A girl whom I regularly bought shoes for just asked me to talk about this. Lots and lots of shoes.
My father, Sheldon, who was born in 1907, grew up on a family ranch near Four Mile Creek in Utah, about ten or fifteen miles south of Nephi, which itself is about 90 miles south of Salt Lake City. With two brothers and four sisters, he grew up working hard on a working ranch, growing wheat, raising farm animals, mastering the many mechanical tasks needed to keep a ranch going, and absorbing the value of self-sufficiency.
I was born in 1942 at Queen of the Angels Hospital in Los Angeles, California, and when I was about three we moved to a one-acre lot about 20 miles outside of LA. World War II was still raging, and income from Dad’s job as a machinist needed to be supplemented for our family of four: Dad, Mom, my older brother Hal, and me. Around that time I was usually called Gravy, except by Mom, who, when I had done something wrong, would call me with increasing frustration “Shelly. . .Hal. . .Glenn. . .dammit!” When not in trouble, I whiled away most of my daylight hours playing “little cars” in the dirt beneath the the trees near our house. My mother continually had to sew patches on the knees of my jeans.
To make good use of the property, Dad put in a half-acre of boysenberries when we first moved in, as well as two large patches of raspberries—one of black, one of red. He lined our long driveway with four apricot trees. By the time I was six, we’d sometimes sell berries and apricots at a tiny mom-and-pop grocery that we could walk to, always referred to as “the little store.” But usually Mom and Dad would can stuff so we didn’t have to buy it at a store. My main assistance to these projects was to tinker with the lids to Mason jars and to run and jump behind Dad as he walked behind our two-wheel tractor, guiding its plow or tiller to make long furrows for planting and watering. Yes, I was literally a clod hopper.
At some point, Dad decided to expand our self-sufficiency horizons by growing rabbits, which he put into a row of cages in a shed behind our garage. Though he had a commercial goal in mind, such a possibility never occured to the six-year-old me. I thought of the 20 or so rabbits as interestingly furry playmates—especially the friendliest hare at the end of the row of cages, whom I called “Ralphie.”
One Sunday afternoon, without a hint of ominous warning, we all sat down at the kitchen table for a meal that Mom had prepared. There was a couple of dishes of vegetables, and, in the middle of the table, a plate with an unrecognized object resting on it.
“What’s that?” I asked.
After a pause, my Dad said “It’s chicken. Have some.”
My brother, older by five years, then spoke up.
“It doesn’t look like chicken,” he said. “It looks like. . . .”
An aching silence fell over the room.
Gradually, my childish mind began to connect the numbers, until at last the jagged picture was revealed, and with a quivering voice, I shouted:
“Ralphie!”
And I began to cry. And my brother began to cry. And my Mom began to cry.
And my Dad continued to mutter, until at last he said, “Jesus Christ,” but not with anything like a prayer in mind.
Mom removed the carcass of the bunny. My father shook his head and continued to mutter. My brother and I whimpered for a while more. We all dined sadly on boiled carrots and mashed potatoes without gravy. Even Dad.