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My mother told me many stories about growing up on a hardscrabble farm outside Johnstown, PA. When I was a kid, every so often she would prepare a meal of bread dumplings and fried cabbage. I always liked that meal. One day I asked her where she learned the recipe. She told me that her mother would cook that at the end of the week when the only thing left to eat was stale bread. She also told me that about once a week they would have a chicken at dinner, her father, her mother, her and her 11 siblings. One chicken. My grandfather was in WWI in the Navy. During WWII he volunteered for the Seabees. He served in the Pacific and was on Iwo Jima. He told her almost nothing about his experiences. One thing she did tell me was that on Iwo Jima, a friend of his was terribly wounded. The friend begged my grandfather to put him out of his misery. She never told me the end of the story. She did tell me that my grandfather would homebrew beer. She would say that when the corks started popping off the bottles, he would go out in the shed and be there for days, until all the beer was gone. I guess trying to forget things no one should have to experience. I don't really remember him as he died just before I turned two. Things were tough in my mother's family. When she was sixteen in about 1952, she was told to leave home and make her way in the world. Just not enough to go around and she was close enough to being an adult. She went to Chicago and took nurses training. My father's family didn't have quite as much trouble. Anyway, the good old days sometimes weren't. I've had a number of difficulties in my life. I know I learned a lot from them, I learned to keep going and not quit, I can also be compassionate for those going through what I have been through. But I would never willingly go through those experiences again. Don't mean to sound so sour. Just brought back old family memories and stories I heard. Christopher
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