SHORT STORY FRIDAY: The First Pound Cake

Today is National Drink Wine Day – Photo by Lucas Santos on Unsplash

Today is Short Story Friday. Once again you’re getting one that I’ve already posted. As I’ve mentioned, I’m working on a collection of short stories. These focus on different aspects of my growing up in Southwest Virginia. Some are true to life. Some are inspired.

They will eventually go into a collection that I hope to publish prior to the end of there. A.K.A. in time for you to purchase it for Christmas gifts.

Before I post the story, I should also note that today is National Care Givers Day. It hits home a little bit as my

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Mom has spent the last two months in rehab after falling and breaking her leg just before New Years. We have a ways to go.

My wife and I have been here before. Her Mother lived with us for the last five years of her life. Multiple surgeries and the final year in a nursing home. Caring for aging parents is no easy task.

That’s all I’ll say about it for now except that it’s also inspired me to write another story. In a perfect world I would have presented that today on actual National Caregivers Day.

But this is not a perfect world.

Here’s today’s story. Once again a work in progress.

I’d love your feedback. Good and bad.

Have a good weekend.

Here’s the story.

THE FIRST POUND CAKE

She walked into the family home place carrying the Tupperware container.

It was the big container. The round container. We already knew what was inside.

She found a place on the dessert table.

I don’t know how made the first family pound cake. But it showed up at a reunion in the early 1970s.
I’m sure there were pound cakes before, but this was the new recipe.

Pound cake is supposed to have originated in northern Europe in sometime in the 1700s. The recipe was simple, a pound each of sugar, flour, butter, and eggs. Seems like that would make it a four-pound cake.

But I don’t do math.

While some of my family may have been in Europe in the 1700s, this is not the recipe that showed up at our reunion.

It wasn’t just your average pound cake. This one was different. It was made with sour cream.

I have no idea what difference that makes.

I don’t do math or bake.

We ate it with strawberries. We ate it with boiled custard.

In some ways, that made it an expected part of family gatherings.

We ate it on every special occasion. The Sunday dinners. Easter. Christmas.

There was a secret family code of who would bring it to the next gathering. Perhaps there was a plan.
Perhaps it just happened. I don’t know that there were ever two at any given meal. There was always one.

Now, some forty years later, there seems to always be one at my Mother’s house.

My Mother is the last of that generation. Who will make the pound cake in the future?

Will it fade away as a memory so that, one day, when we are all old, we’ll want a pound cake like Mother used to make?

It’s not that we didn’t have other desserts. We certainly did.

But the pound cake was always there. It anchored the dessert table. It was our constant.

Family gatherings aren’t like they used to be. We’re more scattered now. More distant. More conscious of what we should and shouldn’t be eating.

But, for so many years, there was always pound cake.

American actor, singer and producer, John Travolta, was born on this day in 1954.


 

THINGS YOU SHOULD READ

One year without Rush Limbaugh – 5 lessons he left us on how to handle the left
FoxNews
But what is knowable is that Rush fought – and won – the same battles against the same leftists who used the same tactics being weaponized against us today. Read More.

‘Restoring Power Back to Parents’: Youngkin Ends School Mask Mandates
NBC4 Washington
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill Wednesday afternoon ending school mask mandates in the state within weeks. Read More.

Corey Lewandowski Claims ‘There Is No Question’ He Was ‘Spied On’ In 2016
Daily Caller
“There’s no question the Trump team was spied on during that campaign. There’s no question that they destroyed a number of our lives and our reputations all for political purposes.” Read More.

BORN ON THIS DAY

1862 – Charles M. Schwab, American businessman, co-founded Bethlehem Steel (d. 1939)
1919 – Jack Palance, American boxer and actor (d. 2006)
1925 – George Kennedy, American actor (d. 2016)
1931 – Johnny Hart, American cartoonist, co-created The Wizard of Id (d. 2007)
1933 – Yoko Ono, Japanese-American multimedia artist and musician
1950 – John Hughes, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2009)
1968 – Molly Ringwald, American actress

WHAT I’M READING


 

BENEDICTION

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20–21

 

Ronald Wilson Reagan
February 2, 1911 – June 5, 2004

Reading to Write

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

Stephen King

I need more time to read.

Edit: I need to make more time to read.

I’ve mentioned lately that I’ve started following Steven Pressfield (The War of Art, Do the Work).

Yesterday on his Writing Wednesdays he wrote that we should Study the Canon.

In other words, read what’s out there. Read the classics. Read the experts.

I learned a while back that if I want to be a southern author, I need to read southern authors.

Mug Shots

What? You don’t remember The Sound and the Fury of my trying to read Faulkner?

It’s true that I spent most of 2021 focusing on British History and authors. I’m still listening to both The British History Podcast and Chopped Bard. I may never finish.

It’s also true that I have a stack of books I need to read.

When I get the time.

Edit: When I make the time.

My challenge is setting aside that time and not falling asleep before I can read.

You don’t need me to outline my schedule and everything else I’m working on.

Just know that I’m acknowledging, once again, that I need to be reading more.

In fact it’s one of my Three Words for 2022.

But just like the history that I wrote about yesterday, I’m never going to have enough time to read everything I want to read.

That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try.

I could go on…but I think I’ll go read.


 

THINGS YOU SHOULD READ

EXCLUSIVE: Clinton cornered: Hillary refuses to answer questions AGAIN about Durham revelation that she paid to spy on Trump campaign
Daily Mail
Clinton continued to stonewall questions later the same day as she and Chelsea emerged from a Filipino restaurant in Queens after approximately three hours during which they appeared to be filming. Read More.

Trump Really Was Spied On
The Wall Street Journal
Durham says techies linked to the Clinton campaign had access to White House and Trump Tower internet data. Read More.

Rubio Blasts ‘Shocking’ Media Refusal to Cover Durham Bombshell
NewsBusters
The Senator warned: “…if this is all proven true, it would be one of the biggest political scandals in American history. It would be a crime, no doubt about it.” Read More.

Parents send ‘clear message’ to left-wing school board members in San Francisco, boot them from office by overwhelming vote
Blaze Media
Three left-wing members of the San Francisco school board were overwhelmingly voted out of office on Tuesday in the city’s first successful recall election in nearly 40 years. Read More.

Is ‘Lord of the Rings’ Christian?
Devin Brown, Professor, Asbury University in Desiring God
As in our own world, divine providence in Middle-earth typically chooses to work behind the scenes in ways that are not directly visible. Read More.

BORN ON THIS DAY

1843 – Aaron Montgomery Ward, American businessman, founded Montgomery Ward (d. 1913)
1924 – Margaret Truman, American singer and author (d. 2008)
1925 – Hal Holbrook, American actor and director (d. 2021)
1929 – Patricia Routledge, English actress and singer
1934 – Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage), Australian comedian, actor, and author
1937 – Mary Ann Mobley, American model and actress, Miss America 1959 (d. 2014)
1954 – Rene Russo, American actress
1963 – Larry the Cable Guy, American comedian and voice actor
1963 – Michael Jordan, American basketball player and actor

WHAT I’M READING


 

BENEDICTION

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Ephesians 3:20–21

 

Ronald Wilson Reagan
February 2, 1911 – June 5, 2004