Chapter 31

When I was 14, Andrea got married to Ron Vargo. They met when he and his brothers boarded their horse, Mick, a big dun gelding, at our place. That left Cindy and me, and Dale of course, at the farm.

Mother was working at the Legion Club in town on Friday nights and Saturdays as a waitress. She wanted to make money to buy new furniture for the house. Daddy said what we had was fine, but she didn’t agree. Thus, the job. Many Saturdays, there were weddings or other events, and so she put in a full day and sometimes the evening, too.  

She was also trying to keep the record shop going — the one she opened in the building Daddy used for his office and plumbing supply warehouse. There also was a hairdressing salon in part of it. Along with the record shop, this eclectic combination created the town’s first mini mall!

Cindy and I worked the record shop after school and on Saturdays.  We were all pretty busy.

Daddy didn’t mind Mother working as long as he got his meals on time. So I started helping out. Cindy would go up to the record store on Saturdays at about 10 a.m., and I would stay home and make Daddy’s lunch, then go up to the store afterwards.  

I was taking home economics and had always liked to cook, but Mother really didn’t let anybody get in her way as she tore around the kitchen. She’d rather do it herself than tell someone else how to do it, she always said. So I just watched her for many years, sitting on the step stool beside the wall phone and next to the counter where she prepared meals. 

Daddy wasn’t too particular about his lunch. He wanted a sandwich, a bowl of soup, and dessert. There was usually cake or pie or cookies and ice cream around, so I mainly had to do the entree. Piece of cake … or bologna, or whatever.  But one Saturday, as I was hauling out the lunch meat and leftover homemade soup, he asked, “You know how to make egg potatoes?”

I stopped. Never heard of them.

He told me his mom used to make them for the guys when they were working in the fields and came in for lunch. It was simple, he said. Just fry up some potatoes, scramble some eggs, and pour them over the cooked taters.  Easy-peasy.

So I made them.

He loved them. With lots of ketchup, of course. 

Next Saturday, I made them again. And several Saturdays after that. I mean, who am I to argue with success?

Finally, one Saturday he said, “You know, you don’t have to make me egg potatoes EVERY Saturday.”

I got the hint. Back to the sandwich and soup. Egg potatoes only made the menu about once a month.

One Saturday night, I was asleep when I was awakened by car lights in the driveway and knew Mother was home.  It was after midnight. She’d had a long shift. I went downstairs to get a glass of water and found her standing in the kitchen, crying. What on earth?

As she dragged out the chicken that had to be cut up for Sunday dinner and gathered the ingredients to make the Sunday pies, she just said, “I’m so tired I could die.”

I offered to help, but she said, “Go back to bed. I can do this.”

I did, but I felt really bad. What had I been thinking? That the Sunday fried chicken and pies just miraculously appeared? She had been coming home late after work and doing it all herself. 

So I hatched a plan.

The next Saturday, when she was working a wedding and then the cocktail waitress shift again, I told Cindy to handle the record shop by herself.  It was never that busy. We just liked to hang out there together and play records. 

After Mother left that morning, I started in on the house. She usually cleaned house on Fridays before she went to her evening shift, but this week she’d had to go in early.

I dusted, I vacuumed, I mopped the floors. The bathroom was already spotless, so I went on to clean the kitchen. Then I tackled the chicken. I had seen her cut up maybe 1,000 chickens in my life and knew exactly how she did it. I nicked myself once with the butcher knife, but other than that, I did OK.  I put the pieces to soak in salt water. (She was way ahead of the culinary curve, brining her chicken in those days!) Then I tackled the pies. She always made one cream pie with a graham cracker crust and a fruit pie with a lard pastry crust. I had done both in Home Ec. They turned out pretty good! I made Daddy’s lunch and told him I was not going to the record store. He didn’t seem to mind. Then I made our supper. I don’t recall what, but something easy and with mashed potatoes. (Daddy always had to have mashed or fried potatoes with everything, even chow mein!) 

I was so proud of myself, I waited up for Mother.  I wanted to see her reaction. She walked into the house, to a clean kitchen with a cherry pie cooling on the counter. The other pie was in the fridge, with the chicken. 

She seemed stunned. Set down her purse and saw me in the doorway.

“Did you do this?” she asked. Then she said, “Oh,” and collapsed into a kitchen chair. She put her face in her hands and cried. 

“Did I do OK?” I asked, worried. 

Then she got up and hugged me.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “You did all this? I thought I’d be up all night.”

I told her that from now on, I would do the cleaning and cooking on Saturdays when she had to work.

She slipped me a couple of bucks every time, out of her tips, which I tucked away for school clothes.

(I think Cindy liked working the record shop alone. I think it gave her a sense of being able to contribute. Her friends would come by and, in the summer, Linda A. also kept her company. It was the first time our lives really diverged.)

Becoming Mother’s little helper became my Saturday routine (on the Saturdays she worked) until I left high school to go to college. I don’t know how long she worked at the Legion Club after that. 

And when I was home on a weekend or holiday from school, she let me help her in the kitchen.

Epilogue (Cindy): While Linda kept the home fires burning, I spent after-school hours, some summer days, and Saturdays at the Record Shop. We were never really busy, but we did have some traffic (mainly women who stopped in as they came and went to and from the beauty shop next door). My friend, Jane, often joined me, and we’d play records and dance around. Jane recently told me that we loved to play “GLORIA” and “96 Tears,” but once the Beatles hit the charts, it was pretty much all Beatles all of the time. Jane’s favorite Beatle (everyone had to pick a favorite, ha!) was Ringo. I loved George. But we all loved John! 

The Record Shop only lasted a few years, and came to an abrupt end when Daddy’s shop was burglarized. They not only took all of the albums, record player, cash box, and a bunch of copper pipe from the plumbing area, they also loaded it all into Daddy’s purple Metro and stole that as well. (He always left the keys in it, convenient for them.) The police found the old Metro in a ditch on the way to St. Cloud, but we never recovered any of the stolen items.

Daddy kept the plumbing shop until he retired, and the beauty parlor that was renting space continued, but it was the death knell for the Record Shop.