I Made Gravy Tonight

Daddy called it "white cream gravy"...although Mama always used milk. As a truckdriver, he ate a lot of slop across these United States. He did not like brown gravy. He wanted "white cream gravy" even on hamburger steak. I thought of him while making my little dab of gravy this evening. Mama was a good cook. (I say "was" because she doesn't cook much any more. She's reached the point where very little tastes good. She doesn't want but a bite or two of meat. And even when I cook something and lightly salt and pepper it, she calls it too "spicy". I know she doesn't eat it.)

Back to the story. Mama was a good cook. Daddy went through a point in their lives when he criticized everything she cooked. He ate a lot of bologna sandwiches for awhile. When he questioned her about it she replied that he griped regardless of what she put in front of him, so why should she waste her time cooking. Snicker. He hushed until...

Daddy ate gravy every day that he was home. Breakfast, lunch, supper...gravy at least one of those meals just about every day. You can't make a little gravy. Mama got tired of making it every day. So...Mama put the leftovers in the refrigerator. Next day, she'd stir in a bit of milk and heat it in the microwave! Bwahahaha. One day, she started making it fresh again. Because...

She said Daddy sat at the table one day dipping a spoon into the bowl and pouring the gravy back in the bowl --- spoonful --- pour back in the the bowl --- repeat. He said, "Shirley, you used to make decent gravy. You can't make it worth a damn any more."

I asked Mama what she said to him. She replied with a great big smile, "Nothing. I just started making it fresh each time."

I love having those flashbacks of their lives.

Daddy died in 2000 from ALS - Lou Gehrig's Disease. He wasn't ill much at all in his entire life. I remember a crick in his neck when we were little. One of his BFFs, another truckdriver, walked in the bedroom, pulled his pocket knife out of his pocket, and offered to cut the crick out. I know my eyes turned the size of saucers! At 69 years of age he had no medical problems (except his memory). He took no medications of any kind. Taking only a daily injection of Vitamin B12. Yep. That's it.

In the middle of making my dab of gravy tonight, I looked at the clock...6:46. I called Sam and said, "Let's go outside." During the weather segment, the meteorologist informed us that at 6:48 the space station would be crossing the sky...WNW to ESE. We looked up and around, eliminating one planet after another. (THEY were awesome in their own right!) Finally, I saw it, "THERE!" We watched it as it traversed the sky - about 5 minutes Sam said.

Then I went back into the house and finished the gravy.