A Reminiscence Containing Venison, Planes, and Melted Ice Cream
There are sometimes that I marvel about where and how I have ended up in life. The art and trauma that is grocery shopping is always a glaring reminder of just because you start out in life one way doesn't necessarily mean you'll keep rambling upon the same path.
When I was really small, we lived in the foothills of the Cascade mountains in a lovely little place that I now refer to as "The Butt Crack Of The Earth." Truly, where I was born is called The Big Bottom Valley, insert multiple off color jokes here. Now, The BBV is a beautiful place indeed, the Cowlitz River flows through the valley which is smack dab in the middle of Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Rainer.
As far as groceries went, my family was a bunch of timber fallers, so we subsisted largely on "buck steak" that was picked up on the guy's daily commute. You know, instead of driving through Starbucks for a White Chocolate Frappe, my Dad, Uncle, and Grandpa tossed a buck into the back of the truck with a side of a big buck hunter bull fecal matter tall tale for later for extra garnish.
Our town had a little grocery store, but the emphasis should be placed on the word "little" so my mom would head "out town" once a month or so for essentials. You know, besides buck steak. Honestly, buck steak, biscuits and gravy was and probably is still one of my favorite meals. Comfort food.
Then, when we were ten, my whole crew headed to Southeast Alaska. Boy, did grocery collection change there. There was still a lot of buck steak, as my dad was still very much a timber faller, but we had a nice additional element to the kitchen, seafood. I thought it was completely normal to have a big old slab of steelhead or King salmon for dinner. Not to mention we frequently dined on fresh shrimp, halibut, and ling cod. That part of grocery shopping I miss, as a lot of the time my parent's friends would just bring the sea made ambrosia to our wannigan door. In fact, one of my greatest memories was that of the "carpet burned shrimp."
One of my dad's esteemed coworkers was a man who everyone referred to as "Hey Buddy." He was loud, brash, and usually quite drunk. I am pretty sure I have written about him before. Hey Buddy used to get gallon bags of massive shrimp that we would buy from him for $20. I'm serious about the massive part, they were prawn sized. Well, one day there was a bang on the door and Hey Buddy blew in. Literally, he blew in the door and the shrimp exploded out of the bag as it hit the floor and the sea creatures skittered all over our carpet.
Now, my mother is beyond fastidiously clean, so even though our 1969 travel trailer with a 12X16 foot wannigan was a bit of a humble abode, the place was insane asylum clean. Which considering that the walls were made from rough cut yellow cedar planks and we had a wood stove is definitely saying something. As the shrimp bounced along the rust colored shag carpet, my brother and I sucked in shocked gasps of shockedness. Our house was going to smell like a cannery! We both cast an eye on my mother, who was looking remarkably composed, yet I swear that one of her eyebrows were twitching.
Hey Buddy let out a booming laugh and plopped down to the floor, his big hands went to work scooping the shrimp back into the plastic bag. "Hell Ron, I won't tell anybody these shrimp are carpet burnt if you won't."
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Speaking of rustic food delivery systems and getting back to the topic of grocery shopping, my most unique way of getting groceries as a kid had to be at the logging camp we lived in for a couple of years, Icy Bay. Icy Bay was a collection of buildings and single wide trailers set right in the middle of the Wrangell-St. Elias Wilderness in Alaska. If you look at a map of the Southeast Alaska panhandle, at the top you will see Yakutat. A small plane ride north is Icy Bay, just on the other side of a glacier that is larger than Rhode Island. Depending on the time of year you either landed on a gravel runway in tundra tires or a snow covered runway in skis. Such a happening place.
Anyway, our groceries were flown into us once a week. It being a logging camp, there was a cookhouse for all the loggers and timberfallers to eat at, so we definitely needed a steady supply of comestibles. Every week my mom would get a grocery list from the camp office and we would throw our requests at her like she was on a direct line to Food Santa. The groceries would come on a refrigerated jet from Juneau, but the last leg of the journey was on a small plane, so there were some limitations. Like, we never got to eat ice cream in the summer because it wouldn't last the journey from Yakutat. Stuff like that. Sometimes Mom had enough frozen stuff to order that she would risk getting a gallon of ice cream and it still arrived half melted. We didn't care, we devoured that stuff.
Even now, all these years later, I pause in awe when I think about how I can just hop in the car and speed up the hill to the grocery store. I mean, I do live on a farm in the woods, but I have one small and three massive groceries stores within a 3-13 mile driving distance. It's crazy!
I think that is part of the reason why I don't really dig shopping too much to this day. It's much easier for me to concoct something with what I have on hand. It really doesn't occur to me as a first thought that I can just hop into my car and go get what I feel like. People complain a lot about things, but honestly, if you need perspective about just how awesome life can be in America, just wander through your local grocery store and look at the sheer volume of choices you have to select from. Honestly, it overwhelms me sometimes!
Although, I must say, even thought I miss the adventure of my childhood sometimes, I have to admit that I really enjoy eating fully frozen ice cream in whatever flavor I desire in the summer times.
Cool stories about pantry shopping and finding buck. :))
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I have a love/hate relationship with grocery shopping. I don't mind taking my list to the new-ish grocery store 8-ish miles away, since the drive is short and direct. I dislike driving 20 miles to the bigger stores in town, where the prices might be better but I spend the difference in gas to get there and back. Not to mention the ghastly traffic. Costco has its place in my life, but I have to be in the right mood to deal with all those other shoppers. December is a bad month to go in there, as I recently reminded myself. I like the idea of having my groceries flown in on a weekly basis, but I'd sure have to do a better job of making a list!