Starving the Old Year Feeding the New

There are several New Year’s menus that I remember distinctly. My mother Sybil Miner Beck always served was pork and sauerkraut for New Years’ Eve. I was told that it’s an old German tradition to eat pork and sauerkraut to ensure luck and welcome in the New Year. The type of pork wasn’t traditional, but with Mom it was usually a pork roast. Other meals I’ve eaten the meat was sausage, kielbasa, or even hot dogs.

My wife Cindy Morrison Beck and I often shares meals with Cindy’s best friend, Deborah Detar and her husband Bill. We sometimes spent New Year’s Eve at each other’s homes to celebrating. Cindy’s menus were more “traditionally” flavored foods, while Debbie always added sugar to all of hers. Her sauerkraut was brown, heavily flavored with brown sugar and her mashed potatoes were one teaspoonful shy of being candy. Even the sour cream dips she made for veggies and chips was more like dips served with fruit. Her kids carry on that sweet tradition.

Sometimes Cindy’s parents Bud and Retha Morrison would share homemade sauerkraut with us. It was a veritable feast with freshly its canned flavor. This year I helped make sauerkraut and can hardly wait to share the flavor with my kids.

Another menu that remains firmly established in my memory bank are the meal my dad and grandparents Ray and Rebecca Miner made for New Year’s Day. Dad would buy several cans of oysters, tiny, round soup crackers, and vanilla ice cream. My grandparents had a farm and provided milk, cream, and freshly churned butter to make the oyster stew. Gram always baked an apple pie or two. While we waited for the oysters to stew, we would often play games like dominoes, Pachisi, or my uncle Ted’s favorite Sorry on the dining room table.

Gram’s house soon filled with savory steam from the stew simmering on her wood fired, kitchen cook-stove. It merged with the spicy aroma of the pies still in the oven. Hungry eyes of the older members huddled around the dining room table would occasionally stray into the kitchen “wondering if the soup was ready yet?”

Finally Gram would put the games away. She’d set the table with shallow bowls. Dad would carry the stew pot to the table; steam often obscuring sight through his glasses. The rich broth was ladled into the bowls and cellophane package of crackers passed from hand to hands until everyone had some. I Soup spoons clicked as we slurped the broth. The flavor was remarkable. The meal ended with slices of still warm pie and melting ice cream. It’s a deliciously full memory.

 

Only Once a Year

Nancy a statuesque blonde was one of our switchboard operators. She was friendly and quick to laugh; always ready to help. Because the switchboard was centrally located, I would often use the phones there. She was on duty when I stepped inside to answer a page. When I finished talking, I said, “That’s a nice blouse, Nancy.”

The blouse was black patterned with multiple vibrantly colored geometric shapes.

“What, this old thing?” she snapped.

I was taken aback. I’d never seen Nancy short tempered. I thought it was something that I had said and tried again. “I just meant it was pretty. I didn’t mean anything other than it’s a nice blouse.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said sharply. “If you think it’s pretty, I’ll give it to you for your wife!”

I was surprised. I guess she took the compliment the wrong way. “It was just a compliment. I don’t want your blouse. I thought it was nice.” I turned and left before she could say any more.

I forgot about the incident until Nancy’s wicked sense of humor came home to roost at Christmas. A few days before the actual holiday, I stopped by the switchboard. She was on duty and said “Wait. I have something for you.”

She reached down, groping inside her carryall. Pulling out a long, thin box covered in bright Christmas paper and a huge red bow, she said, “This is for you. Go ahead. Open it.”

I didn’t think it was unusual. I worked closely with people at the switchboard. It created a bond. I’d buy a small gift for each of them to stick it under their tree. So I initially thought it was a gift because I’d bought one for her.

She repeated, “Go ahead. Open it now.”

I pulled off the ribbon and could see her smiling as I ripped the paper off the flat box. It was about five inches wide and about twenty inches in length. I have ties for all occasions. Patients and staff seemed to like seeing me wear them for holidays and I thought it might be another tie.

