Biscuits, Butter & Syrup

My brother Roger with my Grandfather in his garden. 1944

Sometimes when you're a little kid things happen, and these things that happen are usually either terribly wonderful events or very frightening ones, but it seems they are usually the ones that stick with you.  That would seem to be conventional wisdom, but quite honestly, I'm not so sure that's always the case.


As a child, one of the things I enjoyed most was when I had occasion to visit with grandma and grandpa Myers.  Although these visits were rare they were more often than not happy events and small but quiet adventures that I enjoyed immensely. 

Grandma and Grandpa Myers' house was a simple, fairly large, wood frame two story white house that, along with two other two story neighbor houses, faced Orange Avenue.  My grandparents house sat in the middle of the other two homes and in the middle of the block.  They had a large separate garage set off to the back left of the house with a dirt driveway going down the side of the house to the garage.  Thinking back I must say that I loved being in their house.  It was the house where my father and his brothers and sisters grew up.  It was also the house where my brother had grown up and where he and my mother had waited for my father to come home from World War II.  It was a simple house and it always seemed so big and cool and comfortable.  With it's long front porch and big bench swing and rocking chairs lined up it all just seemed to be welcoming you to sit and watch the neighborhood live.

Thinking back on it now the yard seemed to be poor sandy soil but that not withstanding, it did not seem to deter my Grandpa from planting and growing flowers nor did it keep him from keeping a large worm bed in the back yard.  He seemed to think that you always needed worms to fish and he was going to have worms.  As a child I found the worm beds a fascinating thing because he kept it covered with Spanish Moss and would take table scraps out and spread it under the moss to create the compost for the worms to thrive in.  I rather thought of it, and I suppose it was, feeding the leftovers to the worms.  As a child, that to me was truly interesting.  Along with the flowers and worm bed grandpa also had a chicken coop.  I am told that coop had the meanest roster in Central Florida.  Well, if you can believe him, that's what my scratched up brother use to tell me.

I enjoyed these adventures to my grandparents because even though grandpa was most often tending his garden or worm bed he would always take me out with him to help and sometimes he would take a break from the garden and tell me a story while sitting in a rocker on the front porch.  And when I wasn't occupied with Grandpa in the garden or worm bed Grandma was forever and always honey this and sugar that so I never seemed to lack for attention and I did get a little spoiling from both sides.

Now to that memory that has stuck with me all these years.  The kitchen in my grandparents house was in the back of the house and during cold winter months it seemed to be the warmest room in the house.  I'm sure that was because of the stove and the heater being in a rather small kitchen.  Anyway, one cold fall morning I had spent the night and I came down stairs for breakfast.  I was sitting at the kitchen table with my grandpa and grandma was fixing breakfast.  That morning she had made biscuits and bacon and eggs and hot coffee.  I wasn't a coffee drinker, in fact at 5 or 6 years old I don't think I had even ever had coffee, but my grandfather was drinking his coffee and doing what we called saucering it.  He seemed to always want his coffee steaming hot but then he would poor it off into the saucer and drink it from the saucer.  On this particular morning he decided that I should try it too or maybe I just wanted to copy him and try it.  So anyway he had grandma make me a cup of coffee that was half coffee and half milk and lots of sugar and I started to copy him and was saucering my coffee.  Next, for some reason, he decided I should learn how to eat a biscuit properly.  So grandma gave me a biscuit and then my grandpa showed me how to stick my thumb into the side of the biscuit and then take a chunk of butter and put it in the hole I had made with my thumb and then he told me to pour syrup into the hole with the butter.  I must tell you that I do not know why but it seemed to me that that biscuit was absolutely the best I had ever had and to this day I don't think I've ever had another one as good.

So you see it doesn't have to be a terribly important event or even a terribly awful event for a child or anyone for that matter, to remember it.  It just has to be the right event at the right time and with the right people and then it becomes that most memorable event.

Note:  Sadly I do not have a picture of myself with my grandfather so I've used a picture of him with my brother above.  This picture is how I remember my grandfather.  Always in the garden.  Take pictures.  It's important.