There’s no such thing as a “Cheap Lunch” either (my son wrote this about my dad)

[Omaha Steve]

Dad was in WWII. He was a hero to me. He died in 94. The following is from my son Little Steve today:


There’s no such thing as a “Cheap Lunch” either

At about eleven years old, I became much more to my grandfather than his only grandson. It began with my immediate promotion as the caretaker of his yard after he had a heart attack and could no longer maintain it. This was no easy promotion as my grandfather was the caretaker and landscaper for M.U.D.; a job he’d obtained after WWII and kept until retirement. Needless to say he was an obvious “outdoorsman” (something I’m not and never was) and was very particular and meticulous about how he wanted his yard looking. In short, I quickly became his student of yard care & the fine art of lawn mowing, his support system for physical labors and endeavors he could no longer do, another mouth to feed on evenings I came over after school to mow the yard (he was a cook in the army and insisted on making all the meals at home himself and that I stay for dinner on those nights), and eventually one of his best “buds” by necessity of my being there for him.

As a result, this “caused me” me to spend a considerable amount of time with him at the farmers market as my grandfather was just as particular about food as he was his yard. For example, he NEVER ate bread that was more than a day old (a habit born from his days of eating so poorly while growing up during the depression). Another habit that bewildered me to no end was that while he loved tomatoes he was an Indiana state native, and exclusively sought tomatoes grown from his native land. He would find both of these coveted items at one of the local farmers markets here in town.

As often as he frequented this market, it’s no surprise that all his best buds were the farmers who sold their wares at said market. At the time, I found his friends to be a pack of strange individuals with whom I had nothing in common with. I would listen to them grumble and complain about whatever problems the current season brought them and their issues of boredom and lack of activity during the off seasons. I recall a particular day when I went with my “grandpa” (as I called him back then) to his barber and listened to him shoot the breeze with all his farmer buddies as they all planned to meet up there and chat. This one particularly old and cranky farmer pal (he was in my eyes at the time anyway) was having a conversation with another farmer who was his opponent at the checkers board in the shop had suddenly shot up from his seat in anger, pointing a lanky, knobby finger at him. “I GROW SOYBEANS, I DON’T EAT EM! IF YOU GROW SOYBEANS, YOU’RE A FARMER! YOU AINT A FARMER IF YOU EAT THE SOYBEANS YOU GROW… YOU’RE AN ‘AGRI-BUSINESS MAN’”! As vividly as I recall that moment, I had no idea what he’d just said and was equally perplexed that he sat calmly sat down and went right back to his game of checkers like nothing had happened.

In retrospect, my youthful frame of mind didn’t grasp the unique atmosphere and kinship the farmers market had provided my grandfather. But as I read the third segment of “The Food Movement Rising” by Michael Pollan (the portion concerns the rising phoenix that is the farmer’s market), a lot of what I’d experienced back then came flooding back to me.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. The postiive outcome of all this mess is that we will be forced to "go local"

and maybe even re-discover the idea of community in the process.