December 2003 Issue - Essay # 3
Walnut Cake & Grandma's Kitchen
By Margaret Marr
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As
a child, I loved my Grandma's kitchen. It was a special treat if we got to
go spend the night with Grandma. She had a bench that ran along the wall
behind the dining room table and we used to fight over who got to sit
there, never mind that we could all fit. Grandma made the most delicious
walnut cake, and we'd eat it until our tummies were full to popping.
Sometimes I'd get to help her crack the walnuts for the cake, being
careful not to get any nut shells mixed in with the walnuts or batter. She
had an old wood cook-stove she'd cook bacon and eggs on for breakfast. I
loved to wake up to the smell of frying bacon; it's one of those cozy
moments in life. I remember her sink only had one sink, so in order to
wash the dishes, she'd fill a huge dishpan with hot, soapy water and place
it on the table where I or my cousin Tony would wash the plates, cups and
spoons and put them in the sink to be rinsed in ice-cold, spring water. I
remember Tony washing the forks and spoons one evening, and he'd take each
utensil and give it a good scrubbing. I remember thinking, 'Wow, he wants to
get that fork really clean!' I would just swish it around in the water a
bit and was done. Grandma's kitchen was a place where time stood still,
and no one worried about tomorrow or what life would bring down the road.
It was a place where you could eat walnut cake and be happy in the
present. None
of the Lackey (my maiden name) children have made great decisions with
their lives. My younger sister married the first man she was actually
allowed to date, and now she finds herself living with a roommate and a
passel of kids instead of a husband and a Cinderella life. My baby sister
got married at fifteen because she didn't want to go to school anymore and
that was the only way she would be allowed to quit; now she's married to
her second husband and seems pretty happy, but she's wondering if there's
something more out there, wondering what happened to all her dreams. My
brother wandered around life, hanging out with all the wrong people,
drinking and going nowhere. Now he's happily married, but works in a
back-breaking job and is resigned to the fact that's the way it will
always be until the day he dies. Me?
I ran away from home when I was sixteen to live with a high school bus
driver... a married bus driver just to make things worse. My parents didn't
allow me to date. I remember when our neighbors came in from "But
why, Mommy?" I asked. "Don't
question me, just do it," she answered. She was angry, and I didn't
understand why. So
with a sad heart, confused mind, and a bit of anger I scribbled a short
note telling him I couldn't write him anymore because my Mom wouldn't let
me. Of course Mommy wasn't happy with it, because she shoved it back at me
and told me to rewrite it and leave her out of it this time. When
I ran away, I pissed off my Mom and hurt my Dad. The next time I saw them
was at my sister's wedding. I had to fight my then boyfriend to even take
me--I should've known right then he was a big mistake! At the reception,
which I wasn't allowed to attend because he was in a hurry, my Mom walked
up to me and stuck out her hand. "This
is difficult for me, but I'm trying to make a start. It's all I can do
right now," she said. I
looked at her hand in confusion, because I wasn't sure what she was
talking about or how shaking her hand was making a start. Then my
boyfriend blew the horn, so I nodded and placed my hand in hers. I wanted
to go say something to Daddy, because he was standing near the wedding
cake looking lost and sad, but my boyfriend blew the horn again and I
mumbled an apology and rushed off. I
think I hurt my Daddy pretty bad. I truly regret that because I was
always Daddy's girl. He was constantly taking my side against Mom. I
remember her trying to force me to eat grease gravy--I can't stand the
stuff, and each time we'd have it for breakfast, which was a lot, I'd be
in tears and on the verge of gagging. For those of you who don't know what
grease gravy is, it's milk, lard and flour mixed together in a pan to make
a gravy substance. Dad finally got tired of Mom riding my back about it. "She's
not being picky for spite. She didn't like it as a baby, and she'd spit it
back out at me with an awful look on her face whenever I tried to feed it
to her," he said. From then on I never had to eat gravy again, thank
goodness! Then
there was the time I wanted to wash my hair every night before bed. I was
a teenager, and it didn't do to wash my hair only once a week, because it
would be limp and disgusting looking by Friday. I wasn't very pretty to
begin with, and I didn't want to make things worse by going to school with
greasy hair. Not that it mattered. All the boys were afraid of my Daddy
and the shotgun he kept behind the living room door, so they never asked
me out. My mother yelled at me about the shampoo--again about some little
old nothing, and again my Daddy stepped in. "Would
you lay off her? She can wash her hair fifty damn times a day if she wants
to, what's it to you?" he asked. Mom
pursed her lips and gave me the evil eye, but she never said another word.
A
couple of years flew by, I married the bus driver, and reconciled with my
parents, but my husband didn't like to be around them, and it was always a
tense subject with us. I'd have to beg him to go with me to visit them on
Thanksgiving and Christmas, until finally one day I stopped asking, and
started visiting by myself. I think my Mom and Dad saw my husband maybe
ten times over the course of my twelve-year marriage. Then
my Grandma died. On
the day of her funeral, I stood in front of the old cook-stove next to my
Daddy and all I could think was how long it had been since I'd eaten
walnut cake in my Grandma's kitchen and how I'd never get to eat walnut
cake in her kitchen again. A chapter in my life had closed and things were
different once again. My Daddy's uncle walked up to us, and he's a bit
lost in the mind, bless his heart. There's a rumor that his job during the
Vietnam War was to bulldoze huge stacks of the enemy's bodies into mass
graves and push dirt over them. I guess that would make anyone a bit
loony. He said to Dad, "Woo wee, Monroe! You sure know how to grow 'em,
that's one pretty daughter you've got there." My
Dad gave him a tolerant smile and said, "All my daughters are
pretty." I remember wondering if an uncle should be saying things
like that about a niece even if it was a great niece. My Grandma's kitchen
was never the same after that; some of its innocence was lost on that day.
More
years flew by, I had children, realized I lived with a man I hated and
could barely stomach to be around on my good days, and that Cinderella had
lied. There was no fairy tale in love. My husband wasn't always good to
me. We eventually went our separate ways, and he remarried before the ink
was dry on our divorce papers. Daddy
is getting old and feeble, and I worry about him. He's mellowed a lot in
his old age, and everyone loves him. Old ladies who wouldn't dream of
asking him for help during his drinking years, don't hesitate now to ask
him to come move a piece of furniture for them or spray Clorox on the
weeds growing out of their sidewalks. I've come to understand my Mommy and
why she was the way she was while I was growing up. She told me once that
she was just trying to keep me from getting married before I had gotten
out and lived my life. She wanted something better for me than what she
had, not that Daddy was a bad choice, but her life with him hasn't always
been easy. For the first fifteen years of my life, he was an alcoholic,
and a very jealous man. Mom couldn't even leave the house to go somewhere
with her sister without him accusing her of running around on him--no my
Daddy wasn't perfect either. Now,
it's Sunday night, and I'm alone, because my boyfriend is a soldier and
stationed somewhere in the |
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Author's Biography Margaret Marr lives in the mountains of western She currently has three books out and two more scheduled for publication in 2004. Hop over to her Web site and learn all about them: http://www.margaretmarr.com E-mail
Margaret at mizz_scarlett@hotmail.com
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