The Old Coot is “green” with envy.
By Merlin Lessler
I pulled a loaf of bread out of the cupboard the other
day. It had been there for the better part of the week, so I checked it for
that greenish, bluish sign of mold. None! It wasn’t like this growing up. Bread
would start turning green after a day or so. I know. I was my family’s “bread man.” Every other
day, my mother handed me a cloth sack with a draw string closure and said, “Go
over to Bill Scales grocery store on Pennsylvania Ave and get a loaf of
Spaulding bread. Off I would go on my bicycle, with a dime and a penny in the
bag, swinging from my handlebars. The dime was for bread; the penny for a piece
of Fleer, Double-Bubble Gum. I liked it better than Bazooka Bubble Gum because
it came with a tiny comic strip inside the wrapper. I would stop at the top of
Moore Ave on the way home to pull a slice out of the middle of the loaf, hoping
my mother wouldn’t notice. It was so good when it was fresh. I couldn’t stop
myself. I still do that to this day when
I buy bread from a bakery. I can never wait till I get home. Same thing when I
pick up a pizza. It’s never perfectly round when it gets to our kitchen.
There aren’t many
neighborhood bakeries around anymore. They’ve disappeared, just like the
neighborhood grocery stores and neighborhood schools. Life was on a smaller
scale back then. We walked to Longfellow Elementary School every day. Walked
back home for lunch, and back to school again. We got as much education on the
sidewalks along the route as we did in the classroom. Even when we graduated
and moved up to junior high, we still walked to Longfellow, to catch one of the
two buses to the junior high on the other side of town.
But, oh those “good old days.” Back in the 1940’s and
50’s. I started walking to school with my friend Woody when we were five years
old. Our parents weren’t involved, except to say good bye and be careful, on
our way out the door. Quite a different world! But, back to the bread. Today’s bread,
made in factories, that doesn’t turn green. Mothers don’t have to cut moldy
crusts off before making their children peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. The
aging process in bread is virtually eliminated, by preservatives. I just wish those
preservatives did the same thing for me when I consumed the loaf.?
Comments?
Complaints? Send to the paper or to me at mlessler7@gmail.com
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