Eating Peas

Sometimes while I am busy doing the daily chores that never seem to do themselves (I don't know why.  That's the only gripe I have about the way things are in the Universe.  Unpleasant chores should just do themselves.), I will have a flash of memory.  Not memory of whole days or weeks, but just of a snippet of time from childhood.

Like while washing dishes the other day, I remembered eating dinner at my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Oscar's farm home near Winona.  I don't recall the specific reason we were there, but I know that my family would go to visit from time to time so my mother could spend time with her sister.  I don't recall anything about the meal except the peas.  Oscar had a hired man who took his meals with the family.  At this particular dinner, I remember watching with fascination as the hired man ate his peas with his knife.  I just couldn't figure out how he kept those peas on his butter knife long enough to get them into his mouth.  I tried it a couple of times, resulting in having to sweep peas up off the floor.

I suppose that little bit of memory triggered my memory of this poem, recited by my Dad, with a little smile on his face:

I eat honey with my peas.
I've done it all my life.
I don't like honey with my peas,
but it keeps them on my knife.

Now, I can't remember one single fact that I learned in Algebra class in school.  But I have total recall about eating peas with a knife and that silly little poem.

I think I am scared.  And if I'm not, I probably should be.