More About Oatmeal Cookies

Part III - More about Oatmeal Cookies

By Victor Epp

In part one of this little trilogy, I started with oatmeal cookies and so I'll finish with oatmeal cookies. You've already seen how they can inspire lofty ideals and focus on higher goals. Well, what about teaching manners? What about teaching charm and grace and all the things that go with it like getting along with sultry, temperamental young women? Would any of these things have been learned without the power of the oatmeal cookie? Well maybe yes and maybe no, but I think not. Let me explain.

The very seeds of everything that was to follow in our boy's life were sown right there on Parkhill Street in Kirkfield Park. That was where he found her and fell in love for the first time. Her name was Karen, and she was a beauty. She was the proverbial girl next door - the stuff movies are made of. It was a torrid romance to say the least, sort of like Bogie and Bacall, and fraught with turbulence as love affairs of three and four-year-olds often are. The two were almost inseparable. But their personalities were so different; you'd never know when they might erupt in a shoving match or a fistfight. As I said, it was just like Bogie and Bacall.

An example of how tight this relationship was is shown in the big fuss about our going camping on holidays one summer. The hullabaloo those two lovebirds put up about it would make you wonder if we were ever coming back again. Karen had to come to wave a tearful goodbye as we backed out of the driveway and our whole time away was consumed with going back home. Finally the holiday was at an end and we were homeward bound. Wouldn't you know it? The car had barely stopped back in our driveway when our boy was out the door, hugging and kissing his beloved Karen. Then he pushed her down in the gravel and the fight was on - again!

As luck would have it, the Duffuses lived on the other side of us. Big Tom Duffus was a lean, mean looking ex army sergeant major with a gruff sort of voice to match his looks. The children saw right through him though as he worked in his garden and with the flower pots in his little homemade greenhouse. He never fooled them for a minute. They never hesitated to pass the time of day with him, and he never refused them either.

Mrs. Duffus, Tom's Scottish war bride of fifteen years or more, was the exact opposite of old Tom. Short and dumpy, she reminded me of an old English fishwife, standing out there on the back platform hanging out her wash. Picture if you will the sight of such a woman in a faded summer dress, a roll-your-own cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth, hanging up her clothes. Imagine your surprise when she addresses you with a cheery, soft spoken good morning in her thick Scottish brogue. These two were absolutely delightful neighbors who had no children of their own. Perhaps that's what drew them to the street full of baby boomers.

Well now then, to oatmeal cookies. No, I hadn't forgotten. I just had to set the scene for you. Of course you know that Scots and oatmeal go together just as much as Scots and bagpipes. So it's no surprise that Mrs. Duffus would have oatmeal cookies on hand. It wasn't long before our two lovers along with several of their friends had Mrs. Duffus' number. Now picture this if you please. They would troop nicely in to the front yard, being careful not to step on Mr. Duffus' flowerbeds, ring the doorbell and this is about what you'd hear.

"Good morning Mrs. Duffus, we came to visit."

"Och now, isn't that nice of ye. Well come in then and I'll see if there aren't a few wee cookies with a bit o' milk. Would ye like that?"

Of course they would! Why the heck else would they be there anyway? And wouldn't you know it, they'd be on their best behavior because they knew they'd be back. And so manners were learned and socialization skills were honed and so was an appreciation for dark eyed, sultry women.

(Morgan, I'd be willing to bet any money that you've heard your daddy say things like ‘Thanks for tea and toast, or cookies and milk, or coffee and cake’ at some time or other. Oh, and go have a good look at your mom while you're at it. It seems he never lost his appreciation for dark eyed sultry women either.)

So next thanksgivings when you are remembering things to be thankful for don't forget about oatmeal cookies. Without them, there are a lot of things that might not have happened.