Don't Eat the Peas

When I was four years old (1953), we went down to Manti, Utah from our home in Washington state. I think it was a big family reunion, the first since the end of the war. We didn't have a car at the time and I can't remember how we got down there. I imagine we drove down with Uncle Bill; he had a car.

My world at that time was compact. We lived in a small development in Richland built at the end of world war II to house returning soldiers and their families. Dad was working as a sheet metal apprentice "out at Hampton". I think most of the fathers worked "out at Hampton". A bus came every work day to take men and their lunch pails out to "Hampton". (Lunch pails were intriguing things. I always wanted to examine Dad's, see if there was anything good he had forgotten to eat) I didn't know what "Hampton" was, I just knew he made "ducks work." He might have tried explaining it to me but it was years before I realized the term was "duct work".

Jack's school, the playground and the grocery store were all within walking distance. This was my world. Anytime we got in a car and went somewhere was a big adventure. Sometimes fun and sometimes not so fun, like going to the county health department and getting polio shots. That was not so fun.

Milk came in a carton and meat came wrapped up in white paper and you got them at the grocery store. Period. That's it. There was no concept of "before" the carton or "before" the white paper. The first day we were in Manti I went out to watch Grandpa do the evening milking. When I realized that I was supposed to drink that kind of milk for dinner I was having nothing to do with it. I remember crying and insisting I wanted real milk, not that stinky cow milk. Mom and Dad were going to force the issue, insisting it was the same milk which I knew darn well it wasn't cause I had helped Mom carry our milk home from the store, not from some stinky ole cow. Dad was saying I'd drink the cow's milk or he would pour it down my throat. Grandma stepped into the middle of the uproar and said "Oh! let them have store-bought milk." She then sent someone to the store to get a quart of milk. I happily drank milk from that same carton every meal the whole time we were there.

One morning Grandpa decided they were going to slaughter the pig. I, of course, wanted to watch. Anything the big cousins were interested in I wanted to be in on too. I had no idea what slaughter meant. Besides I kind of liked the pig. I went down to the pigpen with Grandpa when he fed him whenever I could. He would talk to the pig and scratch his back with a stick. I thought he was Grandpa's pet.

Mom didn't want me to go but Dad said I had to learn these things sometime so I got to go watch them slaughter the pig. They had the pig in a corral type enclosure. I had to stand on a rail of the gate and hang on tight in order to see anything.

First they shot it. I knew nothing about real guns and real shooting so I had no idea what they had done. I didn't even know the pig was hurt as it ran squealing around in circles until it collapsed and they strung it up by it's back legs. It wasn't until I saw the knife as they slit it's throat to drain the blood out of it that I realized they were killing it.

I went berserk and started screaming and crying and telling, begging, them to stop. Dad got mad at me and sent me back up to the house. Mom was waiting at the door. It took her a while to calm me down. She explained that that was how we got meat. Grandpa bought the pig when it was a baby pig and fed it and took care of it so it could grow big and strong so he could slaughter and get meat for bacon and ham and pork chops. Mom knew pork chops were my favorite meat. That stunned me. I didn't know pork chops came from a pig. I didn't know they had to kill a pig in order to make pork chops. I asked about hamburgers and hot dogs, two more favorites. They slaughtered cows too! I started asking about other foods and other animals. I was glad to learn we didn't eat horses or dogs or cats. It took her a while to convince me it was okay to kill the pig if Grandma and Grandpa needed the meat. I did calm down and even ate pork chops the next time we had them back at home.

Later, after we had returned to Washington, we were eating dinner one night. We were having canned peas, which we did frequently. Kathy, my younger sister, hated peas. She spit out the first spoonful that was ever spooned into her mouth. We weren't allowed to refuse to eat anything. We didn't have to clean our plates but we had to eat at least two spoonfuls of everything on our plates. I hated canned peas too but as long as I didn't chew them and just swallowed them whole I could meet the minimum requirements. I think eating them made Kathy feel clear sick. I just hated the yucky texture of them. That night Kathy was refusing to eat her peas and Mom was giving her a lecture about eating them so she could grow up and be big, and strong and healthy.

I freaked. I jumped up, threw my spoon on the floor and started yelling, "Don't do it Kathy, don't do it! They will slaughter you and eat you"

Mother and I then had another long discussion.