History repeats itself down to the breakfast table.

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