Its been awhile. Long lost people and food. No grammar rules were observed.

 I used to love to watch my Dad eat toast.  Weird I know but it was so interesting watching him take so long to prepare something he was just going to eat.  He would carefully butter the toast, then with severe attention to detail, cover the entire piece of toast, usually with orange marmalade (yuck!).  After all of that, he would sink his teeth into it with such pleasure.  I never understood it.  It was better to watch him eat his toast than actually make my own and eat it.

This was the same with my Uncle George but with him it was watching him eat fresh fruit.  Uncle George and Aunt Katie would come up from Indiana about the time the harvest in Wenatchee was taking place.  They would go get boxes of peaches, and whatever else.  Sometimes we would go get the fruit because we would visit my other grandparents there.

So Uncle George would eat this fruit with such pleasure.  He would pull out his pocket knife and carve right into the fruit and eat it like he was experiencing Nirvana.  It was awesome and I miss it.

Strange how many memories are attached to food.  Something that happened at the dinner table of my youth, and actually into my adult years was Mom stating the obvious.  As we sat down and started to dish up, Mom would start pointing out all the things to eat that were in front of me.  It used to irritate the hell out of me.  She did it every time.

Then there was my Grandma Pearson.  She could peel a tomato so well that I have never seen anyone do it again.  She was so damn slow, too.  She chewed each bite for an hour!  But she made the best pickled beets!  So I guess it was worth it.  All those hours watching her eat. 

This I suppose is kind of gross but a memory none-the-less.  I used to play basketball with the neighbor kids, very intense games, in the evenings.  Their Dad, Bob, would come down to our dirt court and start playing, too.  As the games got faster and it was summer, so it was a bit warm, he would of course start sweating.   He smelled like ham.

At those times in my life I didn't realize how much I would miss the things I described above.

I would love to sit at a table again with my Grandma peeling her tomatoes, eating slower than hell, Dad eating his toast, Uncle George taking great pleasure eating his fruit, and Mom telling me there is salad, meat loaf, ranch dressing for my salad, green beans...