Breakfast Vow

Every morning it was the same sound for Bobby Miller. It was the sound of breakfast hitting his bowl. It sounded the way it would sound if a brick was hitting the bowl. There wasn’t a lot of difference in what it was.

Mama would make this stuff every winter when the fresh food got short. Pap was a farmer and not a good one. Cash money was in short supply even in good years and Pap didn’t have too many good years. Pap would gather up all the loose wheat and oats and, probably, some weeds and give them to Mama. It was for the breakfast “cake”.

Mama would grind the wheat, oats and weeds into a powder. She’d add a little yeast and a lot of water and bake the pans of what Bobby thought of as slop until the result was a very hard piece of cake. When winter came, Mama would unwrap one of the cakes from the butcher’s paper and use a hammer to break chunks of it off. These chunks were put in bowls and everyone got one.

No way you could eat it like that. If you tried, you’d break your teeth and there was no money for dentists. Pap was given hot cream to pour over his to soften it up enough to eat. The kids were given hot milk, if there was any. If not, they got hot water. What they ended up with was a slushy, breadl-like bowl of mush to eat. Eat it they did because that was all there was. Sometimes it was supper too.

Bobby made a vow to himself that he’d never eat any crap like this again once he grew up. Never again, no matter what.

Bobby met and fell in love with a North Carolina beauty named Margaret. She was a dream come true to Bobby. Beautiful and loving. She was sensible and down to earth. She was going to be a great wife.

Bobby and Margie went to Disney World for their honeymoon. They both had a great time. They ate at every sort of restaurant there was. Bobby, with his past, always had a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes or waffles. This was breakfast.

Bobby got up the first day home to go back to work. He’d told Margie how important it was for him to have a hearty breakfast to start the day. She said she’d make sure he always got the best breakfast he could imagine.

Bobby went into the kitchen with high expectations. He couldn’t smell bacon or ham and couldn’t hear the sizzling of eggs but wasn’t concerned. Margie would send him off to work in grand style. Bobby knew that.

Margie set a plate down in front of Bobby with a beaming, proud smile. Bobby looked down at the plate. There was some sort of sauce on the plate. He still couldn’t smell anything but he assumed the sauce was covering eggs or meat. He asked Margie for a fork but she said he didn’t need one, silly.

Bobby took his spoon and poked around in the sauce. There wasn’t anything else there. He took a spoonful of the sauce and there wasn’t much taste except a slight corn flavor.

“Margie, what is this stuff and where’s the rest of my breakfast?”, he gently asked her.

“That is breakfast, silly. It’s what we always have. It’s grits. I’ve eaten it all of my life except on our honeymoon. Honestly, Bobby, I was surprised that Disney World didn’t have any. Don’t you worry none, I’ll have it for you every day of your life”.