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Cornbread

Posted October 4, 2008

My grandfather used to sit at the dining room table, a plate of cornbread on his left, an empty glass on his right, and a pint of milk in the middle.

Taking the cornbread, he'd crumble it into the empty glass, and then he'd add the milk.

Breakfast was ready.

For a generation of Americans born into the Depression, cornbread fueled their collective fire. It was all they had. You see, cornbread is made of cornmeal,and cornmeal is fairly cheap. Which means that, with a little bit of cornmeal, someone can feed alot of folks without spending any money.

And, when money is the one thing you don't have, not having to spend any comes in handy.

"I can remember when cornbread was all we had, and we were glad to have it," Papa used to say in that prayerful sort of reverence only possible for one who had known hunger.

Papa grew up in the woods of East Texas with his 6 brothers and 2 sisters. They lost the family farm in the Depression. They owned one old Model A Truck. They worked hard to make ends meet, which they rarely did.

They were a family. They were happy. They were carefree (if a little hungry). And, they did just about all of it on cornbread. (And the occasional "collard green".)

20 years later, Papa and nearly every one of his brothers were off fighting the Japanese, or the Germans. As children, they had learned team work and dependability fighting poverty. They had learned endurance and determination fighting fear. They used both fighting the Germans and the Japanese. And they won on both fronts.

You'd think that, having come through the Depression and a World War, my Papa would've wanted eggs, pancakes, grits, biscuits, gravey, sausage, coffee and orange juice for breakfast. After all, he'd earned the right to eat whatever he wanted as far as I was concerned.

But, he sat there eating cornbread instead. Maybe he was nostalgic; but,it's unlikely. (When the first 25 years of your life involve a depression and a world war, there isn't much to be nostalgic about.)

No, I suspect Papa stuck to his cornbread and milk because it was, after all those years, still good enough for him. Makes me thankful that tonight I got to choose my dinner fare. Maybe we should all be thankful to that generation of Americans because, in a weird sort of way, their cornbread made our freedom possible.

And it's probabaly a good idea to remember it.

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