Another decade may have passed…

Liver and onions are a meal no one confesses to. It simply is not politically correct.

When I was a child, organ meat fed many a working class family. Liverwurst in a length of intestine…yum, yum. Sometimes Mom said it was braunschweiger, but made no difference to the kids who could say neither, and called it spread meat.

Liver was a special treat in our house. Family story had it that my dad came home from work, inhaled deeply, and said “steak” on the exhale. Mom had to say it was liver, which he could not bring himself to eat. The difference in the palates of the granddaughter of a German grocer and the grandson of a Presbyterian Irish schoolteacher. Ever after we ate liver when Dad was out of town on a business trip.

We ate Mom’s liver because it was pretty good, and the onions and mashed potatoes were great. Then my brother, the Old Cornmudgeon came back from England with his trophy wife. Oh, our Hazel. She made Yorkshire pudding so wonderful that my uncle, a WWII veteran who shipped out of England, got up and waltzed her around the kitchen.

Hazel’s liver became a family gathering. Hazel taught us you only turn liver once, and voila, no more tough liver on any plate in our family. But the sixties rolled into the seventies and eighties, and suddenly all the best food was no good for us. I’m sure liverwurst remains available at good delis, but don’t expect to find it at the current incarnation of the local A&P.

And so, liver went out of our lives. Until the year Hazel called from England. We could say no, she said, but it would be a great favor if we would allow her to bunk at our house while she showed off her America to her husband, Bill. The question went round the house, to a unanimous YES. So, Hazel and Bill came to visit. Often, as it turned out.

Of course, not many days went by before someone said, Remember those liver and onion dinners! And, of course, Hazel made liver and onions and I believe Walt even came up from Southern Ohio to meet Hazel’s husband and eat liver and onions. I’m thinking that was in the early nineties.

Now, it’s liver and onions when Hazel comes over. Or, a friend visits from Texas and leaves a fifty pound sack of Vandalia onions in our living room. Mighty fine eating.

Supper tonight. Eat your hearts out.

Bill’s adventures

My brother’s first wife was the trophy wife.  She remained in this country for several years after they divorced, until a series of hardships caused Hazel to make the decision to return to her village in England.  We kept in touch and knew she married a man she met at a rock and roll club.  A Teddy Boy.  Hazel was a nursing assistant and Bill the town gardener. 

It was just another late fall evening in our house when Mom answered the phone.  It was Hazel, who had an awkward question to put to us.  She and Bill wanted to come here to visit her boys and could they put up at our house.  She’d understand if we said No, but it never hurts to ask and would be so helpful……Mom put the question to Jan and me and Hazel heard us holler YES in unison.

They arrived in December and Mark and I picked them up at the airport.  Same old Hazel, and who couldn’t like Bill.  Well, nobody.  Between them he and Tom knew every song, singer and group from 1950 to present.  Mates, as Bill said.  Walt and Bill went shopping for tools for Bill.  Mom went with Bill and Hazel to see her two boys in Virginia.  On the way back Mom went eastbound on the Pennsylvania turnpike.  The signs strangely kept saying fewer and fewer miles to Philadelphia.  How silly.  Until they realized they had driven long enough to be in Ohio.  It was a long day, and the very next day home Mom bought a compass for every car in the family.

We had lots of company in to visit.  Uncle Hank kept looking around the table one night and beaming.  Who could believe it.   Former husband.  Present husband.  Former in-laws.  All present company.  And Bill was a keeper. 

When she wasn’t off visiting, Hazel tucked into odd jobs in the studio and Bill puttered about until his mate, Tom came home from work.  The weather was very mild for December when they first arrived and Bill did a lot of yard puttering.  It was well trimmed and raked those several weeks.  He looked for odd jobs about the house and kept the studio hearth swept and the ashes carried out.  Very late one night I woke up to a lot of commotion in the side yard and bright flames.  The commotion was Jan and Tom returning home from bowling, looking for the garden hose Bill had stowed neatly, turning the water back on.  The compost bin was in full flame, probably from a smoldering coal still in the ash bucket.  The bowlers put out the fire.  Bill never woke up.

Near the end of the visit it began snowing.  Inches and inches, topping out at over a two foot accumulation in a short time.  Bill had his taste of winter weather and could go home happy, and telling about shoveling feet of snow off the porch and sidewalk. Only one thing left on his wish list.  A ride in his mates'  lorry.   Tom was an over the road trucker back in the days before he retired.  Bill sighed and asked about Tom’s day when Tom came home.  We knew what he wanted, but it would be so against the rules, he didn’t ask.  After he heard about every delivery, every loading dock backed into and pulled out of, every shift of all twenty gears, a long sigh.  At the end of the last week, on Thursday night Tom asked “Can you be under the light at the head of the street at 6 am tomorrow morning?"  “Right, mate!” 

And the next morning the little man went up the street, outfitted in the winter gear we had cobbled together a week earlier.  An old coat of mom’s, a muffler, some mittens, a stocking cap and my pink, puffy, knee high boots.  He had a glorious day.

Hazel and Bill visited several times over the next decade.  When he was back in our kitchen we realized how we missed “Aizel, where’s my tay?”  “Bugger.”   Our yard was never so well tended as the weeks he was here.  Bill built our grape arbor and planted the grapes.  I still have his card:  Bill’s Lawn Mowing Service.  Our trophy sister-in-law had a trophy husband.  One night Jan and I came home to find Hazel on our answering machine.  Bill had died that morning of a heart attack.  We lost a good friend and a great gardener.  Aizel gave him a Teddy Boy send off.