Relative Something

Yesterday, for breakfast, I made toast out of some of Cyndie’s homemade bread. I’m noticing that I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately. Don’t know exactly why that is, but maybe the fact that next weekend is the Hays reunion –summertime version– has me thinking about family of origin.

Homemade toast, which is the way I recall us always referring to it, is something that I associate very strongly with my life in the years of growing up in the Hays family. While I’m on the subject of toast, if the bread wasn’t homemade, it was from a loaf of Hollywood Bread, and of course, we just called it Hollywood toast. I remember being almost as fond of Hollywood toast as Mom’s homemade, but they were very distinctly different.

Yesterday, after I cut the bread for toast, I returned the loaf to upright and discovered that had left quite an angle on what remained. I don’t know about the rest of my siblings, but that instantly brings the voice of my father in my mind.

“Who didn’t cut the bread straight?!”

I don’t clearly understand why his admonitions were so feared. Some kids worried that their father would strike them, but I feared my father would speak to me in a gruff tone of voice. I studiously practiced the art of cutting a loaf of bread squarely.

Last night for dinner, I had walleye. Next weekend, our reunion is up at Lake Mille Lacs. That is to say, I had for dinner, the fish that Dad was so fond of, and we are going up to the lake where Dad did his fishing. Ralph is very present in my mind lately.