FALLING FAR FROM THE TREE
When I was in the fifth grade in Mrs. Joan Thoede’s class I got a terrible case of the mumps in my salivary glands. You don’t hear too much about mumps anymore, but they are still around even though there is a vaccine.
I was in Richards Memorial Hospital for five days and was totally out of it most of the time. The only memory I have of that fuzzy time is of being found next to the toilet in the very early morning hours by a nurse. Evidently I had gotten up to go to the restroom, ripped the IV out of my arm and passed out.
The hospital was just down the hill from my house and I could see my house up the hill through the window in my room.
The next thing I remember after becoming a bit more lucid is mom, dad, the doctor and nurse all standing around my bed asking me how I felt. Did I hurt anywhere? Was I sore? Is there anything I wanted?
“I want a hamburger patty with macaroni and cheese,” I said. My comfort food as a kid - and still as an adult - is a hamburger patty and a little ketchup with a side of macaroni and cheese.
“Well, if that’s what he wants let’s get it for him,” said the doctor.
I remember the nurse saying, “I’ll order it.”
Well mom was having none of that, of course. Her precious baby had just spoken his first words in five days. No mere hospital food would do. She wanted to make it herself.
She dashed out the hospital room door. We all just kind of looked at each other.
The next thing we see out the window is mom running up the hill toward the house to make me a mom-cooked meal. Was I spoiled much? Maybe.
I’m sure everyone has certain comfort foods they like when they don’t feel well. One of our family favorites is called egg orange, which is exactly what it sounds like: orange juice concentrate, a raw egg and half a cup of sugar mixed in the blender. You add the water after you blend the other ingredients and then blend some more. Any time one of us kids was sick we always got egg orange. The recipe came from my mom’s side of the family. You can’t taste the egg. It just makes for frothier-than-usual orange juice. Good for whatever ails you.
Dad had another special recipe if any of us had a sore throat. He mixed vanilla ice cream, a little milk and some peppermints in the blender. Peppermint milkshakes. They were so popular that even the kids who didn’t have a sore throat got one.
For some reason when I don’t feel well I crave sweets. If I’ve been to the doctor and have to pick up prescriptions, I always stop by the candy aisle and load up on every candy I can think of. And Funyuns because you have to have a little salty treat after all that sugar.
It’s fairly unusual for me to eat a lot of sugar because for years I ate low carb starting with Dr. Atkins and morphing into whatever low carb routine was popular at the time. And all that low carb eating got me was a mild heart attack at age 54, a story for another day.
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