Mom didn't like cooking much. "Why spend the afternoon making a
meal that will be gone in an hour," she'd ask us, "when in the same
amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?"—so once a
week or so, she'd fix a big cast-iron vat of something like fish and rice
or, usually, beans. We'd all sort through the beans together, picking out
the rocks, then Mom would soak them overnight, boil them the next day
with an old ham bone to give them flavor, and for that entire week, we'd
have beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If the beans started going
bad, we'd just put extra spice in them, like the Mexicans at the LBJ
Apartments always did.
We bought so much food that we never had much money come payday.
One payday Dad owed the mine company eleven cents. He thought it was
funny and told them to put it on his tab. Dad almost never went out
drinking at night like he used to. He stayed home with us. After dinner,
the whole family stretched out on the benches and the floor of the depot
and read, with the dictionary in the middle of the room so we kids could
look up words we didn't know. Sometimes I discussed the definitions
with Dad, and if we didn't agree with what the dictionary writers said, we
sat down and wrote a letter to the publishers. They'd write back
defending their position, which would prompt an even longer letter from
Dad, and if they replied again, so would he, until we stopped hearing
from the dictionary people.
Mom read everything: Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Henry
Miller, Pearl Buck. She even read James Michener—apologetically—
saying she knew it wasn't great literature, but she couldn't help herself.
Dad preferred science and math books, biographies and history. We kids
read whatever Mom brought home from her weekly trips to the library.
Brian read thick adventure books, ones written by guys like Zane Grey.
Lori especially loved Freddy the Pig and all the Oz books. I liked the
Laura Ingalls Wilder stories and the We Were There series about kids
who lived at great historical moments, but my very favorite was Black