Warm Fuzzy

Last night I was cooking dinner, a good southern meal of pan fried pork chops, fresh green beans, sweet corn and boiled cabbage. I had been craving this type of meal for a while and decided that last night was the night to make it. I left the kitchen as everything was wrapping up to use the bathroom (yes, I washed my hands) which is in the back of the house. As I re-entered the kitchen area, the smell of dinner wrapped it’s arms around me and hugged me tight.

I was immediately wisked back to age 10 standing in my Granny’s kitchen while Grandaddy checked the cabbage. He boiled the cabbage all day and it was so tender and tasty. As soon as dinner was ready, I would go and tell Uncle Jess and Uncle Earl that dinner was ready. If Uncle Bill and Aunt Dolly were in town, this meal usually meant that Grandaddy and Uncle Bill were either just returning or getting ready to go to the lake for an extended fishing trip. The whole house would smell of dinner and on those long summer days, I had usually snacked on my share of “tommy toes” (little salad tomatoes, like cherry tomatoes) fresh out of the garden and there might even be some fresh blackberries with cream waiting in the fridge. We would eat dinner early and conversation was quiet partly because the food was good and mostly because Grandaddy and Uncle Bill were both men of few words. Grandaddy would thump my head (his way of telling us he loved us) as he walked back to the living room to sit in his chair and work a crossword puzzle or watch a game. After the table was clear, he would sometimes return to the kitchen table for a game of solitaire which he taught me to play. I would watch and help him find moves. He had a deck of blue cards that were black on the edges from the oil on his hands, he was a mechanic and his hands were always black, no matter how much he washed them and he always wore those blue coveralls. I had my own red deck of cards that were clean edged, but I tried my hardest to play them enough that they would get dirty and look like Grandaddys, because, after all, he was my hero. We shared so many moments. Grandaddy taught me to fish and to bait my hook with a live worm (which when I wanted to fish with worms and not my usual bread, he tried to discourage me by telling me I had to rip them in half to make them last longer and to attract the fish better...I did it without hesitation) and when I did catch a fish, he had to get it off the hook for me.

Grandaddy passed away several years ago just before Christmas and Granny has moved out of the huge house with the 13 wooden stairs perfect for sliding down on your butt (especially after being dusted with pledge) that I spent every summer in when I was younger. Last night when that smell wrapped it’s arms around me, it was the best hug I’ve had in ages.