Kahn's

mashed potato sandwich

Now and then, because there’s a trigger or just because, I remember something about growing up with my parents, grandparents and their memories and stories. There was Mom, my grandmother on my father’s side, Mom’s story of my father falling out of the upstairs window in Alfred’s bedroom and Evalyn, my father’s oldest sister, saying he landed on his head and that’s been the problem ever since. The fox hiding under the old house and my father grabbed a handful of rocks, pebbles, and “chunked him out.” There were car stories, Alfred stories, travel stories from a hundred years ago. My father at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, unloading knocked-down Model T Ford cars from the box car at the Ocilla train depot, assembling and driving them to the Ford garage. Pop’s reminiscence of northern Wisconsin in the late 1800s, where he lived a season with his brother Heber and family. Uncle Heber was an Episcopal priest and later bishop there, and Pop there met the first girl he fell in love with, on a cold winter day took her out for a ride in the sleigh, stopped the horse, and kissed his girl, first time, first kiss, first girl he ever kissed; Pop holding that memory as he told it to me when he was ninety years old. 

My mother shared memories. Comes to me this morning, Kahn’s Delicatessen in Pensacola when mama was growing up through the 1920s into early 1930s. I’ve told before: Kahn’s popular for sandwiches, mama went there for lunch. My Wednesday lunch triggered the memory. Besides the usual and unusual, including baked bean sandwich, egg salad, chicken salad and other sandwiches, their budget-minded was the mashed potato sandwich. i remembered as I built my Wednesday lunch sandwich of bits of ham that kept falling out from between the bread. So, ham bits and a thick sludge of mashed potato which, mashed down, held the ham bits securely. Mug of ice cubes, water, splash of Malbec on top to color it red and flavor it nice.

DThos+ loving +Time+