A Pensieve Moment: Cantalope and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

When I was six, I began staying with my grandparents in Florida for the summer.  Literally, the day school ended, they were there in Lubbock to pick me up, and I returned back to Texas only a day, or two before school started up again in the fall.  Buck and Sylvia Caruthers were the parents of my step-father, but they could have been blood relatives for all I knew.  They treated me more like one of their own children than a grandchild.  In fact, as the years progressed, my school pictures took a fourth section of the portrait wall in their home, next to their three children.  I could make a never-ending list of all the things they gave me and taught me over the next ten summers.    The greatest gift they gave me was a love of music, and I think of them when I see my children continuing that tradition.

Because they were newly retired from the Air Force when I began staying with them, they were both home during the day.  I was a picky eater which was a new concept for them, but they worked with me and my dietary choices.  Breakfast was my favorite meal of the day.  The most common breakfast?

Bacon and cantaloupe.


Man, I can still remember the smell of the bacon cooking in the morning.  G-Mother (as I lovingly called her) would come into my room, singing while she opened the shades on my windows.  There was always a "good morning, Reesy", and a "time for breakfast, so get up!"  If the time frame wasn't wrong, I would guess that Walt Disney modeled Snow White on my G-Mother.  It was like the birds were singing around her as she came in to my room.  I loved that.

I would groggily head to the breakfast room where I would sit in a large wicker chair.  Buck would be cooking.  He must have cooked bacon on the stove originally, but I only remember him cooking it in the microwave.  It was quite the new invention, and my grandparents loved how easy it was to use.

Too, he would have fresh cantaloupe sliced for all of us to eat.  That cantaloupe was always perfect.  Not under ripe and crunchy, and not over ripe, pungent and mushy.  Just perfect.  I watched him for years, cutting up the cantaloupe.  He would first cut the melon into eight slices, and then cut the slices into chunks.  I'm not sure that I ever saw him cut up any other fruit.  To this day, I cut the cantaloupe the exact same way, and my kids do too.  I begin crying when I think of the "cantaloupe knife" I found after he had passed away.  It was still hanging, on the magnetic strip above the sink, almost sharpened to nothing.  He used the same knife, every day, cutting cantaloupe in the morning.

We would sit down around the table, hold hands, and say a prayer together:  God is great, God is good, and we thank him for this food.  By his hands, we all are fed.  Give us Lord our daily bread.  Amen.

We would eat, and talk.  G-Mother would coordinate everyone's schedule for the day while Buck and I obediently nodded our heads (or "took orders" as Buck would say).

Afterwards, I headed back to the blue and white bedroom to make my bed and get dressed for the day.

I wouldn't be surprised if half my love for cantaloupe was directly tied to my love for that great man.

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For lunch, G-Mother took over.  Buck was very much the co-pilot in the kitchen for that meal, usually rinsing grapes and putting them in a colander over a paper towel and opening the bags of chips.  We wouldn't say much because G-Mother and G-Dad were intently listening to "The Rest of the Story" with Paul Harvey on the radio.  They say our sense of smell is the greatest way to relive old memories, but for me, just hearing the voice of Paul Harvey now stops me in my tracks and takes me back to the summers of my youth.  G-Mother couldn't find much that I would eat, and she must not have been a fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because I never had one of them while staying at her home.  She introduced me to the delight of my childhood:  grilled cheese sandwiches.

Again, I don't know if they had been part of her tradition growing up, but from day one, she would make me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.  Of course, she was usually doing a million things at the same time, and she would inevitably burn my sandwich.  I wouldn't eat it (as I still won't eat a burned grilled cheese sandwich), and she would end up making another one.  She burned so many grilled cheese sandwiches over the summers that it became a joke in the house.  "Hey Reesy, would you like your grilled cheese sandwich burned today?"

No joke, if you have visited our home at any time, chances are you have been served a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.  One of the most touching gifts I ever received came from my friend, JJ.  She and her family had visited us in Germany, and she noticed the different frying pans I had going on my stove for the grilled cheese lunch.  She sent me a large pan that would cover two burners and that holds eight grilled cheese sandwiches at one time.  How do I know this?  Because I use it at least once a week, making grilled cheese sandwiches for my family.

Again, it would not surprise me to think that my love of grilled cheese comes from my love of that wonderful woman.

I have so many memories from those two beloved people.  However, they will have to wait for me to wipe my eyes.  It's lunch time, and I bet you can guess what we're having!