Mary Jane Part 3

Just a few unconnected memories of my sister and those who knew her:

Jerry's restaurant strawberry pie.  When she was still mobile but had to stay out of the sun my ex and I would wait until after dark and take her to the Jerry's in Prestonburg and get her a slice of their strawberry pie.  I still cannot look at strawberry pie and not remember that and think how much she would have loved it.

Hours of playing Rook around the kitchen table.  I think I've mentioned that before.  We played with a 120 point deck and I recall one time she and Homer beat Carol and I 120 to 0 when I had the bid.  That was the worst 'widow' I ever say.  Nothing but 5's and 10s.  (If you've never played Rook you will probably not understand)

The large window in her bedroom.  After she got to where she could not get out of bed Homer had a large window cut in the side of the trailer so she could see the outside world and not be stuck just looking at the walls.  That window would not lock so when I needed in the trailer in later years and no one was home I'd just climb in through that window.

I remember how she got along so well with everyone.  When she passed all the nurses on the floor just stood around and cried while they took her away.  I expect death is a common thing to nurses but she was such a special person they all loved her and there was little distancing themselves from the emotions they had at her passing.

I remember her tacos and Hungarian Goulash.  I was wanting to make some myself and tried looking up the recipes on the Internet and found every 'grandma' had her own recipe and Hungarian Goulash was more an idea than a recipe.  Hers had elbow macaroni, ground beef, tomatoes, garlic and some other things I can't think of.  It had a special taste I had never run into before that was great.  Looking back on it I think that must have been the garlic.  We could all just sit and eat bowl after bowl of that.

Her tacos did not have a hamburger mix like you get at today's restaurants.  It was just corn tortillas heated up in grease briefly so they were tender, ground beef, chopped lettuce, tomatoes, onions, grated cheese and Texas Pete (hot sauce for the uneducated).  Those were real meals.  We would go through rolls and rolls of paper towels because the grease would just run down your forearms to your elbows and we were continually mopping it off our arms as we ate.  Those were my favorites.  I used to make them all the time when I lived in my apartment and when a co-worker and I spent six months in Norway I'd make tacos about once a week and he loved them as much as I did.  Now it seems everything is flour tortillas or the shaped and baked corn tortillas.  Lately all the corn tortillas like we had come in packages of about a thousand.  That sucks.  Corn tortillas are so much better than flour.

I recall when I got in trouble when I was 18 she was almost the only one who seemed to understand and did not condemn me.  She and my brother.  I think my mother and dad did not even know as it was kept quiet.  She was one of the few people I've ever knows whom I'd describe as a truly GOOD person.  It is a real damned shame such a wonderful person ended up with such a horrible life in her later years.  If I still had a single religious bone in my body such injustice would make me wonder why such a thing was allowed to happen.