A Homegrown Meal

I wake up one Saturday morning and walk down my steps into my living room and begin watching television. Seconds later, I receive a phone call from my grandparents wanting me to come help them plant vegetables in the garden. Of course my initial thoughts are “NOOO, but I suppose I should help them because after all I will be one of the people devouring these fresh country grown vegetables come harvest time.” Ten minutes later I find myself putting on some old clothes and walking outside to get on my four-wheeler so that I can drive up the road to my grandparents house. As I am making the short trip up the road on my four-wheeler I am thinking to myself why can we not just buy our groceries at the local supermarket like everyone else. At that moment, I hear the alarming noise of an ambulance rushing down the road towards my grandparent’s home. Despite the scorching temperatures of that day, my blood had run cold and my heart had stopped as I was pulling up off the road into the yard.

At about four thirty one Sunday afternoon, my family and I are loading up in the car to go eat at my grandparents house. We pull up to a driveway full of cars belonging to most of my immediate family. Upon entering the house I catch a whiff of various different vegetables that my grandmother had undoubtedly slaved over for the past couple of hours. The meal she had prepared consisted of everything from green beans and mashed potatoes to fried chicken and corn on the cob. It is pretty much the textbook idea of a southern meal. This is the meal that I have looked forward to for every Sunday since I can remember. When I walk around the kitchen piling on as much of these foods as I can possibly fit on my plate, I think about all the time and hard work spent growing these foods. My grandparents have maintained their garden ever since my mother was a child and worked in the garden herself. Now thirty-five to forty years later they are still making their own delicious home grown meals and now I am the one that gets out in the garden to help them produce their vegetables.

After fixing my plate and sitting down in the living room with all of my aunts and uncles, I began contemplating which food would best meet the desires of my appetite from the start. The thing that caught my eye right from the start would have to have been the fried chicken. I did not know what it was but there was just something about the chicken that always pulled me towards it first. It could possibly be the carnivorous side of me that craves meat like a starving wolf on the prowl coming out by starting right away at the meat. My fried chicken strips were usually doused in either sweet-n-sour sauce or honey mustard for a little added flavor. Secondly, I made the habit of chasing all my foods down with some good old sweet tea. Next, the sweet aroma of frozen strawberries topped with a few small dabs of sugar usually catches my attention. Strawberries are usually considered more of the desert, but to me it does not matter the order it enters my mouth. Half way through the meal there is a friendly argument brewing up between one of my uncles and my great Uncle Scott over which race team has the better car in the NASCAR Nextel cup series. My great Uncle Scott argues on behalf of Chevy since he has always driven a Chevy truck and my other uncle argues on behalf of the Dodge cars. Soon after the argument is over, my Uncle Scott begins to tell me what all that we will be doing in the garden the upcoming Saturday. As he is speaking to me, I move on to the next item on my plate which happens to be the slightly creamy mashed potatoes, buttered to perfection and served with cascading waterfalls of gravy, my uncle is talking about plowing rows for in a few days. After cleaning my plate and end my main course, I head into the kitchen to pick between an assortment of desserts including apple pies, chocolate cake, frozen strawberries, or homemade ice cream. Shortly after finishing off a little bit of each of the desserts, I put my dishes in the washing machine and begin to tell everyone bye. I then thank my grandparents for my dinner and head out the door back towards my house thinking about how bloated I felt from my massive overconsumption of food.

As I am pulling into my grandparent’s yard that Saturday morning overcome with a deep feeling that something horrible has happened, I notice my Uncle Scott’s old Chevrolet truck parked in the driveway. I then look out towards the garden and notice someone lying on the ground near the tractor surrounded by medics. As I am approaching the scene I spot my grandparents holding each other with tears streaming down their horror-stricken faces. I then saw the most grotesque, horrifying sight that still haunts me today. It was my Uncle Scott lying there face down on the ground, his body mangled beyond recognition. My dear uncle had apparently bumped into one of the fence posts entering the garden and been thrown off and caught under the tractor. As he fell from the tractor he was confined to a virtual death-trap as his life flashed before his eyes. He was immediately rushed to the hospital where he struggled day to day to hold on to what all of us treasure most, life. Ever since that day I have tried to keep the image of my uncle out of my head. Now, whenever I think of my home cooked southern meal I remember how fortunate my family is to have my uncle still in our lives today.