Humor

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I don't eat Oatmeal

Caesar Mississippi came into the 20th century about 1954, or the year I graduated from high school and went off to College. We did have electricity a few years earlier but the ole outhouse still existed until sometimes in the 1960's. Community water was made available to the people living there sometimes in 1970.

Our source of water for many years was a hand dug well. This well still exists under the back porch of the old house. Papa had somehow laid a concrete slab over the well, which was approximately 6-feet in diameter. There was a hole cut through the concrete slab that a 3-inch pipe from the old pitcher pump went through to the water in the well. Papa said the well was about 25 feet deep. There was always plenty of water in the well. I don't remember it ever getting low on water.

The covering over the well was not watertight. As far as that is concerned it was not varmint proof either. Ever now and then the water would get to stinking and after pumping water for a while a partially decomposed dead frog would appear in the water. Other than that the water was clear and cold and if you were real thirsty from working in the field it tasted pretty good. Our immune system had to be pretty strong.

The main meal for breakfast at our house was oatmeal. Mama cooked oatmeal every morning precisely at daybreak, no exceptions. The chief-ingredients in making this meal were water from the well and oatmeal. The oatmeal was mixed with the water and cooked until it was soft enough to eat. Usually, milk was poured on the oatmeal and occasionally if we were lucky we could put brown sugar on top as a treat.

Papa had a stomach of iron. He could eat a sandwich setting on the carcass of a dead Cow. Nothing bothered his eating. One morning we were at the breakfast table eating our oatmeal as usually. Papa paused in his eating and kind of rolled his tongue around in his mouth and brought out this cylindrical object about the size of half his little finger. He looked at it, laid it down beside his plate, and continued with his eating. I asked him what it was and he nonchalantly said "one of them two-tailed water worms", never breaking stride in his eating. And that is exactly why I don't eat oatmeal!

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