I rarely think about husband #3 who also has the honor of being the only one to be #4 and the only one I had to divorce twice. He is also the one who moved me to Colorado where I would thrive for the next 47 years and he is the one on my mind this morning. Oh, not because of an undying love but because I woke up thinking about an old orange cabover that Kenny owned and taught me to drive. We owned several of the big rigs when we were trucking early on in our marriage. It only made sense that I should have some sort of an idea of what driving one entailed, so up in the cab I crawled with Kenny in the passenger seat.
Now, I chose the cabover because I wanted to be able to see the road and the ditches and all that stuff. A conventional has a big long hood and I am only a little over 5 feet tall so seeing the road was a challenge. If you have never driven a stick shift, you will be lost in a truck that has 13 forward gears. My Honda has 5 forward gears and I get along very well, but it is only about a foot off the ground and if I stretch my arms I can reach clear across it. But I digress.
Charlie was an operator by trade. Now an "operator" in this context is someone who operates heavy equipment like front end loaders, backhoes and stuff like that. The big yellow ones you see on construction sights. At the time of our marriage I owned a small cafe. To get back on track, shortly after we married he took a job with Krause Plow and Implement as a truck driver. His first assignment was to deliver a load some where in Louisiana. Krause let the drivers take their wives if they wanted to, so off we went. My first adventure!
The trip to Louisiana was only 300+ miles "as the crow flies", so we arrived at our destination late at night. He found a place to park the tractor/trailer with "facilities" nearby and we crawled into the sleeper. I was tired and slept like a log. When I awoke the next morning I was alone. Very soon I heard a rapping on the door. Charlie had returned with a bag in his hand. Inside was coffee and a roll. He was very excited about the roll!
"It is a sweet roll! They are authentic Louisiana sweet rolls! Here eat one!" I took what looked like a biscuit that someone had forgotten to add the baking powder ingredient. It tasted the same.
"This is not a sweet roll. This is not sweet at all." His eyes lit up.
"I know! Here! You have to put honey on it! That is what makes it sweet!"
And that was the highlight of the trip. We did have that memory and every time I made biscuits after that, we had to have honey. That made them sweet rolls.
Since coming to Colorado life has changed. I am now widowed from husband # 6, but when I see a biscuit, I still think of old Charlie and how excited he was to introduce me to authentic southern cuisine in the form of a "sweet roll" that was really nothing more than a dry biscuit, but then isn't that what makes life interesting?
Momma always said, "If life hands you a lemon, make Lemonade. Charlie taught me if life hands me a biscuit, make a sweet roll!
Our journey here on this planet is up hill and down hill, but when it is all said and done, it is the good times that we remember and it is our journey that shaped us into who we are. And when the trumpet sounds I plan on having my little jar of honey just in case someone brings biscuits!
Peace!
