Something Sweet

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

"I've already searched and you won't find anything sweet in this house," said my daughter Julie. "As long as there is sugar in the kitchen, I can make something sweet," I said. My wife Kaye has all this literature about the disadvantages of consuming refined sugar. How could something with the term "refined" attached to it be so harmful? I try to have a little of this refinement occasionally so I can remain part of the control group in the family. This attitude isn't out of rebellion; once in a while I just get a hankering for something sweet.

With my sweet tooth aching, I went in search of something that would go well with sugar. What I discovered took me back in time. Sitting on the shelf of the fridge was a large ripe tomato. I hadn't sprinkled sugar on a tomato in years but today, that tomato was going to become my dessert showered with a healthy dose of those refined crystals. I remembered the very first time I had sugar on a tomato. It was supposed to be some twisted form of punishment administered by my dad but it ended up being like Bare Rabbit being tossed into the briar patch.

My cousin Lana was having dinner with us. She came to see the nine new pups our dog had delivered. We played and played with those puppies. We named each one of them against mother's caution. "You might get too attached to them and we are not going to keep all of them," she said. I couldn't understand mother's logic. I named my pet pig Benji but we still butchered and ate him so how much worse could it get. The names of the nine puppies have long since left my memory but I do remember sitting at the supper table next to Lana. I never figured out why they called it the supper table. We ate breakfast and lunch at that same table. Mother never said, "Mack, come to the lunch table." But dad often said, "Don't come to the supper table without a shirt or without combing your hair."

Our supper table was small and Lana was crowded next to me sitting at my left. There was a large plate of freshly sliced garden tomatoes on the table. Lana asked if she could have some sugar to sprinkle on her tomatoes. I thought sugar on tomatoes was ridiculous. I took the saltshaker and helped myself to dousing her sliced tomatoes with salt and suggesting that she would like that flavor much better.

Dad, being the wise old sage at least thirty, without saying a word, removed the salted tomato slices from Lana's plate and also removed the salted slices of tomatoes from my plate. He then placed new slices on each of our plates and positioned the sugar bowl in front of Lana for her to season her tomatoes. Afterwards, he gave me the opportunity to sugar my tomatoes. I use the word "opportunity" very loosely. See, dad hadn't read any of those parenting books that teach you to praise in public and reprove in private. I glared at him but he just ignored me. I protested having to put sugar on my tomatoes and in response he gave me the "opportunity" to eat sugared tomatoes or leave the table.

I hated having my agency stripped from me. I was too angry at the moment to understand the principle dad was attempting to teach me. Although I was pretty upset, I wasn't nearly as upset as when he butchered my pet pig Benji. Or the time when dad shot all nine pups and the mother dog after they came in contact with a dog suspected of having rabies. But in time I did understand all those things. From the first bite of that sugared tomato, while still glaring at my dad, I realized the taste was heavenly. I don't remember when I stopped the regular practice of sprinkling sugar on my tomatoes and returned to seasoning them with salt. But I have never forgotten the lesson dad taught me at the supper table that summer evening so long ago.

A lightly sugared slice of garden grown tomato is delicious but not as sweet and rewarding as my childhood memories of a father who was short on words but long on example and a mother who was short on disobedience but long on forgiveness. The true sweetness of those growing up years was not the seasoning on the tomatoes but the "opportunities" to learn that I was given.