The Ham Story

         My wacky parents put on a dinner party to celebrate the completion of their new house.  But things couldn't have gone more wrong...

The home my folks built near Asheville, NC, in the late 50s -early 60s. "Scene of the crime".

    Here is the funniest of all my family stories that we tell.

My Mom, the Dictator.

    My father was an Army man.  After serving for 35 years, both in World War l and ll, he retired as a Colonel.  My Mom, on the other hand, was the “GENERAL.”  At least of our home.  She was a fanatic, a true dictator. 

 My dear mother was a clean freak, especially when it came to food.  I am not talking here about a normal person.  Her battlefield was our fridge.  If a tasty leftover casserole, a remaining bit of creamy fruit salad, or a luscious piece of extra meat was in there, it didn’t survive long under my Mom’s watchful eye. Germs were the enemy.  “Old” food was executed immediately.

Her mantra was Ben Franklin’s:  “Guests and fish grow old after three days.”  Well, it didn’t have to be fish.  We were lucky if fish lasted that long, under her scrutiny.  She considered ANY leftovers toxic after only TWO days! 

The living room. Dad was an engineer - he designed and built it.

Mom would carefully reconnoiter the fridge, moving stuff about, checking her mental inventory for when it had been put in there.  I can still see her in my mind, in her house dress and apron, glasses on, squinting in the fridge, her butt sticking out.   

 If an item didn’t pass muster, it was marshaled into the garbage!  She’d “harrumph”, and feel proud that she’d defended us from what she called, “ptomaine poisoning.”  I don’t even know if that was a real thing.  It was her arch villain.

Dad and I had a solution: his second fridge.  We sneaked leftovers into there, pilfered when she was absent from the upstairs kitchen. He had this relic of a fridge camped in the basement.   It was there, in which he kept his stockpile of vodka, scotch, and our spare half gallons of milk.  (Lurking beside them were also other milk cartons … of WORMS in dirt and moss for fishing bait!)   Mom would never assault his fridge.  That bastion was strictly under HIS command.   She also never marched in there because of her repugnance for THOSE worms.  So, if she needed more milk, Dad or I were sent to downstairs to commandeer it.

Once I accidentally brought the WRONG carton upstairs to our regular fridge.  That day Mom poured a nice, cold glass of WORMS and dirt out to drink. She about barfed up a kidney!  (Smile.)  Well, maybe it wasn’t an accident.

 

As a result, our fridge was promptly emptied and disinfected.   Our still-good food was evacuated and tossed!  She “sent in” the troops: Clorox and Pine Sol disinfectant to wipe out the “enemy.”  When it was all over, she sat, surveying the empty battlefield.  She’d conquered. 


Dad and I had watched glumly.  We knew her Lemon Meringue pie, a nice beef roast, and some of her famous “Heavenly Hash” Cool Whip fruit salad were in there. Those, among other treasures, were battlefield casualties.  Sigh…  Mom should have stood for a Court Martial instead.

Dad would eat most leftovers if she’d let him. Still, he was careful about food, too.  Being a military man his whole life, he was impeccably neat, clean and orderly.  You could bounce a dime off his bed sheets.  His dresser drawers and his closet would have passed the strictest inspection.  His clothes were folded in crisply aligned formations.  He was always showered, well groomed and clean shaven.  He dressed immaculately.  My parents were very clean people, careful people.  Why do I tell you this?

What happened during a dinner party one evening at our newly-built home, SHOCKED the pants right off me.  Let me tell you about it.

My folks always bought food in quantity:  not just one roast, not one chicken, not one ham, but several, or at least two of everything.  They had a freezer downstairs the size of Texas.  It was always fortified with food, along with a smaller one upstairs in the family room.   In both of those they stashed everything they’d bought on sale, frozen fresh produce, or what Mom had baked.  They froze extra bread bought on sale, Mom’s casseroles, homemade applesauce, corn on the cob, (and even once, by accident, a pair of my washed canvas sneakers.)  Didn’t find them until four months later, when I unwrapped them.   I could have sworn they were corn on the cob in that white waxed paper. 

Dad's cherry table in the background. He made the coffee table too.

Well, in anticipation of a dinner party they were planning, my folks had bought TWO big hams.  Mom, being ever the careful chef, baked one to taste, to be sure it was going to come out great for her party.  It was magnificent, as were most of her mouth-watering Southern recipes.  We gobbled it right up.  Satisfied, they invited the guests and planned to cook the second ham for their party.

Here's the view looking down the house's front steps.  Beautifully landscaped it was!

It was also to be the unveiling of my Dad’s finest achievement: next to our large, well-appointed house which he’d designed, built with his own hands (and a little help) there was this -  our new dining table, his pride and joy.  My Dad loved woodworking.  He'd worked on this piece for five years.


