Those Drovers Knew What They Were Eating

I was taking a rare break on a cold, slow, late afternoon, watching an old “Rawhide” rerun. But, as always with that classic western depicting Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates chasing 3,000 head of cattle up the 1,000-mile Sedalia Trail from Texas to Missouri, my mind turned to high school basketball.

It was my senior year. The problem arose because Coach Sterling Givens was fond of scheduling home games on Friday nights. The girls played a game before us. Coach wanted us there to support the girls by coming early, but he demanded we be in the locker room by the halftime break to get dressed and prepared for our contest.

That was not a problem for the other guys. But “Rawhide” aired in the seven o’clock spot on Friday nights. You understand there were no tape delays or recording features back then. And we’d never heard of reruns in 1965. You watched it live, or you didn’t see it.

You look back on that series now, and it may seem a bit campy, dated, trite…it was in black and white, and most of the cows could act better than many of the guest stars.

But I have always wanted to be a cowboy.

I would wait until Rowdy had cleaned up his mess, or the cattle got across the river safely and then I sprinted to the gym. Sometimes the girl’s game would be almost over when I got there. Coach Givens didn’t like my tardiness one bit.

And he didn’t “buy” that story about me being home watching “Rawhide.” He thought I was seeing a girl, which was, of course, the worst thing anyone could do if they were a “team player” and were “getting their mind right” for the big game at hand.

He would run me after practice on Monday till my tongue was dragging across the floor behind me. That TV show was near ’bout killing me! I would beg Charlotte Melton at lunch to call a few extra timeouts in the first half. I asked Emily Scarbrough to fake a knee injury. I told Jane Hill to start a fight….

I wasn’t alone with my basketball memories as I watched the Rawhide gang “head’em up and move’em out.” I had an ice filled glass of Diet Coke and was munching on a ten-ounce bag of Lay’s Potato Chips. The world, at the moment, was moving in my direction.

Scout Pete Nolan was informing Mr. Favor there was no water up ahead, and the outfit might be doomed when I reached for another handful of chips. I looked down and noticed for the first time the inscription below the Lay’s Classic moniker, “Made with REAL POTATOES.”

Folks, I quit the trail drive. Which you just can’t do!

My mind switched gears. Does that mean some potato chip companies don’t use real potatoes? Is that even possible? Don’t tell me somebody makes them out of potash and turkey feathers…and spray paints them yellow.

Lord a’mercy, I began to wonder what exactly was Hamburger Helper made of. And what is in imitation Vienna sausage?

And that took me back to my high school days again. I tried to recall all the signs hanging on the walls in the City Café. But nothing relating to the type of meat in the hamburgers came to mind.

I hope they were not keeping something from us.

The burgers cooked up like real beef, smelled like real beef, and tasted pretty darn good. But I can’t be certain. The only sign I remember for sure that Mr. Stavely had on his Café wall was, “I have a deal with the bank. They don’t cook hamburgers and I don’t cash checks.”

Free range chickens entered my thinking. I hear that term a lot. I don’t know what it means unless you have to chase’em down to process them. And many in the poultry business assure us their chickens are steroid free. Well, I want to trust everybody. And then I sit down to eat, with a chicken breast as large as a diesel engine in front of me.

I’m going back to a diet of peanut butter smeared over the top of an Oreo cookie. You can’t get much healthier than that. And it may be the last food left that you feel sure is the same as it has always been. I mean, if you can’t trust the Oreo people….

All of this food conundrum could be AI’s fault. Anything that has artificial in its title reeks with made up, not real, fake, non-natural…that has got to spill over to the food world. Dad had an old expression about such things, “It ain’t fit for man nor beast.”

Cathy came into the den, and surmised (with that wife’s built in intuition) that I was getting worked up over something. She hoped to help my mindset with a small diversion. “Honey, what would you like for supper?”

“Beef and beans. Cooked over an open fire, built in sight of the chuckwagon.”

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com