It was a tie and what a tie it was. There was Nancy’s blouse, repurposed into a neck tie. It was the blouse I’d told her months ago that looked nice. She’d found someone to redo that blouse sewing it into a neck tie. Shocked and speechless, I held it into place in front of my shirt.

“I told you I was going to give you that blouse.” She looked at the tie I was holding up to my chest and said, “Damn! That blouse looks better as a tie than it ever did as a blouse.”

Nancy has passed away now. I still have the tie. Even before she retired, I’d wear that tie for New Year’s Eve. The necktie looks great against a bright yellow or deep purple shirt; black trousers complete my New Year’s Eve attire when I wear it only once a year. Thank you, Nancy.

 

This Year’s Christmas Memories

Christmas seemed a bit blah this year. The dreary sky filled with clouds and rain dampened my usual holiday spirit. My son Andrew, his wife Renee and their children spent Christmas in New Mexico visiting her parents, Steve and Ann Largent. I did get the old artificial tree decorated because my kids put up the tree after Thanksgiving dinner and I was able to hang the ornaments on it. That was a big help, because last year I was sick and ended up hospitalized on Christmas Eve and did not really decorate. We celebrated after I got home, but the gifts were scant. I hadn’t felt like shopping either.

This year I did most of my shopping early, but wrapping those gifts took much longer. Half of my bed was covered in boxes of wrapping paper and items waiting to wear the bright Christmas patterned until recently, then I found I couldn’t sleep well in the wide open space.

The opening of the gifts will be delayed again this year. Since the gifts I bought were similar for each of my children and grandchildren, I said I wasn’t celebrating until we all could gather. Even my oldest granddaughter’s sixteenth birthday bash has been delayed until after the first of the new year..

There was some celebrating with friends from a few Connellsville High School graduates of 1967 who meet monthly for a luncheon. We gather o eat and gab, smile and reminisce. This year was ugly sweater themed. I couldn’t fit in mine. The sweater was one my dad (yes my dad Carl Beck) actually bought for me when I was in eleventh grade. It was bright red with white background and a black pattern running through it. At the time, I thought it was SO ugly, but now it is a treasured memory. Thanks Dad.

The second holiday meal was with my Chestnut Ridge Historical Society members. It was a local restaurant, its name I won’t mention, because the food wasn’t up to palatable fare. I ordered a strip steak and a crab cake with French fries. I got sour cream infused mashed potatoes with gravy, and the potatoes were barely warm. My strip steak was filled with gristle. I didn’t know you could get strip steaks from a horse. And the crab cake was bland with more filler than crab. Other than that, we had a great time. There is a funny story about one of our members trying to escape without paying her bill and a new member covered for her, paying her bill, but I won’t share that. I promised that I wouldn’t. (At least I didn’t mention your name.) Merry Christmas and the hope of looking forward to a blessed New Year.

A Christmas Blessing

I was driving home after work listening to Christmas carols on my radio. My mind was filled with a long list of things I needed to do before the holidays. I started to relax as the music played. I was looking forward to visiting my family and celebrating with them.

A voice said, “Stop and buy a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.”

I looked around my car; no one was inside. I thought, “It would take me weeks to use a gallon of milk and I just bought bread.” I shook off the voice and drove on. I’d almost forgotten the voice and started to relax again. My mind began to scroll through the many things I had to do yet.

The voice interrupted again. “Buy a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.” It was more insistent.

“Where’s that voice coming from?” Again I shook off the intrusion and continued to drive.

I was halfway home and the voice came again. This time it was filled with an urgent, pleading edge to it. “Stop the car and buy a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.” I could no longer ignore the voice and gave up. It was so urgent I couldn’t ignore it. Why, I wasn’t really sure.

