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these are a few of my favorite things
I confess to liking Moon Pies. Particularly, I have a thing for the original banana-flavored Moon Pie. Not the chocolate imposter.
There is zero nutritional value in a Moon Pie. It is, I would assume, a fine example of everything we should never consume. I expect any nutritionist or doctor would concur. This is why I mention it here, rather than this morning during my three-month checkup with my grumpy primary care physician. She is a fine and noble woman of Indian descent and accepts no excuses and gives no quarter—a harsh task master, if you will, and a fine doctor in my view.
Nevertheless, Diabetics with heart stents have secrets to keep, and this is mine—one of them.
I discovered a box of them in the pantry after I got home from the visit, and found myself here all alone, having to make my own food decisions. I was scrounging when I found the little gift I bought myself at the Cracker Barrel Country Store a week or so back—a glorious box of original Moon Pies. (Given the preservatives in them, they may be from the original batch in 1917. Who would know?)
Side note. The Titanic sank in 1912. It is even that much more tragic to think those who plunged into the icy waters of death were a mere five years from holding a Moon Pie in their hands. Life is cruel.Sous-chef, what’s for breakfast?
A Moon Pie and a Keurig cup of coffee!
Voila!
Breakfast! I mean, a Moon Pie is a sandwich. Why not a breakfast sandwich?
I have no idea why I like a Moon Pie, other than it embodies the magic of childhood and the wonders of the wonder years—back when I understood the world way less and liked it a lot more.
I was thinking about all of this as I worked open the clear plastic holding the poor thing captive, and the only thing standing between me and the flavor of carefree. I took a picture of the little yellow full moon delight because I was already believing it might lead to this post, which it has.
I also wondered about the ingredients.
As I savored the first bite, I tried to imagine what it was like. I think it is what you get when you take a marshmallow, a Nerf football, and an egg carton for your basic ingredients, add food coloring, a little faint but fake banana flavoring, as much sugar as you can put into the space, and magic.
I took a picture of the back of the wrapper. As you can see, I was not that far off.
Boobs and Moon Pies
In New Orleans, girls go to Mardi Gras and lift their shirts for beads, which are happily flung to them from the floats and balconies. It’s a boob fest to hear them tell it. I went to Mardi Gras once. I was temporarily living in Metairie, working Hurricane Katrina as a catastrophe adjuster. I had to help pass a dead girl to the front door of a crowded bar, and I left that scene as fast as I could. I didn’t see beads and boobs, but I smelled urine and sweat.
(I know the dead girl is a story that needs more exploration, and I will sometime soon, so stay tuned.)
Down in Mobile, Alabama, the original home of Mardi Gras, to hear the Alabamians tell it (and I do believe history is on their side), fat guys lift their shirts for Moon Pies. You can take your kids to the parade and not come away feeling like you just emerged from the Eagles’ seedy Hotel California and headed down AC/DC’s Highway to Hell while holding hands with Ozzy Osbourne.
I like boobs fine. I like Moon Pies fine, too.
Keep your shirt on. Toss me the Moon Pie.
I also remember fireflies.
Fireflies…
That memory especially stands out during the couple of years we lived in Strawn, Texas. It was the early seventies. I was in fifth grade. My Dad was installed as pastor of the Trinity Baptist Church, which was the “other” Baptist church in town, located on the other side of the tracks and across the street from the Mt. Marion cemetery, an old burial ground enclosed in a thick stone wall and featuring an arched stone entry. It was well fortified, but no match for me.
(This cemetery thing is a rabbit I will not chase here, but if you want to know the catastrophic event that spurred my first book, it occurred there. You can find The Preacher’s Kid here. It was published in 2002.)
I only had a handful of friends to begin with. They were sons of church members and all wore the surname “Caudle”. One of them, Paul—God rest his soul—and I were the culprits of the graveyard event. We, along with his brother, whom I believe was named Robert, hung out a good deal and would sleep over at one another’s house. I remember dirty jokes, arm farts, and fireflies mostly. Their house was nestled among trees, and at the right time of year, the yard would twinkle with the blinking brilliance of fireflies. It was like being transported into space to sit among the stars themselves, only these wonders of Nature you could catch and put in a Mason jar, and then set them loose in your bedroom at night.
I haven’t seen a firefly in decades. I don’t know if they are extinct or what, or if they simply refuse to bring their magic to the concrete jungle. Somewhere, in some little happy town untouched by the insanity of The Age of The Reckless Abandonment of Sanity, I like to think some boys are still catching fireflies and arm-farting like it’s an Olympic event.
Butterflies…
I also remember Monarch butterflies—another wonder of Nature I haven’t seen in a long time. My most vivid memory of them takes me to San Antonio and Aunt Nelda’s, where we sometimes went for a two-or three-day visit. There was a hedge in her yard or an adjacent yard that attracted Monarchs by the dozens. I was probably six or seven years old, still young enough not to be chastened by testosterone and unafraid to chase butterflies one minute and shag flies and skinners on a schoolyard field with my uncle and cousins the next.
Fireflies, butterflies, and how time flies…
Moon Pies, fireflies, and Monarch butterflies—these are a few of my favorite things to remember about growing up in the 1960s and bursting into the teen life in the ‘70s. I didn’t know then what a wonderful world my parents had created for me to explore with vigor and without fear.
I hope my two-year-old grandson, in 60 years or so, will remember the 2020s with equal fondness, and how much his DooDah and Mimi loved him, and what a tremendous blessing it was to be given to a rockstar mom and a dad who excels at making boys into men. I hope my oldest grandson, now 20, looks back on the early 2000s and remembers how his family rallied to support him and provide him a safe and wholesome place to be a boy and become a man after his dad abandoned him for the greener pastures he will never find.
And I hope all my grandsons have memories like mine, memories of Moon Pies, fireflies, and Monarch butterflies—or things of equal value.
I hope the same for you and yours.
God bless.
