Shut Up and Eat!

   In the middle ‘70s, my in-laws lived on a farm near Wild Rose, Wisconsin. They acquired this piece of paradise on a visit to a relative when one of the locals, after having too many rounds of Point Beer, offered them the farm--80 acres and a house--for $8000. They pounced before he could sober up.

   The house was in sorry shape but it was still a bargain. They rented the tillable acreage to a local farmer and split the profits with him. The income covered the property taxes and paid for the repairs to the house. My in-laws drove up every Friday after work in Chicago and spent all day Saturday and part of Sunday getting the place in shape. They came back Sunday night in time to grab some sleep and go to work on Monday.

   For most people this is a four-and-half-hour trip but it took them more than eight. My mother-in-law had to stop at the Hinsdale, O’Hare, and Belvidere Oases on the Tollway, the Wisconsin tourist center at the state line, and the Union 76 truck stop outside Madison to get her fill of coffee, relieve herself of coffee, or both. Usually both. How she made the final hour without a coffee break or a pit stop no one knows. This weekly ritual took the better part of a year, but once the house was habitable they quit their jobs and moved in permanently. My wife missed her parents so we made the trip often, sometimes coming back the same day. We never stopped for coffee.

   We never knew who might be on the farm at any given time but the core group was us and our two girls, the wife’s older sister and her husband, and her younger sister and boyfriend du jour. Other relatives and friends filtered in and out at random.

   The farmhouse was small and sleeping arrangements were up for grabs. The lucky ones got a bed in the tiny upstairs bedroom, others grabbed a couch or a rolled up in a sleeping bag on the living room floor. Some camped in the yard or racked in one of the sheds or the barn.

   Whenever we left for the farm there was the inevitable question: Will Joe be there? Joe was my brother-in-law’s father. A more miserable man I have yet to meet. Even with all his millions nothing made him happy--especially food. No matter what culinary delight was put in front of him, he’d complain in his gravelly voice, “It’s got too much goddam this, or not enough goddam that.” If there was a Finicky Eaters Hall of Fame, Joe’s bust would be front and center in the geriatric division. He and his wife would eventually die of malnutrition because twenty-five bucks a week was “too goddam much to spend on groceries.”

   Because we went our separate ways during the day, we were on our own for breakfast and lunch, but dinner, well that was a meal. The nightly feast was served at a big table under a tall, old tree in the front yard. The whole group dined together, with the setting sun as a backdrop.          

   Now, it was a table in the loosest sense of the word. We ate off boards, old doors, or plywood sheets supported by sawbucks. This arrangement could expand and contract as needed. The older folks got the few chairs the kitchen offered. The rest of us sat on coolers, barrels, five-gallon buckets, or benches made of planks supported by whatever we could find. Everybody loved it except Joe, but not even he could spoil the mood of a meal shared outdoors in Nature’s splendor.

   One night it was my wife’s turn to prepare the meal. In the short time we’d been married she had become an excellent cook. Not a chef, a cook. None of her meals had fancy names or even capital letters. It was, and still is, just good food for real people, and plenty of it. On that particular evening she had called everyone to the table. No one had to be called twice—except for Joe. He just sat in his folding chair about forty feet away, arms crossed, glaring at her. She paid him no mind as she went back to her final preparations.

   The second time she called him, everyone was seated and ready. He didn’t budge. She said nothing but it was obvious she was getting agitated. The new gusto she was putting into her work was evidence of that. Even our young daughters sensed that they had better be on their best behavior.

    Finally, she’d had it. She ran over to him yelling loud enough to be heard in town, waving her arms and poking her finger at his face. What she said was last seen in a blue cloud headed toward Manitowoc. Within seconds he sprinted for the table, ate everything without complaint, and even asked for seconds.

   What caused this sudden change of heart?  The wife had been slicing vegetables with a large kitchen knife and forgot to put it down when she went to “entice” him to the table. That’s what she was unknowingly waving inches from his nose. He never complained about another meal—at least not when she was cooking.