O
OutinChgoburbs
Guest
Our family has way too many of these. Let the first be the Bosco Thanksgiving (and for those who know me, this will give away my identity, but it is too good to pass up).
For you youngsters, Bosco is a chocolate syrup, like Hershey’s. It came in a glass bottle with a pump.
My sisters and I were 3 (not quite 4), 2 and 1. My mother generally made Thanksgiving dinner in her family’s tradition. My father, for those of you who have already read some of my posts, is a bit irrational, always was. He wanted T-giving dinner just like Mama used to make. Grandma on Dad’s side was not that wonderful a cook. Neverthless, my mother dutifully wrote (not emailed) and obtained the recipes.
The crowning glory of this repast was supposed to be the most sugary coated sweet potato casserole to my knowledge ever in existence (and I betray my age by talking about chocolate syrup in glass pump bottles). I’ve never seen one quite as sweet as this one, anywhere. It had brown sugar, white sugar, marshmallows, and dark Karo syrup (down where Dad’s from, that’s pronounced “Kay-ro” like that city on the tip of southern Illinois). It was a diabetic nightmare.
There was also turkey- which my mother never ate. She does not eat poultry. There was some kind of pork and beans, and they were syrupy. There was cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and a sweet cole slaw. This was a sugar fest, even for small children who loved candy.
Dad normally ate in the living room, while the rest of us ate in the kitchen. Well, Mom was in the kitchen telling us we did not have to eat the syrup beans, and we did not have to eat the sugary cole slaw. But most of all, we did not have to eat the sweet potato casserole.
He heard. He said we did indeed have to eat everything on our plate, that he would not see his mother’s recipes wasted…and she retorted that he was lucky she did not scrape all that sugar into the garbage. They argued, and took their fight through the door into the living room.
Well. Being 3, not quite 4, I surmised that if the sweet potatoes had syrup, 2 kinds of sugar, and marshmallows, then maybe all they needed was a couple hits of chocolatey Bosco from the pump to improve them. I climbed up on the table, and helped myself. And it did!!! Bosco Bear would have been proud. Well, my sisters saw this, and wanted Bosco on their sweet potatoes, too. I obliged them. And while we were at it, we brought mole to our table by coating the turkey in Bosco. And the cranberry sauce. And the mashed potatoes…
…My father screamed at us, ever vulgarity in the book, and demanded that we eat every bite of our food, coated in Bosco or not.
With the screaming and Bosco and sugar in various fomats, our little tummies could handle no more. One after the other, we upchucked, all over ourselves, all over the table, all over the plates. My father started to take off his belt and spank us.
Normally, my mother would have let this behavior pass. Not today. She yelled at him, “I’m cleaning this up! Get your ________ in the bathroom and run them a bath. You’re cleaning them up! And I don’t want to hear how that’s woman’s work!”
We were scrubbed, and treated to Dad’s mumbles, all the while Mom was yelling, “Serves you right!” from the kitchen.
For you youngsters, Bosco is a chocolate syrup, like Hershey’s. It came in a glass bottle with a pump.
My sisters and I were 3 (not quite 4), 2 and 1. My mother generally made Thanksgiving dinner in her family’s tradition. My father, for those of you who have already read some of my posts, is a bit irrational, always was. He wanted T-giving dinner just like Mama used to make. Grandma on Dad’s side was not that wonderful a cook. Neverthless, my mother dutifully wrote (not emailed) and obtained the recipes.
The crowning glory of this repast was supposed to be the most sugary coated sweet potato casserole to my knowledge ever in existence (and I betray my age by talking about chocolate syrup in glass pump bottles). I’ve never seen one quite as sweet as this one, anywhere. It had brown sugar, white sugar, marshmallows, and dark Karo syrup (down where Dad’s from, that’s pronounced “Kay-ro” like that city on the tip of southern Illinois). It was a diabetic nightmare.
There was also turkey- which my mother never ate. She does not eat poultry. There was some kind of pork and beans, and they were syrupy. There was cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and a sweet cole slaw. This was a sugar fest, even for small children who loved candy.
Dad normally ate in the living room, while the rest of us ate in the kitchen. Well, Mom was in the kitchen telling us we did not have to eat the syrup beans, and we did not have to eat the sugary cole slaw. But most of all, we did not have to eat the sweet potato casserole.
He heard. He said we did indeed have to eat everything on our plate, that he would not see his mother’s recipes wasted…and she retorted that he was lucky she did not scrape all that sugar into the garbage. They argued, and took their fight through the door into the living room.
Well. Being 3, not quite 4, I surmised that if the sweet potatoes had syrup, 2 kinds of sugar, and marshmallows, then maybe all they needed was a couple hits of chocolatey Bosco from the pump to improve them. I climbed up on the table, and helped myself. And it did!!! Bosco Bear would have been proud. Well, my sisters saw this, and wanted Bosco on their sweet potatoes, too. I obliged them. And while we were at it, we brought mole to our table by coating the turkey in Bosco. And the cranberry sauce. And the mashed potatoes…
…My father screamed at us, ever vulgarity in the book, and demanded that we eat every bite of our food, coated in Bosco or not.
With the screaming and Bosco and sugar in various fomats, our little tummies could handle no more. One after the other, we upchucked, all over ourselves, all over the table, all over the plates. My father started to take off his belt and spank us.
Normally, my mother would have let this behavior pass. Not today. She yelled at him, “I’m cleaning this up! Get your ________ in the bathroom and run them a bath. You’re cleaning them up! And I don’t want to hear how that’s woman’s work!”
We were scrubbed, and treated to Dad’s mumbles, all the while Mom was yelling, “Serves you right!” from the kitchen.
I don’t think she will ever try that again.
Two ends, two people, duh, why hadn’t we thought about it before! Excited with this new idea, we each slid on from a different ends simultaneously, but soon realized we had overlooked the fact that we were going to meet in the middle. All I could do is scream as we slid towards each other.
