Here is the story of macaroni & cheese, coleslaw and chocolate ice cream — three different comfort foods that played a role in two dear friendships.
April and I met at Camp Wesley Woods in Townsend, Tennessee in late May of 1992. April was 17 that May – about to turn 18, and I was 22 – about to turn 23. Five years later, when April and I went out on our first date, she told me that she associated me that summer with a spray of gravel, which would have been spitting out of the back of my white 1987 Honda Civic CRX SI: a damn good car for spitting gravel.
She was quite right – I did spit a fair amount of gravel that summer. And it’s a fine way for you to picture me for the purposes of this story: a bit showy, a little exuberant, and a touch heavy on the gas.
Macaroni & Cheese and Coleslaw
Most folks who grow up in the South have eaten their weight in macaroni & cheese and coleslaw by the age of 16. By the time I’d reached 23, I considered anything that I’d eaten my weight in to be open to interpretation: is that a bowl of mac and cheese, or something else entirely? This, to me, was an excellent question that was worthy of exploration. Enter the then 19-year-old Karen Claussen, who has been a dear friend to April and me ever since that summer.
Karen was my co-counselor one week in the summer of ’92. I think it was later on in the summer, but I’m really not sure of that. I don’t remember much about the kids we had, other than I think of them as about half and half boys and girls, and probably rising 6th graders, or there about. They were probably fun to be around, and tiring at the same time – just as you would expect any group of 10 or 12 rising 6th graders to be.
That week, as every week, the entire camp went on a night hike. While it was still daylight, Karen and I took our group to the knoll where we would wait for dark to fall. To get there, we followed a trail that went past the Grandfather Tree and wound up a steep hill that rose towards the unfinished Foothills Parkway. At the top of that small mountain, with a 30 minutes or so of daylight left, our camp kids played, and Karen and I – both biology students at the time – spoke about the stages of photosynthesis and the Krebs cycle, I think.
After it became dark – no flashlights were allowed – the camp full of kids and their counselors sat on the ground and told stories. A kid farted and everybody laughed. We called the barred owls, and then walked back down a straighter trail, each person holding the hands of two others.
The next day (or maybe it was the day before; I have no clue as to the real order of events) was an average day. I don’t remember a thing about what led up to dinner, but Karen most likely remembers what happened at dinner. We had macaroni & cheese, coleslaw, and something else. Peas, perhaps. Sprouts – definitely. But the point is that people didn’t eat much of the slaw, and there was usually left over macaroni, too. There were leftovers a-plenty that evening.
And here comes the part where you remember that I’d already eaten enough of these things to consider them worthy of other possibilities. This is where you recall the picture of a spray gravel, and the part about me being showy and impulsive. Poor Karen: she wore those leftovers with way more dignity than I would have worn them. She didn’t even seem to bare me any ill will, though April told me it was “a damn good thing” I never tried to put coleslaw in her hair.
Sorry, Karen! It makes a good story now, but I feel bad for the 19-year-old Karen who, in the summer of ’92, had to walk back to her cabin after dinner with slaw and macaroni in her hair, and deal with 6 screaming 6th-grade girls at the same time. Well, actually, it made me laugh really hard when I thought of it just now, which is why I decided it was time to tell the tale.
And the Chocolate Ice Cream Goes to…
…April, of course.
My poor Sweetpea. How unkind of me to have smeared you with chocolate ice cream that Friday afternoon. A particularly hard week at Camp was over, the kids were gone home, and the administration had organized an ice cream buffet for us – the beleaguered camp staff. We gave it a gallant effort to clean our plates, but alas, there were leftovers at the ice cream buffet, too. It goes without saying that I’d eaten double my weight in chocolate ice cream by that point in my life, and so my familiarity with the stuff was such that I was capable of Picasso-like creativity in its application to others.
I suppose it should have come as no surprise to me when, 8 years later on June 16th of 2000 – the day before our wedding, April told me that I would deeply regret it if I even looked like I might be considering smearing wedding cake on her face at our reception. Thank God, April, and the good sense my parents tried to give me – the intervening 8 years had taught me that she was providing me with the best advice that I would receive on that day.
24 hours later, when the time came for April and me to entwine our arms and feed each other cake, I looked at her with 99.9% love, 0.1% mischief, and spilled nary a crumb on her beautiful wedding dress.
