I'll Have the Meatskins With a Side of Cheetos, Please

The Old Man went to a Memorial Day cook-out over the weekend. A fine little neighborhood affair. We had the standards.........hot dogs, potato salad, chips, etc. and coolers full of liquid refreshment. There was watermelon and cut-up veggies. Lots of bottled water as well.

Left in idle, my mind can drift off course quicker than an empty kayak in a windstorm. I began to think how differently we look at fun food now compared to my early years. Modern nutrition-conscious folks would slide into a coma if they were around the Park Street Battalion.

You can still buy meatskins but they aren't quite the same. I remember them being a lot more greasy....or as Miss Alma would say, "Greeeezy". Pour out a few on a napkin and when you had eaten them, there would be enough grease on the paper to keep Elvis's hair pompadoured for several days. Now you see them in a bag and they are called Chicarones. The Battalion didn't know Chicarones from Macaronis.

We could buy a bag of peanuts for a nickel. We could also buy a bottle of Pepsi for another nickel. We'd then unite the two in marriage, emptying the entire little bag into the Pepsi.
The whole deal would be gone in about 3 good gulps. I never knew of anyone getting choked, but try that today and an army of mothers would come running and screaming.

Another trick was to buy the little bags of potato chips. Before eating them, we'd take the salt shaker and give it 3-4 good shakes into the bag. A quick shake of the bag and we'd customized the chips to just where we wanted them. They made the Pepsi and peanuts even more special.

You could buy boxes of pretzel sticks. I think I've seen a few still around, but ours were a lot saltier. We'd polish off a box and then turn the empty box up and eat the rest of the salt.

The only diet soda available was one called Tab. Mom bought into the whole calorie thing from time to time and Dad and I were innocent victims. Tab was as vile a beverage as I have known, that is until I was introduced to fraternity parties. After a Tab, you'd think you had eaten a couple of bushels of green persimmons.

We committed other acts of "nutritional naughtiness" as well. We'd stop in at Coleman's Restaurant after school and sometimes have ourselves 2-3 slices of their coconut pie. They made them on the premises and I could almost swear you couldn't see over them. Sugar load? What sugar load?

I watched at our picnic as one of my favorite little fellows here in the neighborhood ate his fill of raw broccoli. Hooray for his folks, because these good habits should serve him well. They are doing the right thing. But the "devil" in me wants to take him aside and say, "Psssst, here, try this meatskin. And when you're through, check out this coconut pie".