I parked my car and made my way to the back of the store, where the stores “conveniently” place milk and bread. It makes each shopper trek through the store being tempted by traps of sale items and enticing displays.

I was in and out in just a few minutes using the express line. I felt foolish as I sat in my car. What was I going to do now?

I started the car and continued the drive home. Before long the voice returned saying, “Turn here.” I was startled by the voice. I’d the already followed its advice once, now I needed to see what would happen and made the turn.

I’d never driven through this area before. Small bungalows lined the street. Most of them were neat and orderly. As I neared the end, I saw a house that was starting to deteriorate.  As I neared it, the voice re-appeared and said, “Stop here. This is the place.”

I pulled over to the curb, shutting off the engine. The cooling engine ticked off the seconds as I sat gathering my courage and the groceries I opened the car door and strode up the walkway, climbing yhr steps to the door. I hesitated, then knocked. I watched a flake of paint drifted to the floor of the porch.

I wasn’t sure that my rap had been heard and was about to knock again when the door opened a crack. A young woman’s face appeared. “Yes?” The door was nudged wider by a toddler at her feet. In her arms was an infant.

I held out the milk and the loaf of bread. “These are for you.”

A wide smile spread across her face and tears began to course down her cheeks. She managed to say, “I’ve been praying for these. There‘s no milk for the baby and no food in the house. Thank you so much. You are a true Christmas blessing.”

 

 

The Christmas Cactus

A large stainless steel container sat at the top of the stairs in my grandmother’s rambling old farmhouse. It was the top chamber from an old milk and cream separator that Granddad had used on his farm. Raw milk was poured into the top bowl and a centrifuge separated the milk from the cream as it flowed through the machine; milk to drink and cream to be churned into butter.

The shiny metal bowl was nearly thirty inches in diameter and eighteen inches high and sat in the center of a large Mission Oak desk, designed to look like a library table with open shelves on each side and a wide drawer in the center.

Steep wooden stairs with its long curved handrail climbed the distance of twelve feet from first floor to disappear into the dark reaches of the second floor where Grandma Rebecca Miner kept her Christmas cactus. The large stainless steel container was the planter for that old Christmas cactus. It had long ago filled the creamery pot and eventually spilled over its full rounded sides, cascading in long green streams. It was enormous. Like a queen sitting on her throne and ruling the one end of the hallway.

It was cool and dark where the plant was located. The window behind the desk was covered by a green, room-darkening shade that Grandma kept pulled nearly all the way down allowing a small amount to light to slip through the eight inch space.

This monstrous sized plant had started its life as a snippet shortly after my grandparents wedding. Year after year it grew and grandma would transplant it into larger and larger containers; the size of the containers matching its growth.

The only container I remembered as I made visits to Grandma’s house was the enormous stainless steel separator. The plant stems grew to be thick and gnarled, paralleling the thickening and gnarling of my grandmother’s arthritic, feet, hands, and fingers. The plant’s flat-green, oval-shaped, ripple-edged leaves tumbled in thick tresses over the edge of the pot and flowed down its sides in waves. The leaves almost hid the entire container beneath its thick foliage.

Just before Christmas, that dark corner of the hallway would suddenly explode into color. The cactus would spill its blossoms in colorful waterfalls that floated on a sea of green leaves. Each bloom was a series of colorful trumpets stuck one inside on another. The colors ran the gamut of hues from a deep watermelon pink through a hot orange-red, and even into a pale yellow. They looked like small fiery torches blazing in a dark green sky.

The myriad of blossoms would only last for several days. One by one they bloomed, showed their beauty, and then slowly wilt and drop to the floor like a plague of dead insects, their colors faded to a ghostly white. They waited until they were swept them up and tossed into a trash grave.

When my grandmother could no longer take care of her large rambling farm house, she had an auction to get rid of all the things that would not fit into the mobile home she’d bought. I am not sure who bought the massive Christmas cactus, but I hope that it still fills another person’s home with its beauty each Christmas season.