Eating Alta Fern

To tell you the truth; after Tam and I were married my mother-in-law, Alta, rarely cooked. But, when we were dating I ate her cooking. Oh, God! *hacking.....choking* I ate her cooking! Maybe it's best to start from the beginning.

I was born a poor black child........... (well, maybe not that far back).

My wife and I were introduced by a preacher (yes, I was raised going to church) *reader faints*, who was a mutual friend of both of our families. He had tried to get me to come and meet her for two years before I finally made the journey.

Tam's parents, Elmer and Alta Fern (stop laughing; that's their real names), were older so naturally our first date began at church one Sunday morning. After the last amen, I jumped astride my motorcycle and followed her family down the back-roads of two (almost ventured into three) counties to their house for lunch. At one point during this odyssey, near the Caney River, I could have sworn that I heard "Dueling Banjos" playing in the nearby woods.

*"I'm gonna' make you squeal like a pig, boy!"*

Tam and I had actually met the week before and had talked a couple of times on the phone before this first "date". She asked me what I liked to eat so that her mom could make me something "special" for Sunday. At that point in my life, I would eat nearly anything except tuna casseroles and fried chicken.
(I know. Southern boy that doesn't eat fried chicken? If you ate as much of it as I did growing up on the farm; you would have been burnt out, too!)

So, for my first meal with her daughter, Alta prepares me some sort of tuna spaghetti casserole. A nasty, odorous, foul-tasting concoction that I ate every bite of with a smile on my face. From that point on, while Tam and I were dating, every meal at their house was either fried chicken or a tuna casserole; always.

For some reason, Elmer trusted me with his daughter (BIG mistake). He even extended her curfew an extra hour when we started dating (BIGGER mistake). This extra hour gave us time, on the return trip from the movies in Tulsa, to find a secluded spot on a dark Washington County road to get to know each other a little better.

This always made eating Alta's cooking bearable. She would sit across the table from me and stare me down to make sure that I ate every bite; hoping to catch a cough, a wince or other disapproving gesture. I ate whatever was put on my plate quickly, smiling the whole time; thinking of the moves I would be putting on Tam later that evening.

Once we were married, Alta quit cooking for me. When we did share a meal it was usually at a restaurant or, on occasion, I would burn some old dead cow on the grill in her back yard. But I will never forget the hell that she put me through with her cooking, while dating Tam.

I suppose, in conclusion, there are only two reason that I ever ate my mother-in-law's cooking: lust and love. In the beginning; it was the lust that every young man feels when they start dating someone new. In the end; it was the love for the woman who became my wife.

Alta has passed on now; which for me is a relief. If I had ever decided to divorce her daughter; she may have tried to start cooking for me again!