Stories of My Life: Chocolate Milk!

When I was about eight years old, my father, who was an automotive mechanic, would come home for lunch and eat his sandwich sitting in front of the TV, watching an episode of “Gunsmoke.”

My mother distinctly remembers my sitting in our booth in the kitchen as I ate my lunch. And as he was eating his lunch in his easy chair, the story line in “Gunsmoke” got especially captivating. And my dad would lean forward in his easy chair and his coveralls would kind of poke out at the back of his neck. Would Marshall Dillon win the day and shoot a couple of desperados?

As my father leaned up in his chair, he was watching how the episode would end. My mother remembers observing me finish my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, drink half of the glass of ice cold chocolate milk, and then walking and pouring the rest of my chocolate milk down the back collar of my father’s coveralls. She then watched me take my lunch plate and empty glass over to the sink as I had been taught.

As you can well imagine, my father jumped straight up, missed the ending of the “Gunsmoke” episode, and was probably thinking about ending my life. My mother, who could not help herself from laughing, intervened and saved my life.

My poor father had to take a shower before he went back to work. But if you had been there, I think you would’ve agreed, it was actually the right thing to do.