Recipes & memories...

There's a recipe for pulled pork.  Need I say more?  Mmmmm

Louise's Chocolate Chip pie - I was named after my Aunt Louise.  Everyone said I was her favorite.  I guess, truth be told, she was my favorite, too.  

Hershey's Cocoa Fudge - On my...  my memories abound about fudge.  Fudge that didn't set up and you had to eat it with a spoon.  Fudge so hard you had to cut it with a sharp knife, then eat the slivers that would fall off the pieces as you tried to pick up a piece to eat it.  And I'm sure there was plenty of perfect fudge, too.  We didn't necessarily have fudge often, but we evidently had it often enough that I remember it seemed a tricky thing to fix.  Regardless of how it "set up", though, it was always delicious.

Kentucky Pie (sugar cream pie) would be my mother's mother's recipe.  She was my last living grandparent and she died when I was four years old.  Even though she and my grandfather lived across the street from us, and my grandmother lived in our house during her last weeks, I really don't have any memory of her.  I only have the memory (or sense) of knowing she was being taken care of by my parents in her last days (or weeks?)  I really don't know how long she stayed with us at the end.

And Shirley's Special Pie (more or less the same as Kentucky Pie) -  Shirley would be my mother, I presume.  She didn't care to be called Shirley, though, and went by Deane (short for Veradeane).   When someone would say to her, "Surely.... anything", she would say, "Don't call me Shirley!" The joke never got old.  Not to me.

Wondering if she came up with that herself, or got that line somewhere, I googled it.  I found this (the expression is at about the 1:00 minute mark):

I love Leslie Nielson, but he must have stolen the expression from mom.  Ha!  Mom said this when I was a little girl so I know she didn't steal it from the line in the movie,  Airplane. 

(giggling)

Another thing mom would always say...  when she'd drop something noisy (like a pot or pan), she'd call out, "Never mind me, I just dropped the set out of my ring!"    For the longest time I didn't get the joke.   When I finally got it, I thought it was hilarious.  Made more funny to me, I'm sure, because she always said it with a straight face and never once explained it.

When I think of the things my mother said that have stuck with me, I can't help but wonder what my boys will remember that I said when they were growing up.  I inherited mom's dry humor, but I don't think I ever carried a joke for as long and as seriously as she did.  

Mom died at the age of 69.  I turn 60 next spring and my sisters are 66, and almost 65.  I didn't realize nearly twenty five years ago (when I was not yet 35), just how young 69 was, but I sure do now.  And I sure do miss her...