The Donut

We were invited to the party to celebrate John and Klover’s Golden Wedding Anniversary.  It had been so long since I had seen my aunt and uncle, it was hard to get a picture of them being old enough to have been married fifty years.  While I wondered what an appropriate anniversary present would be, my mind wandered back over the years to those times we got together at my grandparents’ hilltop home among the avocado trees.

We were there for Easter and July 4^th and Granddad’s birthday and Thanksgiving and Christmas, and one or two other times a year.  Our family would get the earliest start because our drive was about two hours.  We passed through Corona and Elsinore and Murietta and Temecula and Bonsall, before the I-15 eventually took away those rural pleasures. The core group was our family, and John and Klover and their kids, and my grandparents; and there were often other relatives and friends.  Over the years we brought along childhood chums, then girlfriends, and the routines of those holidays were always the same.     

My grandmother made yummy “Parker House” rolls, and we spilled the crumbs on her lace tablecloth.  She always made my favorite dessert, lemon bisque, which my grandfather called sour wind or sour shimmy.  When the turkey was ready to eat, my granddad, then later my dad or uncle, and eventually my brothers and me, would carve the bird right at the table.  After dinner, which in those days meant the midday meal, we went off to our various ways of working off the feast. 

It took all the women to do the dishes.  While they washed and dried, they talked about God, and there were occasional raised voices between the Catholics and the Protestants among them.  Long walks took up some time.  My dad always retired for a long nap on the sofa in the parlor, and he was very good at it.  My brothers and I picked up the fallen oranges from the Valencia in the front yard and chucked them at the telephone pole across the way.

As the day wound down, grandad would sit on the porch and smoke a pipe.  As he looked over eight to ten miles of avocado groves between his porch and Oceanside, he would get a faraway look and say softly, “It makes a difference.”  We never knew, nor did we ever ask, nor did he ever volunteer what it was that made a difference to him; but that did not matter.  Sitting on that porch “of an evening” in an Adirondack chair handcrafted by Grandad, sipping iced tea or scarfing the last piece of lemon bisque, catching a whiff of his Prince Albert tobacco, taking in the heady aroma of a million avocado trees; it made a huge difference to me, and still does. 

Before going home, we spent the last hour gathered around the piano, singing hymns, except for grandmother and grandfather who sat in their favorite comfy chairs and listened, quietly mouthing the words.  Aunt Klover was at the keyboard, and John – always resplendent in a starched white shirt and florid tie – would stand at her elbow and be the choir director.  He would say, “Let’s sing this one for Grandpa,” or “Now it’s time for Grandma’s favorite,” or “We’ll have all the kids on this chorus.”  Uncle John was a devout churchgoer; but he had a checkered past before he found religion and came to Jesus.  Old habits can die hard.  One time when Klover was struggling with the fingering, which interrupted the flow of the music, John bellowed out, “GODDAMMIT KLOVER TURN THE PAGE.”  Eyebrows were raised, but not another word was said; that is, until we got in the car.  My dad grinned all the way home; he didn’t really care for John all that much.

Of all the traditions, though, the most memorable was the donut.  It started one Christmas when my mom came up with the idea of a bonus box.  In addition to the gift exchange, there was a box full of individually wrapped presents, and they were all silly, which was the point: a roll of toilet paper, an old toothbrush, one shoelace, a can of tomato soup, one tiny candy cane, and so forth. 

How it was decided who got the bonus box was never really made clear; but it was clearly rigged, because the lucky one was always one of the kids, or grandma. Oh, my grandmother was delirious when she received the bonus box!

With each present in the bonus box there was a short poem that the bonus box honoree had to read for everyone’s amusement before opening the gift.  Part of the game was guessing from the quatrain what was inside. 

One of the presents that first year was a donut, an orange-glazed cake donut with rainbow sprinkles.  Just one little ole donut wrapped in pretty paper with a stupid poem on the outside.  You had to be there to appreciate the funny, but the laughter was shared by all generations. 

For years afterward, the donut kept coming back in the bonus box.  Each year the bonus box was reimagined with new and goofier presents; but the donut always returned.  It got old and crumbly.  We may have run in a new donut somewhere along the years, but a donut had to be there.  We giggled with anticipation to see which package held the ridiculously stale, and wonderfully comforting cruller. 

I had not thought of those days or of donuts for years.  Now here I was, looking at an invitation to my aunt and uncle’s golden wedding anniversary, and looking forward to seeing John and Klover and their kids, and their kids’ kids.  But what do you get a dear aunt and uncle who have everything?

Well, you go to Donut Delite and you ask them to make a huge cake donut the size of a dinner plate.  You go home and leave it out for several days until it turns so dry and hard it will break a tooth.  You go to Home Depot and get a can of spray primer and a can of super glossy metallic gold paint with little gold flecks.  You paint the donut, put it in a gift box, and write a daffy poem of introduction.

To commemorate their Golden Anniversary, you give them a Golden Donut.

What is it about a donut or a bonus box or an avocado or an orange or sitting on a porch or singing “Living for Jesus” that is so comforting?  Why does this reminiscence make so much difference in the arc of my life?  Why do these otherwise simple moments comfort me so?  I believe it is the ordinariness of it all.  It is the aloe of familiar things.

Notes

This story is an expanded version of the one I wrote and read to my aunt and uncle at their anniversary party in 1984.  

Leona Johnson’s Lemon Bisque Recipe

The zest of one lemon…¼ cup lemon juice…12 graham crackers, crushed…½ cup sugar…One 6-oz pkg lemon Jello…One 16-oz can Pet or Carnation condensed milk (not Eagle Brand)…1 cup boiling water

Chill the condensed milk in the fridge for 24 hours.  An hour before making, put a mixing bowl and the beaters in the freezer.  Put half of the crushed graham crackers in the bottom of a 9 x 12 baking dish.  In another mixing bowl combine the lemon juice, zest, sugar, Jello and boiling water.  Stir until dissolved.  Put the condensed milk in the cold bowl and beat until it is stiff with peaks, about four minutes.  Put the mixer on low speed and slooooowly pour the lemon mixture into the whipped milk.  Use a rubber spatula to finish the folding to make sure that none of the lemon mixture stays on the bottom.  Slowly pour the bisque into the baking dish, using the spatula to smooth the top.  Put the dish in the fridge for 5-10 minutes, take out and sprinkle the rest of the graham crackers on top, and return to fridge.  It takes two or three hours for the dessert to completely set.

Licking the spatula and the beaters is optional, but highly recommended; and when you serve up a piece, a raspberry drizzle is neither necessary, nor awful.