by Everett Reid
Company isn't what it used to be. I remember when I was a child having company was a real event. It was planned and looked forward to for weeks and when the great day arrived the excitement was almost beyond containment.
My memory of company was food. For me, with a constantly hungry gut, the measurement of all events was, did it involve a feast? If it did, how big?
Now let me tell you about a visit by, say, Grandma Zilpha and Uncle Chrley. They only lived 16 miles away in town. Uncle Charley was Grandma's second husband who was in some way related, as an uncle before she married him. That was on Papa's side.
The feast always involved the old red rooster. Although in our case it was a black and white rooster as Mama raised Plymouth Rocks. She liked them because they were so fat. You see it was different back then. Then when a wife stewed a chicken it was an old bird with great gobs of fat. She kept the fat and threw out the water. Today's cook, if one ever stews a chicken, it is a youngster that hasn't accumulated fat yet adn if there is a little she throws out the fat and keeps the water.
Anyhow a day before the expected visit Papa would chop off the rooster's head and pluck the feathers and Mama would cut it up and put it in the cast iron kettle on the back of the stove to simmer gently overnight with lots of water and onion and, if available, some celery.
Mama would bake a couple of pies and probably a cake, although the latter was considered women's food, and as the time of arrival neared she'd have baked potatoes ready and biscuits ready to go into the oven at the last minute. I'd sit on the porch and watch for the horse and rig hired at the livery stable.
It was considered a great breach of manners to make guests for dinner wait for the meal (not to mention cruelty to starve a small boy). And pretty soon we'd all be stuffing on stewed rooster, and cloud fluffy dumplings in browned gravy and the hot biscuits and pie and the baked potatoes peeled and mashed.
When everyone was stuffed to repletion the men stretched out on the sofa or the porch hammock with a newspaper over their faces to keep off the flies and the women washed the dishes and exchanged gossip and a glorious day was had by all.
What a difference today. Some one suggests a restaurant, everyone piles into cars and there we go. The menu lists chicken or fish fried in an overcoat, or maybe spaghetti. There is generally french fries and cole slaw. If we get there early it's pancakes and sausage. Conversation isn't possible because of so many people talking. We feel self-conscious about talking too long because there are others standing in line waiting for the hostess to seat them. If we order pie, which not many do, the whipped cream on it is made of soybeans, and the filling is colored and flavored, thickened corn starch pudding. When we leave we drop a tip for the waitress, that is twice what a man earned for a 10-hour day back in the days of the red rooster.
We go home and the men sit about watching the sport that is in season on TV and everyone has a bellyache. If they talk at all the women folks lament the ingratitude of their kids.
After a while some one stands and says, "Well, I guess we'd better be going," so the visitors climb in their car and leave and the hostess says "Thank God that's over for another six months," and the husband lies on the sofa and goes to sleep. Later on he opens one eye and asks, "What's for supper?" and his spouse replies, "Whatever we brought home in the doggy bag." They get out the doggy bag and find the kids have cleaned it out so they have coffee and baloney sandwiches. Then they go back to prime time TV. Later as they get ready for bed the husband says "A hell of a day, wasn't it?" And she says, "Sure was" and he says, "You know I can remember when I was a little boy and Papa and Mama had company...."
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