REFRIGERATOR BISCUITS

the snow is starting to finally melt. "I" and I have just started the morning with our usual front yard antics. it is cold but the sub zero temptures have finally left us but it is a cold, crisp morning. Quiet, at least till we came out. I love the early mornings.

I have written before, growing up we were poor. My Dad worked in a service station. Long hours, little pay. He got a check every two weeks. Mom handled the money, what there was to handle. So when Dad got paid, Mother bought grocires to last for two weeks. The first week we ate pretty good. But the second week was usually slim pickings. Mom could make a pound of hambuger last for at least two meals, if not three. Goloush consisted of a handful of hambuger, very little hambuger, onion, a can of tomtoes and macaroni. I grew up thinking everyone hate water gravey. When we had beans, which was quite often. It was more bean juice than it was beans. But somehow we always ate. Mom could make a small meal stretch to include any strays that might stumble in. And there was always a extra or two at the table.

Somewhere in the early fifties Mom heard about a new product on the market. Refrigerator biscuits. Now Mom when she bought groceries on payday always had to put some up. A hungry pack of kids will eat everything up in the first week., if it is all in the cabinet for all eyes to see. So Mom kept a box under the bed. There she put canned goods, other items for that second week. I must point out here. My Mother was a very smart woman.She went to college, had taught school. But remember this was back in naive days. The media did not invade your home via Television, of the latest fads and how they worked. mom saw the shiney tubes of prepared dough at the store. Not long after they hit the market. A miracle, biscuits in a can. No more mixing dough, rolling patting them out at five in the morning. Just one swift rap on a the edge of a cabinet and instantely, ten little rounds of dough was at your fingertips. A miracle. You popped them in the oven, stirred up water gravey. There was breakfast, Dad ate and Mom drove him to work. The new age had arrived.

So Mom bought and brought home the precious biscuits. Now what to do. If she put all ten, shiny tubes into the refrigerator they would not last two weeks. So five of the cheriesed tubes went under the bed in her second week box. The only problem being, the box was not refrigeratored. A few days alter we sat at the table having supper. Aloud pop cut through the air, then another loud pop. Everyone looked nervously around.this was before the day of drive-by shootings. So nobody thought we were being attacked. After the third pop, we all ran to the bedroom. From whence the noise was coming. Mom got down and pulled out he box. The cans lay open, dough oosing from the split cans. Dough caught up in the bed springs. This was back before box springs, at least at our house. There was a thin matress, and metal springs tossed onto four or five wooden slats. There was dough everywhere. So that is how we learned that refrigeratored biscuits were meant to be kept cold.

I think of Momma sometimes when I open the door of my kitchen cabinet. There is always food. Cans of Tuna, vegetables. Cereal, the list goes on. I can skip the store for a couple of weeks and we won't starve. Mom was always hustling around, trying to make food last over that two week period. I never realized back then, how very tough that was. And Dad working 12 hours a day to bring home thirty-five dollars a week. Oh I know things were cheaper back then. But even then, supporting a family on the meager wages was not easy. But somehow we always ate. The electric only got cut off about every four months. And Mom would franically scramble around to get it back on before Dad come home at six. Yes my friends those were the good old days.