TV Dinners Many meals had he with us as he was a starving musician, even though he sometimes lived at home with his family, or as the years elapsed he lived near us in orchard houses.  Not all was fancy restaurant fare.  We'd have fried hamburgers and catsup for lunch which my sister would prepare.  When he was invited to watch a science fiction movie on our big black and white RCA, we'd bring out tv trays to set before us by the couch, because my mother (surprised at a dinner guest) had planned only tv dinners for us all.  The trays were metal, and folding, manufactured in a plant in Ohio, and had woven green ivy as a design.

As to those tv dinners ... My mom would always pull back the foil on the counter by the sink, the tray would be on a plate, and she'd carefully peel back the foil with the steam rising in spurts, and she'd nervously stutter, "uh  uh uh uh uh!" fearing a steam burn.   Frank would laugh about the tv dinners, especially when my mother came out to serve them individually, holding the aluminum with a big oven mitt.  He probably had Swanson turkey with gravy, potatoes, and peas as that was my mom's standard. She insisted the turkey tasted more like real turkey.  And we'd talk about turkey farmers and turkey eggs.  I'd heard about a guy in the desert who even sold ostrich eggs, so I'd have to mention that.  My mother would add to the conversation and remind us that in the South where she'd been raised, "dinner" was something served at lunch, and "supper" was what you had at dinnertime.  We could have learned to speak redneck, too, but chose not to.

And, yes, when Frank said his mother's spaghetti sauce turned black in the fridge, he wasn't kidding! 


  ¶ 9/16/2013 07:53:00 PM