An email I received quoted Robert Orben, “Old people shouldn’t eat healthy foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.”
I suppose this statement could be debated. Charlie Sampson, my maternal grandfather, was born in 1889 and lived to be ninety-seven. For a great part of his early life he undoubtedly ate food that was grown on the farm, most likely without aid of pesticides and preserved by home canning on a wooden cookstove. My great aunt Lidia Mincey lived to be ninety-three, and I’m sure she grew up under similar circumstances.
On the other hand, life expectancy has increased during the past few decades when more people had the privilege of purchasing most of their food in grocery stores. If you have ever read the list of ingredients on almost any food on the grocery shelves, you will find words that you can’t pronounce and have no idea what they mean.
How far most of us are removed from the farm days of our grandparents! Most people no longer grow food—hectic lifestyles of both parents working to provide for their children restrict the amount of time that could be allowed for gardening. Even the glorified tradition of the entire family gathering for an evening meal every day has disappeared in lots of homes. Another email I received quoted comedian Phyllis Diller: “Best way to get rid of kitchen odors—eat out.”
A wrench was thrown into the spokes of the eating out wheel due to COVID. Suddenly, people who had become accustomed to living on fast food and regular dining in restaurants found themselves isolated in their homes, relegated to cooking, microwaving or opening metal cans. I’m sure there were several people who, if they’d known that March 2020 was the last time they would be in a restaurant for quite some time, would have ordered the dessert.
My brother J. C. loved to eat out. His favorite restaurant was Shoney’s. Over the course of his life, I’m sure that he spent enough money there to have owned stock. During the last few years of his life, he and I took a few trips across our great country. One of his favorite questions to the waitresses was, “Do you have any fresh [he pronounced it ‘frash’] coffee?”
Phyllis Diller once supposedly asked a waiter if the milk was fresh. The waiter replied, “Lady, three hours ago it was grass!”
At the time of our cross-country travels, J. C. was retired. He grew a garden every year. As with everything J. C. undertook, his gardens were as perfect as possible. On one of our trips, J. C. took some vegetables from his garden. He carried these vegetables in a light bread “poke” (to the less informed, that’s country for “bag”).
We wound up somewhere out west at a KFC. The girl behind the counter was young and giggly. She appeared to be of Mexican descent, and she had a strong accent. I realized communication with her might be a problem for us Tennesseans, so I kept my order simple—just the number and drink.
J. C. asked his usual question, “Do you have any ‘frash’ coffee?” The girl said, “What?” J. C. repeated himself several times, slower and with more emphasis on his words each time, without success.
J. C. looked at me and said, “These ---- people don’t even know what coffee is!”
Finally in frustration he said, “Coffee. You know, the black stuff you drink for breakfast.” Now the girl understood. She nodded her head vigorously and replied, “Ooooooo, ‘cough-fee’!
J. C.’s next hurdle was trying to order his meal. I received my food and watched from the table as J. C. tried to explain his order, which of course was more complicated than mine. He asked for a knife to cut his home-grown vegetables.
Finally, J. C. came to the table with his order. He’d worked just about as hard to get that order placed as he had on growing his vegetables. He pulled out the standard plastic knife that KFC restaurants provide customers. With disgust he held it up to me and said, “I want you to look at what a ---- knife they give me to cut this stuff with.” He went back to the counter. After another few minutes of frustrated dialogue with the poor girl behind the counter, he returned to the table with an honest to goodness paring knife from the kitchen. I wondered if the girl feared that J. C. might take extreme measures and use the paring knife on her, but he returned to the table and happily consumed his meal.
J. C. was a true product of the South, at times almost innocently ignorant of how to gracefully interact with people of different cultures and backgrounds. Sometimes he was given an opening, and he usually walked right in. For example, he was joking with a waitress. She told him that he was harassing her. He said, “If I had a face like yours, I’d be glad if somebody harassed me.”
So you, Dear Reader, will understand how I cringed on this occasion at a Cracker Barrell, also out west. We walked up to be seated. The lady who walked us to our table was somewhat elderly. She was leading us to a table on the farthest side from the gift shop. J. C. looked at the center section and saw empty seats. He said, “Hey, lady. Can we sit over here?”
She whirled on J. C. and snarled, “Don’t you ‘hey’ me! I’m not a cow!”
What an opening! I would have bet J. C.’s garden that he would have jumped on that one; however, he just blinked and said, “Well, what am I supposed to call you since I don’t even know your name?”
The title of a hymn comes to mind here, “Sometimes a light surprises.”
Until we next meet via the printed word, Dear Reader, I leave you with some thoughts about food from emails I’ve received.

Honey is the only food that doesn’t spoil.

Only in math problems can you buy 60 cantaloupe melons and no one asks,
"What the ---- is wrong with you?"

I envy people who grow old gracefully.
They age like a fine wine.
I’m aging like milk:
Getting sour and chunky.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.