A Habit-forming History...!

My wife and I confirm that history is habit-forming!  Sometimes it's poignant and as funny as hell, too!  She is from a small family and I have a big…no, I have a huge one!  Her immediate family consists of her parents, her brother and herself while mine includes my parents, my two brothers, my seven sisters and me!  Four, seated around the dinner table at her home compared to twelve rubbing shoulders and clearing space for elbows around mine!  That is the history and that has formed the habits!

See, my wife eats with an ease developed from a history of never feeling threatened about whether or not she would get enough, get the best part, or not get any! 

Me?  Well let me just say that with my father who, by virtue of his role (father and co-maker of all of us), station (head of household, breadwinner and protector) and stature (ramrod straight-backed, no-nonsense, senior NCO in the U.S. Army and veteran of 3 wars), automatically garnered a fair share of the groceries from my mother.  My mother; his wife, who dutifully and honorable doled out the lion’s share of dinner to him whether or not he requested it while also insuring she had enough to sustain herself before ever divvying out the balance to the offspring, then shared out the balance according, almost, to birth order compared to appetite. 

Imagine the portion of the eighth child (me), a walking, talking, eating machine who never thought that he was being fed to the levels prescribed by medicine, psychology or his bottomless pit of a stomach. Yes, back then, I ate like each meal was to be my last and I needed to eat it before someone older, bigger and stronger, snatched it from me and devoured it before my teary-eyed gaze. 

My mother, the magician, could prepare a meal for twelve as easily as if she were cooking for two.  She could conduct a symphony atop the stove with all burners adjusted to perfect temperatures for the contents of the pot above each while roasting, baking and broiling assorted stuff in the oven, below.  She always has been and continues to be amazing! 

A true fact that I relate to anyone who will listen is the skill my mother possessed as it pertains to the division of a single chicken; the structure of which suggests a breast, split in two, two thighs, two legs and two wings to total eight portions, if you don’t consider the bony back a piece!  Hint: they don’t sell backs at KFC. 

Ah, but they do at Christine’s (my mother) Kitchen!  And a wing has two parts, also.  And a breast, in half, can be again, halved!  Yes, thirteen pieces of chicken from a single yard bird.  I’m just glad I have seven sisters and not seven brothers.  I probably would have starved before I was six!

To my point of this writing; my wife suggests I can eat chicken and reconstruct the skeleton for scientific use when I am finished as there is nothing left except bones.  I tell her that my eating chicken is a habit born of history!  Whatever piece of chicken I was fortunate enough to receive at the dinner table of my father, was tasty, very much appreciated and consumed to the bone; as was any left on anyone else’s plate after they thought that they had had enough and was finished eating!  I am not, nor ever have I been, in the habit of leaving meat on bones!  When chicken is served at our house, now, my wife eats what she will and then passes the remainder to me for clean-up; I do my thing!  My wife has gotten used to my habit!