Slice of Life Post for March 7, 2025 (8:12-8:43) by Barb Edler

My early morning hours include checking my bank account. Double checking my finances is not something I enjoy. I wasn’t raised in a wealthy household. If I have money, I tend to spend it or give it away. Let’s just say, I’m not a money manager.

I think about the many reasons money disappears when it’s near me. After I wrote the autobiographical vignette shared below, I realized that food is more important to me than money although the two may be interconnected.

“Dad, please, can we have 35 cents to go to the pool?” I beg. 

“No, you don’t need to go to the pool.”

I wasn’t surprised by his reply, but I was seriously disappointed. Going to the pool was one of my favorite things to do. Thomas Park was a quick ten-minute walk from our house and the pool offered thrills and serenity. From jumping off the high board to floating around in the deeper end and maybe even getting to visit the snack house, nothing could top a day spent at the public swimming pool.

Money was not readily available in my home. My dad was a route salesman who drove to various schools and businesses dropping off dairy products like milk cartons and ice cream novelties. My mother, an invalid, never received any kind of state funds although she was completely disabled. I often question whether or not this situation could have been corrected; apparently, she hadn’t worked long enough to generate enough funds for social security benefits. It’s a moot point at this time in my life, but it is a haunting question I occasionally gnaw at.

Consequently, money dictated what we often ate: gravy and toast. My dad was a pretty good cook and sometimes we had amazing pork sandwiches, etc. but the gravy and toast thing were really pretty dismal. This was not the creamy, heart-stopping chipped beef gravy, this was a concocted watery brown gravy from the scraps of some meat I suppose.

For several summers my dad would take my mom to Mount Horeb, Wisconsin to be treated at a medical facility. We would always go to the same cafe and my dad would order us all the “short stacks.” I imagine this was the cheapest thing on the menu, but boy did I get sick of eating pancakes. In fact, I did not really relish eating a pancake until years and years later.  

I remember how dad would control our behavior in the car. Every other week my siblings and I would pile into the back of the car. Mom would be up front with maybe one of us squeezed between my dad and her to visit friends in Monticello which was a good hour away. These friends would visit our home on the following week. It was a lovely arrangement as the Landis’s also had several children.

Anyway, on the way home, dad would say, “Now be quiet and we will stop at the Dairy Queen.” An ice cream cone from the Dairy Queen was the existential treat. However, he would rarely follow through with this bribe. I clearly remember hearing my older brother grumble, “There goes the Dairy Queen,” as we whizzed by it, while our hearts sank. Our dreams of licking a cool, creamy cone completely crushed.

Having a fast-food hamburger was also the complete bomb as a child. When we used to drive to Iowa City to visit my mother in the hospital, I remember looking longingly at the Sandy’s restaurant, a fast-food chain from the sixties. Every so often my dad, to our delight, would stop and get us burgers and fries. One weird thing we would do was to save a final bite of hamburger that we tightly hid into the packaging and tucked away into a pocket or under our behinds, etc. Later we’d pull it out and show it off to our other siblings. “Look what I have,” I remember saying once as I revealed my final delicious bite of burger, thrilled to be able to savor that last final bite in front of my other siblings, a weirdly cruel behavior I’m sure I learned from my older brother and sister.

My poem today is a nod to Williams Carlos Williams "This Is Just to Say"

Look What I've Got

This is just to say
I have hidden my last bite
of Sandy's hamburger
which I bet 
you wish
you had
Although it may be cold
It’s still so absolutely delicious