I love bacon. I always have. Since I was a kid, growing up in Middle Tennessee back in the 1950s, bacon has been at the top of my list of good eating. Bacon goes down good with almost anything. To this day, every time I eat bacon, I feel a tinge of guilt. It's hard to explain, unless you know the story.
You just can't go wrong with bacon and eggs and grits, or bacon and grilled cheese sandwiches. Heavy on the salt and pepper. Plenty of mayonnaise.
I prefer bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches on white, non-toasted bread. Just like my grandmother, Miz Lena, used to make them. A good helping of mayonnaise on each of the two slices of bread. The bacon was curled up, soft in the middle and a little drippy. The tomato slice was a good 2 inches thick. Now that was good eating.
Grand Mom would wrap my BLT in a napkin and tell me, "Now take it on outside and try not to git it all over yuh." It was hard not to.
A couple of bites into it, and the mayonnaise and the grease and the natural juice of the tomato would meet in the middle of the bread and slide south. First, it drools over your hands, then your arms and on down the line to your elbows. Like flowing lava. If you're not too proud, you can lick your arms. It's really not that bad.
I lived with my mother and two younger brothers in a trailer not much larger than a pickup truck. I could do four broad jumps and go from one end of it to the other. Most of the time we were broke, but we were cozy.
I remember asking my mother if we were poor. She smiled at me and said, "Sweetheart, we don't have much, but enough." Then, I suppose to make me feel better, she said, "We're 'hundredaires.'"
That sounded good to me. I reckoned that you could buy a lot with a hundred bucks. And you could. A pack of smokes or a gallon of gas cost a quarter. A bottle of Coca-Cola only cost a nickel.
I remember when they bumped it up to 6 cents. That caused quite a ruckus with the old-timers who hung out and huddled around the black potbelly stove in the back of Whiteside Drug Store. Those were the days when you could actually buy something with a penny.
Even with us being "hundredaires," Mom's take-home pay just didn't spread out enough to take care of all the bills and us three growing boys. The extra money that I made doing odd jobs around town came in handy. Still, we were forced to scrape the barrel.
Consequently, there were a few days, every month, that we had very little to eat. The "hungry days." At best, there might be a can of pork and beans or corn flakes that we ate right out of the box.
We boys were sworn to secrecy about what went on behind our closed doors. Especially with Grand Mom, Mom's mother.
Hard times or not, if Mom wasn't able to keep her prescriptions filled, she could, very easily, lose her temper and start pacing. Those are the times that I've never been able to shake. My mother cried on those days. Her crying made me cry. Depressed and hungry cries are the worst.
Mom was a schoolteacher at the only school in the little town in which we lived. Our rust-ridden trailer was in between the little white houses of the school's janitor and the principal, Mr. Graham. He was a good man. He used to tell me that I was the son he never had.
In the winter months, after school let out for the day, he and I would go over to the gymnasium, a white-planked little building that sat above the ground on cinder blocks about a hundred feet from the school. Mr. Graham taught me how to shoot basketball.
When it was nice out, he often knocked on our door and invited me to come outside and throw a ball with him.
Mr. Graham was a pretty big guy - 6 feet tall, medium build, glasses and a fair complexion, always in a long-sleeved, white dress shirt and striped tie. He combed his hair kind of like Superman. As a matter of fact, he looked a lot like Clark Kent.
Anytime he saw me, he'd say, "Hey, Butch, are you making this day a good one? I always answered, "Yes, sir." He'd say, "Good for you, young man. Stay right with the Lord, and there's plenty more of them to come."
He was a deeply religious man. As a matter of fact, he helped preach at his church. Mrs. Graham was a petite woman with a big smile. Mr. Graham called her "My Little Margie." There was a TV show that starred Gale Storm with that exact same title. If you remember that program, you've been around for a while.
Mr. and Mrs. Graham were the perfect couple. They were constantly laughing. They said "I love you" to one another all the time. Both of them were very bright. Any time I was around them, I could feel the energy of their devotion to and love for one another.
Mr. Graham used to tell me that, before bumping into Mrs. Graham, he prayed to God to help him find the perfect woman. He said that God can read your heart and, if your motive is pure, your prayer is granted. He went on to explain that the Lord pays closer attention to your prayers that are for someone other than yourself. Unselfish prayers.
Our trailer wasn't more than 40 feet from the Grahams' back kitchen door. Like clockwork, around 6:30 in the morning, I awoke to the smell of Mrs. Graham's popping bacon seeping out of her kitchen screen door, across the yard and into my bedroom window.
On a "hungry day," I'd throw on my clothes and make a beeline for the Grahams' kitchen door. I pressed my nose up against the screen and told Mrs. Graham good morning and how beautiful she was. I was almost always invited to have breakfast with them.
One day, Mrs. Graham fell deathly ill and was admitted to the hospital. After a while, they sent her home to be with her family during her apparent last days. Mr. Graham was beside himself. Nearly every day, prayer groups from their church congregated in the Grahams' house and out on their back porch.
I felt so sorry for the Grahams. I told Mr. Graham that I was saying prayers for Mrs. Graham, too.
I was so relieved to hear that Mrs. Graham was feeling better. Mr. Graham told me that he was pretty sure that it was my added prayer that had made the difference. I sort of doubted that. My motive wasn't exactly pure. Every time that I prayed for Mrs. Graham to get to feeling better, I, very selfishly, thought that the sooner she got better, the sooner she'd get back to frying bacon. I couldn't help it. Sorry, God.
Email Bill Stamps at bill_stamps@aol.com. His books "Miz Lena" and "Southern Folks" are available on Amazon.
Bill Stamps