image courtesy of photobucket.com
I loathed bologna sandwiches as a kid, but that didn’t keep me from eating them almost daily at lunch. Funny how most things taste pretty good when you’re starving…
What I regarded as a necessity, my dad considered a luxury. What I took for granted due to a secure lifestyle supplied by a gift from God through my parents, wouldn’t allow me at the time to grasp a significantly different life than they grew up with.
Every so often as a kid I could talk my mom into salami or even better, hard salami. Now that was a little slice of heaven! I still have the same taste buds for the most part now, I’m a sucker for good salami or pepperoni.
I marveled, even as a kid, about the joy in simplicity of my parents. My dad worked long and hard as a proud blue collar man to provide for his family. He was rarely home on Saturdays, but on occasion when he was, my mom would ask my dad, knowing full well what his response would be, “You want me to make you some fried bologna sandwiches”?
My dad would drop his jaw slightly for effect, then a big grin would cover his face. He had different answers, but always the same heart, “Would you do that for me”? or, “Oh boy – I can’t think of anything better than that”! He wasn’t exaggerating one bit. In his joy and appreciation he’d stand behind my mom with his arms around her waist, looking over her shoulder at the treasure in the fryin’ pan below.
“That sure does smell good”! my dad would always say. I couldn’t argue with him there, it did smell good. Somehow the frying of that bologna and eating them with my dad was magical. His appreciation made the simple sandwich taste like something better than anything else that could be eaten at the time.
I wonder how many of us find true and simple treasures in life the way God intended for us? I’m convinced that the best things in life can’t be measured using a monetary scale.
How much is a cool breeze blowing across our face and through our hair worth?
In the most expensive and opulent stores they sell some pretty amazing products, but I’ve yet to find a good buy on peace and joy…
It doesn’t matter how successful anyone is by society’s standards, all the money in the world can’t buy happiness. The most treasured things in this world are free, yet the lost keep trying to earn what they can’t afford. They never will.
To receive the best things in this life we’ll need the necessary ingredients, the first one being humility. We can’t buy what we can’t earn. It starts with the simple perspective of humility before God. We have a need… It is Him…
Toward the end of my dad’s life here, he had ample gifts from God. He could brag, although he wouldn’t, that he shot his age on the golf course. He also had the ways and means supplied by God to eat whatever he desired.
When my wife offered to make my dad fried bologna sandwiches, you’d have thought he had just won the lottery. Eating those sandwiches with my dad was light years better than winning any lottery…
I can’t think of too many things I like more than a fried bologna sandwich with plenty of mustard on toasted bread. Whenever I smell bologna frying in an ole’ cast iron skillet, I’ll think of my dad…
I’ll also remember the honor of cherishing the simple things of this life…
I can remember my grandfather taking his lunch to his night shift job as a welder in the ASS Steel plant. It would consist of 2 slices of Roman Meal Bread sometimes with a slice of jumbo (bologna to you non-Pgh people) and ketchup or sometimes with just ketchup between 2 slices of Roman Meal Bread. i wrinkled my nose then (and still would) but do like Roman Meal bread and the memories it brings. I wonder, floyd, if it was that they had so little when younger (Depression) that they learned to appreciate what little they did have.
I think your right Bill. I think the lesson for me is to see the world through simple eyes. The complex things of this world confuse the senses and hide the true hand of God in our lives.
Sorry should be USSteel.
I can’t tell you how many memories this post has brought me this morning…fried spam with cheese sandwiches, stewed chicken, oatmeal/butterscotch cookies…my mouth is watering!
We were very poor when I was a kid (I know that sounds cliche…); we could count on beans and rice at least 4 days a week. Nothing takes me back like a bowl of navy beans with ham, rice, and cornbread; I have it as often as James will allow.
It’s funny how the things that once humbled me brings me such joy and pleasure now. Sweet, sweet post for me today – thanks!
Funny, the foods that one considers sublime. With my Dad it was a glass of milk with a slice of bread broken up in it with salt and pepper. Ugh. I was raised on beans and cornbread (my mother’s mainstay) and I make them to this day with ham, of course. But several times I’ve actually smiled to myself at a situation having to do with being cold. After a long day I tuck myself under my covers, sitting up with 2 pillows in back of me and work on a craft project. It’s so cozy, and I’m dong what I love. It’s probably silly and such a small thing, but it’s a great feeling and I even thank God for how good it is.
We did have bologna at times, but we also had chickens so a fried egg sandwich was our treat, and for lunches we had half a deviled egg mixture on brown bread and half a peanut butter with jelly sandwich.
This post brought back memories! Thanks Floyd!