My Dad made tables of all kinds as gifts and for our own use.  His pinnacle of prowess was a 7-foot long, 5-foot wide,  (with leaves extended) hand waxed, solid cherry drop-leaf table.  It sat gleaming and heavy at one end of our formal living room.  My folks had built their dream house over six long years. They managed to finish most of it by themselves.  They had saved for years to pay for it and they were busting a gut to show off their fancy home.

The house was almost complete, except for the champagne-colored plush carpet, which was on backorder… and the floor sill molding.  That was supposed to cover the small gap between our linoleum kitchen floor and the plywood base floor in the living/dining room.  


This tiny piece of metal covering was a great source of contention.  Mom said if Dad didn’t put SOMETHING over that gap between the floors, somebody could catch their foot and fall.  There would surely be a lawsuit.  However, it WAS left uncovered, thanks to Dad’s insistence, because he couldn’t find exactly what he wanted.   He would regret that.  Mom would make sure of it.

Even though the carpet was not in yet, they went ahead with the party invitations and preparations.  On the day of the dinner, Mom cooked herself into a frenzy. 


The tantalizing fragrances of her notable fluffy Southern biscuits, fresh green beans, corn on the cob (right off the stalk), butter and brown sugar-glazed fresh carrots wafted in the air.  She’d made two delectable pies (apple and pecan), four kinds of fruit and veggie salads, too.   The best scent of all was our meal “masterpiece”, her sugar-glazed, pineapple-ring-adorned ham. The rings were punctuated with red maraschino cherries in the centers.  This mouth-watering prize was to be carried to the table by my father, while the guests observed his grand procession.  That was their plan.

After our friends and family had arrived, were greeted and seated, Mom sat down at the table with them.  She was dressed in her finery, ensconced at the head of the table, her back to a freshly painted off-white wall in the room.  Her best silver bowls and serving utensils gleamed.  Fine china sparkled.  Crisp linens adorned the table.  Crystal goblets perched, twinkling at each place setting.  A nice floral centerpiece reigned over the scene.  


Guests, including my older Sister Bobby, who had driven 200 miles to come, lined the table sides.  Everybody was eager to begin devouring Mom’s laudable meal.  Everything was ready.    Almost. 

Dad's feat of engineering - a curved sloping walkway.

Our hungry eyes were glued to the kitchen doors, watching for Dad’s entrance.  He would be coming through the folding wooden shutter doors there.   He’d installed those between the kitchen and the formal dining area.  (Mom had insisted that NO guest of hers was going to sit, looking into the kitchen while they ate.  “Good restaurants didn’t let people look into their kitchens!”  Nobody was ever to see the counters messy, the clutter that was a hot meal being produced in her kitchen.) Thus the doors hid everything from view where we all sat.

The GRAND moment arrived.   Elbowing the shutter doors open carefully, Dad appeared, holding the steaming ham on a big platter.   He stepped through the door and proceeded to carry the succulent meat to the table.  Guests “oohhed and aahhed” at the sight of Mom’s ham. I could hardly wait!

            
Well, Dad never made it to the table.  Neither did the ham.

That (...blankety-blank) open floor seam got him!  (The one he didn’t cover with sill molding yet. Yeah, Mom was seldom right about anything -- but he’d never live that down.) 

Dad caught his toe on the edge of it.  He pitched wildly forward with a yelp.  He struggled to hold onto her precious antique platter, almost spinning in place.  The ham became AIRBORNE!  Mom’s face froze in disbelief.  As she saw her prize ham LAUNCH itself off that platter toward the table of guests, her mouth dropped, and she half-rose with a cry.

That MEAT MISSLE didn’t hit the table.  Instead it shot down, streaming ham juices, toward the floor.  It hit with a loud SMACK, and slid the full length UNDER the table!   Instinctively, the guests leaped from their chairs, to clear its path. 

 That big ole’ ham slid all the way across the floor.  It went straight between Mom’s feet, and then HIT THE WALL!  Ham juice and grease exploded six feet up in the air, staining the wall with dripping muck.   Stunned for only a second, my Mom instantly whipped in to action!

“I’ll get dish towels! Toss your napkins into that mess!” she yelled to all of us.  Dad, meantime, ran over and speared the escapee ham with the big table serving fork. He got it off the floor and put it back on the platter.  Dad disappeared into the kitchen, shutting the folding doors tight behind him.  Mom was on his heels, throwing her expensive linen napkins under the table to staunch the flow of grease.  Once inside the kitchen she held those doors shut TIGHT.

 I scurried around, grabbing the dish towels she tossed out the doors to us. She was apologizing profusely, the whole time.  The guests were on their hands and knees, speaking consoling words to her across the shuttered doors.  They were preoccupied with mopping up the ham dregs.  Mom motioned to me through the half-opened shutter door.

