We had visited with the McClerren side of the family the day before, now it’s time to visit Mom’s family who are buried just north of downtown Hutsonville.
That would include George McCoy who was the grandfather I never knew as he’d passed away seven years before I was even born but I’ve heard the stories through the years. If memory serves, his MOS in the Army was as a cook (which the normal rank would be Specialist 5) and those skills were definitely handy.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying that Bam-Bam was a lousy cook.
Sure, her coffee brewed for hours in those old percolator pots was actively considered as an alternative fuel for the space shuttle and rejected as being too toxic for them compared to hydrazine or nitrogen tetraoxide. And her attempts at scratch-made biscuits were offered to the NHL as a cheaper alternative to the vulcanised rubber that comprises the average hockey puck.
However, if you wanted her to do up some chicken paprikás or gulyás or other Hungarian comfort foods…those were the meals that were worth waiting for. The ones where she did American…not so much and that’s how George McCoy’s skills were very handy to have round! 🙂
A certain future Surgeon General of the United States Army would discover that it wasn’t wise to challenge Bam-Bam’s ability to come up with a bowl of chili that was spicy enough that he couldn’t handle.
Now, chili was one of the more “American” dishes she actually did very well and she was kind enough to split out part of it before the beans would be added because she knew I absolutely loathed beans (and still do…I detest the texture of them so much that the only beans I’ll usually willingly eat are green beans which is more than sufficient for me).
General Becker dropped that challenge and it was accepted and out came the huge cauldron that it was a miracle that an electric stove could actually transfer enough heat to it to cook anything.
She did her chili in the usual fashion and set aside two smaller pots that would fill the bowls we’d have and then she got to work upping the spiciness to beyond Carolina Reaper flames of eternal damnation.
I’ll admit that the few times I’d try a spoon of the legume-less concoction that she was definitely on the right track. She’d dumped at least two full tins of cayenne pepper into the pot but no, that wasn’t good enough for her.
That was when a couple of tins of Bogyiszlói papriká came out to find their way into the caldron of now certain doom.
I have no idea where she sourced real Hungarian papriká that is well beyond the heat of the “hot” Hungarian papriká you typically find in American grocery stores, three tins of which also ended up in this concoction.
I’m not sure I want to know.
To this day, I have no idea how the spoon she was using to stir this chili from hell didn’t completely melt under the Scoville Heat Units onslaught.
So there we are in the dining room in Dad’s 1880’s vintage quarters with General Becker at the table with our respective bowls of chili, some hockey pucks masquerading as biscuits (which I honestly thought was the more dangerous part of the meal), and some water.
General Becker takes one bite of his chili and his face starts going through several shades of red before finally settling upon a nice dark purple and he can’t drink down that water fast enough. He probably would have appreciated having some cucumbers on the table as that’d likely done more for him than the water did.
And there’s Bam-Bam sitting back in her chair with a very satisfied smile as poor General Becker is trying desperately to work out how breathing is going to work for him.
No rush…we’ve got all the time in the world to wait. 🙂
A few minutes (and no more of that diabolical bowl’s contents!) later, he admits that he was defeated and she showed him the tins of the instruments of his doom. That’s when a big bowl of the good chili came out along with some cucumbers and a refill of his water glass and that probably was the only thing that saved Dad from a court martial proceeding.
General Becker and Dad remained friends through the years and he would be the one that would rescue Dad from a rather joyless assignment in Hanau to a much more pleasant second year in Heidelberg in what was then West Germany. Dad had a somewhat unique skill of taking on less-than-stellar units and inspiring them to do better in attracting much less official notice of their activities and dishonourable discharges were but one tool he’d use to clean out the worst of the malcontents. I ought to know…I typed up most of the referrals to Article 32 proceedings Dad had ever initiated.
Not too far from George McCoy’s grave was my Uncle Art who was one of the kindest gentlemen I’ve ever had the privilege to meet. I vividly remember one summer when we were visiting in Hutsonville and he gave me an old inner tube he’d salvaged from a tractor tyre which was perfect for the swimming pool or occasional tubing in the river.
He was soft spoken and kind of reserved and I felt an instant kinship with him beyond what I already had. He was one of the few I felt actually understood me probably better than I did myself. I don’t think he ever married or had kids but I think he’d have made one heck of an awesome father to anyone who would have been so lucky to have him.
He didn’t speak much of his time in WW II but he didn’t really have to. One look in his eyes and you’d see all you need to know…