and sauerkraut
Saturday noon we had a hotdog. Eating little or no white bread, when we have hotdogs, I like to have one bun and two weiners. Preferably pork or deer sausage, but sometimes a regular American hotdog, as today.
Linda cuts the frankfurters so they lie flat to cook brown in the pan, and I put one flat sausage on one half of the toasted hotdog bun, and one on the other half. Sometimes I have chili-no-beans, but not today.
This one had Löwensenf, my German mustard, split flat frankfurter, sauerkraut, topped with truffle ketchup on one bun half; and mayonnaise coleslaw, frankfurter, and truffle ketchup on the other bun half.
IceTea to drink. I drink barley tea from Japan, which a parishioner put me onto.
When you open the jar of refrigerated sauerkraut, NEVER pour out the sauerkraut pickle juice, it's delicious to drink straight from the jar.
Now a memory surfaces, with its story. When I was fourteen and a new starting freshman at Bay High, I was old enough to attend YPSL, which at the Time the Episcopal Church called its parish youth groups. Young People's Service League, and we called it "League." I was young alright, in a meeting with high school upperclassmen. Later, as a junior and senior, I was a League officer, and drove our brown Plymouth woody station wagon to pick up kids all over The Cove every Sunday evening, to take us to St Andrew's Episcopal Church for League and home after.
In my day as one of the older guys, our parents took turns cooking and serving us supper after League meetings on Sunday evening, but not when I started. I was in a carpool, that Susanna James drove, along with Barbara Yost and maybe one other girl in the front seat, and in the back seat, Susanna's sister Barbara, who was in my Cove School class of 1949, maybe one other girl, and me: the only boy, and very quiet. Susanna drove us in their 1949 Buick Super sedan, a beautiful car, sort of light turquoise with white or cream-colored top.
Radio, heater and whitesidewall tires, of course. No power steering, no power windows, no power brakes in those days, and I don't remember whether it had DynaFlow automatic transmission or three-on-the-tree and a clutch. But this is not about the Buick, much as I've always loved them.
After League, Susanna and the other girls liked to go to Jimmy's Drive-In for hotdogs. The discussion all the way there would be whether they were going to get their hotdog with chili or with coleslaw. Susanna parked, the carhop came out, took the order, and returned shortly with cokes and four or five hotdogs as ordered - - one for each girl in the car. I never carried money. Working at my father's fish house from age nine, I had money and a checking account at Commercial Bank (where the clock is at Harrison Avenue and Beach Drive, now a law office), but I never had any cash - - no dollar bill, no coins. I couldn't remember to bring cash, and knowing him well, I'd never have dared ask my father for money to waste on cokes and hotdogs when I had my own money! So I was always embarrassed to lie, "I'm not hungry. We already had supper," and listen as the girls talked about how good their hotdogs were. In those days, Jimmy's Drive In was the place to go. Jimmy's on West 6th Street, and Tally-Ho way out at the far end of Harrison Avenue, "on our city's northern border" when 15th Street was a dirt road.
Later there was also a drive-in restaurant on Highway 98 in Little Dothan, near where the Kaiser-Frazer dealer's showroom was. But we quit going there after the Time the carhop came out to the station wagon, snatched up our tray, and told us goodnight you need to leave, greatly offended because Linda and I were sitting in the front seat smooching. We were seventeen or eighteen. Please don't tell that, and if you do tell it, I'll say you are lying.
My other semi-related money story is that during World War Two, or maybe it was later, every morning at Cove School the teacher took orders from everyone who wanted to buy milk, that came about halfway through each morning. For 11¢ you got a half-pint carton of icy cold milk, and a saltine cracker. OMG it always looked so good, but I NEVER remembered to ask for eleven cents to bring for milk. I'd never have dared anyway: there were three of us, and 3 x 11¢ = 33¢ and that would have added up. Once I thought about asking, but in my wisdom decided better not. In fact, Best Not. Gina was the only one who dared stir the soup at home, I dared not, and Walt did not. There are stories there that are none of your damned business.
When I was growing up, we had pork and sauerkraut, usually as I recall it was spareribs and hot sauerkraut, for supper at home sometimes. It was never a favorite, but I never went hungry. When I was a senior at Bay High and started dating Linda, sometimes we had hotdogs at her house, and they always enjoyed them with cold sauerkraut. That's where I picked up that taste, and it has lasted.
Some years later, on my first Navy ship, I noticed that they sometimes had pork, usually spareribs, with hot sauerkraut, and I once asked the chief who was in charge of the crew's mess, if he ever served cold sauerkraut when they had hotdogs? He looked at me like I was crazy and said he'd never heard of such a thing.
+++++++
Anyway (one of my favorite transition words) it's now Saturday afternoon, I think I'm prepared for my firs Confirmation class tomorrow morning, and I'm going to take a nap, in retirement at extreme old age, one of my favorite activities in life.
RSF&PTL
T88&c