Cranks My Tractor

Folks at the office tend to take their vacation time around the holidays. It’s actually a good time to get a lot of work done if you are running behind. My next door office neighbor Duane and I were enjoying lunch in his office. We’ve been friends and worked together for more than twenty years.

Duane was having a salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing and a handful of walnuts. He had been watching the movie “Forks Over Knives” multiple times over the last week or so. The movie has a cult following of sorts and makes the claim that possibly all degenerative diseases can be controlled or reversed by not eating animal-based and processed foods. He’ll get over it.

I was eating kind of healthy too, with my left hand anyway. In my left hand, I had a bag of Roman Meal Sungrain Whole Wheat bread with 24 grams of whole grains per serving. It’s a good source of fiber. The bread bag had a picture of a Roman soldier on it. I like it; I used to eat it with my Papa (Grandfather) when we would go on our adventures.

As I ate my Roman Soldier bread a slice at a time, I was using my right hand to jab a black plastic fork into a can of Armour Barbecue Flavored Vienna Sausages. Armour Barbecue Flavored Vienna Sausages have a thick, rich barbecue sauce that is seasoned to perfection and bursting with flavor! That’s what it says on the can.

The instructions on the can also note that you should refrigerate after opening. Who opens a can of Vienna sausages and doesn’t eat them all? If you put them in the refrigerator, that stuff that they are in would get all thick and you would have Vienna sausage aspic.

I prefer mine at room temperature and I eat the whole can.

As I alternated bread and barbecue Vienna sausage bites, we were talking about how it was the perfect holiday meal.

We got off on Christmas meals and parties and what we remembered about growing up. It was a good conversation. Both of our fathers enjoyed cooking breakfast and felt it necessary to cook every piece of meat and every egg when preparing breakfast for the family. We discussed fried bologna in the morning and how that it was only proper to have the “thick slices.”

Duane grew up in the Lincoln Park area of Detroit, one of six brothers. His dad was in the auto industry and apparently was a great fellow. I never got the chance to meet Duane’s dad before he passed away; after hearing about him through the years, I really would have liked to meet him.

Then our conversation moved on to parties and such. Duane shook his head in disgust and said that his mother and her sisters would have a Limburger cheese party once a month to get together and talk about things (and maybe drink a beer).

It sounded like his mother’s Limburger cheese parties were similar to present day book clubs, bunko and sewing groups. In other words, they were an excuse to get together and talk and in some cases pop a cork. I understand this.

Duane told me that he would come home from school, open the front door and say something similar to “Oh my goodness, they are doing it again.” He didn’t use those exact words. I love cheese, but I’ve only smelled Limburger once. I understood what he was saying.

The parties took place in the family dining room and Duane said the best he could do was throw his books in the front door and run back outside. His brothers did the same the thing. He even noted that on warm days when the door was open, the smell of the Limburger squeezed through the screen door and could be smelled as he was walking home from school.

Duane noted, “I didn’t even go home for dinner on the days she had those cheese parties. We covered our faces and snuck in after dark.”

A mother with six boys deserved to breathe every once in a while, I think I get it. Maybe “breathe” is not the best choice of words. The Limburger cheese parties were exactly like the book clubs, bunko and sewing groups.

Stinky cheese versus stinky boys, I guess she decided that once a month she would cut the cheese and take a break.

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