many
others you served us in the ‘50s, was likely a child of the Great Depression. As were your ham hocks
and beans, chipped beef on toast, egg-and-bread-enhanced meat loaf and even
milk-enhanced French Toast -- not to mention the gravies you prepared. In fact, I made three of your gravies this week alone.
You endured shortages during the Depression followed by
mind-boggling rationing during World War II.
We didn’t know the extent to which you had to endure “inconveniences”
during your younger years.
If you were around today, you’d probably kick right back
into the “make do” mindset of your youth. And you might smile and nod your head
while we bitch and complain about how the worldwide pandemic is kicking our
asses at home.
And I realized that, although you never had to live through
a killer pandemic, your parents and grandparents did. You were born just four
years after the end of the last worldwide flu. I can imagine that the stories
they told you about the fear, the isolation, the suffering and the losses they
endured had little meaning at the time.
Their experiences, however, prepared you in a way for the
two major crises you would survive in the ‘30s and ‘40s. And, although we didn’t
realize it, you were preparing us for what we might have to face one day.
Did your mother make creamed eggs on toast or gravies that could stretch a meager meal? Did your own
grandparents learn how to take care of their families because their parents
honed the same skills during the Civil War?
And finally, when our children emerge from this
once-in-a-century plague, will they be passing along similar survival skills to
their yet unborn grandchildren?
Things were never the same following the Civil War. In fact,
some people are still stumbling over the debris from that horrible conflict. World
War I and the flu epidemic of 1918 gave way to the Roaring 20s – a brief decade
of carefree pleasure into which you were born. The Great Depression came to an end only because of the
outbreak of World War II.
The second World War led to another relaxing decade, the
1950s. But human nature – or maybe just OUR human nature – wouldn’t allow the peace
of mind to continue.
The cycles repeat each decade but seem to crash every century
or so.
Will they be eating more gravy and creamed eggs on toast a hundred
years from now?
Regardless Mom, thanks for passing along these great survival skills.
Love,
Donnie
