Jake Sure Loved His Beans

My stepdad’s name was Eldon, but his best friends called him Jake. “Missoura” born, he loved guy things like fishing on a lake. He’d gone into the Navy after having grown up poor and then got shipped across the ocean for Korea’s war. Later with three kids, divorced, he met my mom and then he married her, and we became a family of ten! This new dad, Jake, a simple man, worked hard to keep us fed. He liked his breakfast “Wheaties” and his lunch made out of bread. He told us how he’d walked to school with cardboard on his feet, and how they’d not had much to eat of costly things like meat. I don’t know if Depression Era kids ate many greens, but one thing we became aware of. . . Jake sure loved his beans! I couldn’t understand how he could be so crazy for the one food that he ate so much of back when he was poor. But Eldon liked all kinds of beans, like those slow cooked with ham, then topped with ketchup, and he liked beans straight out of the can. In summer we’d be packed into his station wagon car, a camper hooked behind us, and we always traveled far. We’d eat bread and bologna, chips, and cans of pork and beans. No fancy eating out for our large clan, by any means! And on those rare occasions Mom was not around to cook, Jake had a recipe not in Mom’s Betty Crocker’s book. He’d mix some pork and beans with fried ground beef and heat it up over buttered cornbread and we heartily would sup! Recalling happy supper times like those, I sometimes wish that we could all again be meeting for that great bean dish! For Mom fixed lots of kinds of meals, and Eldon’s attitude was “Clean your plates” so I (thin then) became a fan of food. We kids moved on; Mom cooked for only Eldon. How time flew! Our step dad passed away, and Mom no longer cooks for two. She eats Weight-Watcher’s way now, but I bet she’d love to make a pot of Navy beans again for her good man called Jake. For the relatives poetry contest