Pimiento Cheese

I am pretty sure I know what it is that could solve all the problems in the world. No. I am certain that I have the answer. My mom’s pimiento cheese was the perfect peacemaker growing up and I have no doubt of its powers now. Did I like pimiento cheese growing up? Not on your life. It had little green onions in it. Did I get pimiento cheese made just the way I liked it after establishing that I did not care in the least for little green onions? Of course I did. Did I then eat pimiento cheese? No way. It was a little embarrassing to admit to anyone that you actually liked pimiento cheese. I would only eat it in secret. Mom must have realized this, for each time there would be one dish of pimiento cheese with little green onions and one dish put aside without little green onions. What then, is the secret that pimiento cheese holds to give it such power? Try to immerse yourself in a day in the life of my mother.

When we moved to Jacksonville, Texas, from Navasota, Texas, my father bought a lake house for us to live in on Lake Jacksonville. We lived there one summer before we actually moved from our house in Navasota and that meant that all of the kids were home from college. All thirteen of us in this one bedroom, one bath house on the lake. My dad got busy and added a huge screened in porch to the lake house that he equipped with six army style bunk beds. Our bedroom. Home sweet home. There remained only one bathroom, but we did have the lake. This to us kids was a huge adventure. The age range was such that there were still little kids running around everywhere. The worry for my parents was the lake and the threat of one of the kids falling in when no one else was around. So, there was “the rule”. No matter where you were going, if you were one of the five little ones, you had to wear a life jacket whenever you stepped foot outside of the house. It simply did not matter if you were headed to the lake or not. The life jackets were the orange ones that fit snugly around your neck and buckled with a strap that wrapped around your back. You have to understand that the lure of the outside was strong to us in this new place. There were forts to be built, woods to be explored, cases to be solved, and not much to hold us indoors. We simply had to go outside. And, as much as we tried to resist, wear the life jackets we did. As I struggle to remember that summer, I see my mom heading to the washateria with an unbelievable mountain of laundry. I see Papa and my brothers coming in from work at the charcoal plant their faces, hands, and clothes covered with the black coal. I see brothers bringing in the huge bottles of drinking water because we could not drink the water from the faucets. And, I see my mom eating her pimiento cheese sandwich. It was spread on one piece of rye bread and topped with a piece of lettuce sprinkled with black pepper. She would take a look at a situation, and calmly take a bite of her sandwich. It seemed to compose her enough to enable her to take everything in stride. I think that pimiento cheese had to be the ingredient that made it possible for her to understand and tolerate the move to a new place, allay fears of her youngsters playing around the lake, support those trying to make a new business grow, and cope with thirteen humans living in the three room house. She ate pimiento cheese a lot.

As the years went on and we moved into our huge house on O’Keefe Road, the power of pimiento cheese was still apparent. Yes, the house was big. Mary Claire and I had our own room. The older boys lived in a garage apartment that was actually attached to the main house thus making the house seem huge. Pat and Randy were in a room that was in the center of the home. This room had four doors in it and no matter where you were going in the house you had to pass through this room. When Pat got mad at someone, he would close all the doors and insist that everyone was to stay out of his room. It is a good thing that this did not happen too often. My mom’s most prized room was not a fancy dining room or a big, accommodating kitchen, but what we called the fold room. Though it was not heated or cooled, the garage was walled in for a laundry room. Close your eyes and try to imagine the loads of clothes that would be involved with the day to day activities of the family. Just think about the sheer number of towels alone that were used. Towels used for the kids who splashed water everywhere at bath time. Towels used and disposed by teenagers who would use three, minimum, in order to get ready for their date. And, towels used to mop up spills that occurred every hour on the hour. Papa had a huge red picnic table installed in the laundry room where the clothes were folded. As they were folded, they were stacked in piles according to the kid. Mom spent a lot of time folding clothes out in this room. When someone was trying to locate her, the first place to look was the fold room. I wonder now if there was a stash of pimiento cheese in the fold room. How else could she so calmly face that mountain of clothes?

Papa always tried to make everything wonderful for my mom. With eleven kids the money situation always seemed to be tight so he was excited when he was able to surprise her with new furniture for the den. He announced one Sunday at lunch that he had bought new furniture to replace the pieces that had been completely worn out by the wear and tear of our busy and demanding life. My mom was so excited to have something new and nice! Now, you have to understand that my father was such a brilliant man. He had visions that were way ahead of his time and possessed the drive to put them into play. He did not harbor a mean bone in his body and was held with the utmost of respect from all that knew him. But, as any of his kids can tell you, he did not have the greatest of taste. One of the favorite Sunday lunch stories is when Papa brought home the new furniture that was sure to brighten Mom’s day. The furniture was couches, and they were made of black plastic. Not only were there black plastic couches, but the ensemble was completed with a bright yellow plastic coffee table and two bright yellow plastic end tables to match. These were to go into the room that he had just painted what we dubbed “radioactive green”. Papa had also proudly installed new green indoor/outdoor carpet. Mom watched the furniture being unloaded and carried into the house. She went immediately to fix herself a pimiento cheese sandwich. After a couple of bites, there was no way you could ever detect the disappointment she must have felt in the selection of the furniture that would surely remain in the house for a long time. Wasn’t Papa the greatest for providing us with such wonderful furnishings? A week later (and only several days before my sister’s wedding reception was to be held at our house) Randy was melting crayolas in the den using the tin can contraption that he built in cub scouts. The can toppled over and melted a big gaping hole in the new carpet. If I had not seen my mom going into the kitchen to prepare a pimiento cheese sandwich, I may not have realized how upset she really was at the accident. A couple of bites and we were all engaged in rigging up a way to conceal the mishap.
It is difficult to describe a typical day in the life of my mother. I guess that is because there was nothing typical in her day. I do know that it was filled with what seemed like excitement to us, but after experiencing parenthood myself, I see that the constant excitement had to be trying to her. When Sallie tripped over our dog and had a knot the size of Dallas on her forehead, it was exciting. When the principal of the school would call my mom and tell her several kids (including her own) were skipping school and did she know where they were, it was exciting. It was even more exciting when she would load up all of her preschoolers and go ferret out the escapees and deliver them all back to school. It was exciting when one of us would hide from the occasional baby sitter and a whole search and rescue would be called out. It was exciting when the charcoal plant caught fire. It was exciting when Martin and Bill would take Randy and Pat by their feet, and swing them around and around outside in the yard. We were concerned, but still excited when Randy and Pat’s head collided with a huge sickening thud in one such incident. The excitement went on and on. Hearing about all of these incidences in stories at Sunday lunch, I wonder how in the world my mother survived. It was the pimiento cheese. The magic power of pimiento cheese. I forgot to mention that out of all of the countless doors that were in the house in Jacksonville, there was only one that possessed a lock. That lock was located on the door to one of the bathrooms. When things got really “exciting” my mom would take her pimiento cheese sandwich into the bathroom, and try to hide behind the lock. We always seemed to find her even though I know now that she must have put forth great effort to try to make herself disappear, even if just for an instant. We would lie down on the floor outside the bathroom and talk to her through the door. We would slip her notes. We would entertain ourselves by picking at the chips of paint coming up on the outside of the bathroom door. I suppose that this is what it might be like, although on a much smaller scale, for presidents of companies that have people hanging on their every word. Is it possible that the President of the United States could solve his problems by occasionally hiding behind a door with a lock? Would we all wait for him to emerge from behind the lock and know that all was right in the world just by the look on his face? I am sure that it would not happen without the added power of pimiento cheese. With or without the little green onions.