I got into the kitchen FAST.  What I saw there caused instant CHIN burn.  As long as I live, I will not forget what I witnessed.  My big mouth dropped open. 


My parents were going to re-use that floor-flopped ham!

Knowing full well there was NO SECOND ham,  my Mom yelled out the closed shutter doors, “Don’t worry, we have ANOTHER ham!  It’ll be out as fast as we can warm it up.”  (WAIT…. What “OTHER” HAM?  We had eaten that one!)      My Clean queen Mom was going to do what?

Scene of the crime. Our kitchen in the new house.

She glared at me.   Leaning very close, in a low, harsh whisper, as quiet as a mouse but mad as a hornet, she said to me, “Don’t you say a WORD!  Guard the doors!  DON’T open those doors no matter WHAT!”   She meant business.  When the GENERAL commanded, you obeyed!  More dumbfounding, was that my Dad was going along with her!

What shocked me most was this: They always had tons of arguments.  They almost NEVER agreed on anything.  Never worked together, unless it was a creative project like making gifts for Christmas, or blanching and freezing produce.  Above all they were honest.  What they were doing was unthinkable!  Completely out of character!

 Here they were, lying sacks of sh_t, joint culprits quickly removing the pineapple rings and cherries on that ham (after washing it under the faucet. ) They were carving that disgraceful thing into a different shape!  They REALLY were going to PASS THAT ham off as a NEW one!  Speedily they re-applied the pineapple rings and cherries.  Mom slopped some golden red juice over it from the roasting pan.  


It was ready AGAIN to make an entrance.  (What were they thinking?)   I could NOT believe they were doing this.  MY parents? My clean freak Mom?

This time, Mom, holding the doors open for Dad, let him pass gingerly OVER that treacherous floor seam.  Our guests and my Sister Bobby had seated themselves again.  To pass the time, they had been talking about Mom’s wisdom in making TWO hams, and what a mess that spill had made on the floor. (snort.)  Nobody knew it was the SAME ham.  I almost bit off my tongue to stop from grinning!

Me in the 70s in that living room of this home.

They served and carved the ham.  Dinner went on without a hiccup after that.  The food was delicious; the company was genial and very talkative.   Mom and Dad kept glancing at each other, breathing a bit tensely until they were convinced NOBODY KNEW...  

Guests stuffed their faces, then later sat around having coffee in the living room and chatting.   They listened while Dad regaled them with his always great, funny stories.  Everybody loved Dad’s stories.  Well, this was going to make a spectacular one.

 Mom and I cleaned up the table and put the food away.  In our kitchen she pinned me against the fridge with a glare.  “Do NOT ever tell anybody what happened with that ham, or I…..”  (I KNEW what the penalty was.  Dad did, too.  You never wanted to cross Mom.  She was a terror when mad.)   I just zipped my lip.

 After company left, Mom and I did dishes in silence.  Dad and Bobby scrubbed the greasy, ham splattered wall.  He later repainted it.  My folks got away with it, using that slider of a ham.  We never talked about it.  Ever.

Except, that Mom had HER “I told you so” day with Dad.  Up to the very day I left home for good, if you stood a certain way in the light … well, you could see in the new paint, a shine where that ham blasted the wall.  I think it's still there.


Even Sister Bobby, didn’t say much the next day before she left for home in Maxton.  I think she was still embarrassed for Dad, dropping the ham in front of all those people.  

Sisters: Bobby -center. Mary Lou (L) Carol on Rt.

Little did she know what else had happened.  Nobody did.  Or so we thought.

Carpet came in a week later and got installed.  It erased the hash mark of a greasy ham slide on the floor. 


The seam between the kitchen sill and living room was quickly covered with Dad’s stubbornly anticipated metal strip.  It hid the scene of the crime.  We all sighed in relief.

  One day six months after that debacle, Dad and I were stunned to discover somebody KNEW.  


We were reading Readers Digest Magazine, in our own rooms, separately.  There, in print a brief capsule of this hilarious event, minus names, appeared under the “Only in America” HUMOR section!  Only Dad and I saw it.  We rushed together and whispered.  “Somebody knows!”

Mom was never told.  My Sister Bobby never said one word to us in the future, if she saw that story in her Readers Digest.  We thought nobody knew, not even her.  We both blamed her, though.  


Bobby happened to work for a newspaper as a reporter.   Uh, huh.  I smelled a rat in the family.  We never asked her. 


 Better to leave toppled ham lying… in the "garbage"... where it should have been.

This funny story became a legend, passed down by me to my sons, who still enjoy the telling of it.  Okay, sons, this one you asked me for, and here it is.