Dinner in Two Hours

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It's a cold Saturday morning, January, 1960 and it's time for the battle. Dinner won't be for another couple of hours and we have the fort ready.  Took three of us to get the snow packed right and we can't wait to try it out.  We even have the snowballs ready made and stacked.  Snow on the ground three feet deep.  You'd think we were in the mountains!  Other than having to shovel the path to the outhouse, this winter has been perfect.

Of course there have to be rules.  No snowballs packed around clods and rocks!  No BB guns!  No breaking off icicles and using them as clubs or spears!  No knocking down the walls of the fort, because we don't want to have to build it again.  Next week, we swap out the guys who get to use the fort. Some of these guys have no sense if you don't set this out ahead of time.

The above is a real scene from the best snowfall winter of my lifetime in Manchester, Kansas.  It was my last winter in my beloved town, ten years old and moving to the big town of Abilene with 7500 people (as opposed to Manchester's 110 if you didn't count the farm folks).  The fort was right in the middle of one of the main streets of Manchester and the town folk didn't mind.  They just went around the other way, knowing it was there.

The three meals of the day were breakfast, dinner and supper.  It wasn't like the people on TV that called it breakfast, lunch and dinner.  As long as it was hot and there was lots of it, we didn't care what you called it.  A snow battle required some good warm chow and Mom was making my favorite, snoots!  Why we called macaroni with hamburger and tomato sauce no one really knew.  That was just the name and probably came from some long lost and distorted German word passed down.  We got a few words that way being German from both sides.  We got Irish blood, too, but nobody had any Irish words.

That's my journey for all of you on the wayback and far away machine, today.  These pieces of Americana are fading.  Except in the memories of guys like me becoming ten year-olds again!

Please check out my other blog mates' takes on the same topic brought to us by Maria at their blogs: 


Comments

  1. VikiNovember 12, 2020 at 2:19 PM

    This one put a smile on my face, and I just made snoots last week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shackman November 12, 2020 at 6:32 PM

    Takes me back to 1958 and my last winter inPueblo, Colorado - eerily similar but our basic fort structure was Christmas trees and we had fewe restrictions lol. Thank you for the memories. We were a breafast, lunch and supper family LOL
    .\

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ramana RajgopaulNovember 13, 2020 at 4:32 AM

    What a nostalgia trip going back to sixty years! I like the idea of the small town folks going round the fort built in the middle of the central street by children. Will not happen in cities.

    ReplyDelete
  4. padmumNovember 14, 2020 at 5:02 AM

    Small town life is something else. Mum cooked food and family shared meals are nostalgic trips to the past. My daughter in love insists on a shared meal everyday

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownNovember 16, 2020 at 6:56 AM

    oh I say, what a lovely exuberant little narration. This I enjoyed very much! About the lunch dinner etc... my memory pulls me to that scene in the absolutely ticklish movie "My cousin, Vinny" where the motel's menu features three items: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. This entry is uplifting! Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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