Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Simple guilty pleasures from the days of yore.

Climbing, hard skiing, 20+ mile days in the mountains, hair.



mike r

Leaded gasoline.

fishing for bream, with a cane pole at dick kelberg park when i was a young kid.

Best cheese ever!

Donuts.

My back not hurting...not going to work every damn day?

grandma putting out a huge table from scratch every Sunday

Never realized it was possible to fry in anything but lard.

Pro wrasslin, dry roasted peanuts and Tree Top apple juice.

And Grandpa.

Mom was not much of a cook. Kitchen chores were an obligation she simply could not avoid.

But Dad's Mom taught her how to make bread, and she took real pride in that. Well justified pride. Once a week she made a dozen loaves. And while we had a dairy, butter was not made at our house. We survived on margarine.

But Grandma made butter from fresh Guernsey cream, Heaven was to be at Grandma's house on baking day.

I miss all the things associated with a farm kitchen well supplied with whole milk and eggs, wholesome homemade custards, and puddings, and ice cream.

Probably I miss most, an endless supply of fresh whole milk, and the metabolism which allows one to consume it as a beverage of choice.

My wife and I both grew up milking cows. Margarine was rarely found at our house and we only eat with real butter now. But, I have to admit my Mom's pan fried chicken was a favorite treat on every 3rd Sunday. It was a pork roast or beef roast on the other 2 Sundays. It would be so great to have everyone together again but I know it will never be. My Mom also did pickles but so does my wife and they are just as good.

kwg

Mom's home-made fudge.

First day of hunting season (pheasants and rabbits) and the smell of paper shotgun shells after they were fired.

The tastes and aromas of my childhood hold a special corner of my memories but what I miss the most are mom and dad, us 5 kids and both sets of grandparents getting together after church for a big Sunday supper. I helped mom cook so I’ve absorbed her menus and can prepare most of what mom made and replicate it well. I do the cooking for my family so I’ve had many years of practice and mistakes.

Mom was the organist and choir director at a couple of churches so Sunday’s were busy but somehow (my mom like a lot of moms was a superhero and was relentless in her care of her family) she was able to still prepare a giant supper after church. In the later years mom worked at 3 churches on Sunday so my grandma and I would make supper so mom didn’t have to. I miss the childlike simplicity with which I viewed the world. It was the love of family that made the food taste so good. My wife and I took over the cooking for mom about 15 years ago so I had the privilege of cooking for and serving mom for a number of years. Mom loved the idea that her oldest son and the only outdoorsman in the family cared enough to learn how to cook. I was the oldest as well as a black sheep since I marched to my own beat and lived life on my terms. Dad wanted me to be a cop but I wanted to be a firefighter, I initially gave in to make dad happy but I hated it and told dad there’s no way I’m going to spend a career with those types of people and went back to being a firefighter, a career I loved!

I miss the family that’s passed away and look forward to a grand reunion someday.

Pencil fights on the school bus

Home made chocolate sauce on vanilla ice cream, and stove top popped popcorn, made in an old dented aluminum pot. Hot maple syrup on snow. The treats I always loved as a kid.

Dad saying, "Time to Rise and Shine" about 3am as we're heading out on some grand adventure.

....and paint. Modern paint doesn’t taste the same. 😁

Fresh unsalted Butter right out of the churn, buttermilk too

My dad was a city boy so my grandpa took me fishing and hunting. I was the son he never had and he was the best friend a young boy could ever have wished for.

I miss grandpa coming in and playing reveille at 4am after making coffee for he and I before headed out to the fields, forests, rivers and bays. I decided where I wanted to go and grandpa took me.

My God I didn’t realize how great my life was until I got older. It was so simple, I had the world by the tail and not a care in the world. I’d get off the school bus and grandpa was waiting for me with a coke, an after school snack and a box of either 20ga shells or .22 shells for my after school starling hunts and crow safaris. My life back then feels like a dream today.

As a young kid my dad would slaughter a hog and have everyone over for New Year's eve. All day event and a big feast. Miss that but mostly the stories my parents would tell about their lives growing up in the old days and weird stories about my great grandparents who were gypsies from Hungary.