Tag: traditions

Nobody left the table hungry

“A grandmother’s kitchen — where memories are seasoned with love.”
– Author unknown but most likely well nourished.

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Just like Sunday dinner at Granny’s house.

That was my first thought last week at Lions Club, where fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and hot rolls were served up for the civic club luncheon.

Any meal my father’s mother cooked on any day of the week was the equivalent of an East Texas Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner combined. I cherish the festive childhood memories of meals at her house that sadly ceased after my grandfather died. And feasts like last week’s Lion’s lunch still remind me of those family gatherings like they were just yesterday.

A yesterday when most meals were enjoyed at home. Meals that weren’t “hit and run” on the way to somewhere else. When family’s sat down together to eat. No phones. No TV. No rush. Fast food was yet to replace home cooking, TV dinners were still trendy and eating out somewhere other than the bus stop cafe downtown or the truck stop out on the highway was a rare treat.

It was a yesterday when Mom’s meals on the table coincided with Dad’s arriving home from work. You could set your watch by it. Back when we wore watches. That needed to be set.

A yesterday when being in your place at the dinner table was a request not open to debate. And failure to comply meant you’d better be so badly incapacitated that walking to the table was not physically possible.

Also not debatable was deciding whether Mom’s meal suited your taste buds. You ate what was on the table without question or comment. Unless you were saying how good everything tasted … including that nasty liver.

Although it was the age of “eat what your momma put on the table,” there was no way even the pickiest eater was going to leave the table hungry. And that went double for Sunday dinner at Granny’s.

The table that occupied my grandmother’s dining room, which now resides in mine, was the center of many meals. Common fare was fried chicken or ham, often both. Baked chicken and dressing were usually holiday delights. Mashed potatoes covered with cream gravy, steaming corn on the cob, and hot homemade biscuits begging for butter. Plates were piled high, but not so high that the aroma of fresh-baked pie coming from the kitchen failed to remind that you’d better save room for dessert.

For most grandmothers, including mine, cooking was a labor of love. Meals prepared without a single recipe. Ingredients blended with just a dash of this, a pinch of that, and a lot of love. Everything coming together at the same time, which was no small feat considering Granny could have a meal on the table and not miss a Sunday service sitting in her pew at the Pittsburg Methodist Church.

As a child, I never knew she accomplished her miracles having dinner ready like that by spending hours in the kitchen Saturday night and Sunday morning before church. I thought the plate I sat down to was just another measure of “grandmother’s meal magic.”

Watching her prepare a meal (only if we promised not to get in the way) was more than magic. It was controlled, coordinated chaos. Prepping chicken for the oven, mixing the dressing, peeling potatoes, and pulling husks off ears of corn. Hands moving with the precision of a symphony orchestra conductor.

To this day, I don’t know how she did it. But when we heard, “Y’all come on, it’s ready,” the chicken was moist and perfect. The potatoes were fresh and creamy, waiting for gravy. And the corn? Dripping with butter, ready to savor every bite, row by row.

And then the most amazing thing happened. Once the blessing was offered and bowls started around the table, Granny wiped her hands on her apron, sat down with a cup of coffee, and ate nothing. Just visited and waited on everyone else while we ate.

Honestly, I know meals today are still out-of-this-world good. We still dine to a supreme sufficiency, as my good friend Joe Fomby used to say. So why do we long for those Sunday dinners at Granny’s house? Some insist the food really was that much better. Others argue it was the family-gathering tradition, seemingly not as common today as it once was.

I’m saying it’s a little of both — seasoned with a lot of love.

But while we’re debating this issue, could you pass me another piece of chicken and a roll … please.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2026. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

The morning Sister Claudie Mae claimed her pew

“I have prepared a place for you … just not this pew.”
— The understood 11th Commandment

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“Saw in the newspaper where one of those big mega churches is selling reserved seats for the Sunday sermon.”

“That’s one way to stimulate conversation at the morning coffee shop gathering,” I thought.

Someone near the coffee pot was heard to say, “It’s been done before, long time ago. But in this day and age? In the South?”

“The way I read it, that didn’t end well in the Bible,” said one of the local preachers, an occasional coffee shop drop-in. “Jesus drove sellers, merchants, and money changers from the temple.”

“I don’t know,” drawled another. “Shouldn’t have to pay anything to attend worship service. Offerings when the plate is passed, or a fundraiser — now that’s different. Seems to me,” he went on. “You might be perceived as favoring the rich to get the better seats.”

Silence slipped by for about half a minute before someone chuckled, “Well, it might solve one problem at our house. It’s a challenge to get the kids ready on time. We always get there about the second verse of the first hymn. Looking for a good seat.

“Now, I’m not saying we’re habitually late,” he recanted, “but the smokers on the front porch start snuffing out cigarettes and heading for the door when we pull in the parking lot.”

“Here’s an idea,” mused the preacher. “If we made the front seats free and the back seats the most expensive seats in the house, I could see this working.”

I was trying to determine if he was joking or serious when someone asked, “So, what do you think, newspaper man.”

Taking a long draw on my coffee to think, I carefully submitted the biggest challenge. As I saw it.

“It reminds me of a small East Texas congregation where I worshiped a few years ago,” I ventured into the spirited discussion. “One Sunday morning, some visitors came in, introduced themselves, and took a vacant seat. Little did they know they had parked in a pew known to be Sister Claudie Mae’s undisputed and long-claimed spot. The end of the fifth row, left side.”

Sister Claudie Mae was the sweetest, kindest little lady you could ever hope to meet. She had outlived two husbands and been present for every service longer than anyone alive could remember. Her “on time” arrival coincided precisely with the minister stepping to the pulpit for welcoming remarks, announcements, and to update the prayer list.

Sure enough, on that morning, Sister Claudie Mae walked in right on schedule. The preacher paused motionless in the pulpit, watching her walk slowly to the end of the fifth row on the left side. All eyes were on Sister Claudie Mae when she stopped, smiled and said sweetly to the visiting couple, “Good morning. I do believe you are visitors. Welcome, we are so glad to have you. And what is your name?”

“Thank you,” the man said warmly. “We’re the Wilsons.”

“We are thrilled that you are visiting with us,” Sister Claudie Mae responded. “And we genuinely hope you will come back. However, Mr. Wilson, you and your lovely wife are sitting in my pew, and if you will be so kind as to find another one, we can start our service.”

The startled couple scurried to the closest empty pew, allowing the good sister to sit in “her seat,” thereby ending any further discussion on the 11th Commandment of “thou shalt not sit in someone else’s pew.”

With that story, I suggested to anyone in the coffee club thinking paid seating at church was a good idea might want to first determine who among them would break the news to the many Sister Claudie Mae’s in congregations everywhere.

“Who is going to tell these lovely ladies that they will have to pay every Sunday to sit in the seat they have called theirs since before many of you spent Sunday mornings in the nursery,” I asked.

The conversation quickly moved to other stimulating topics like courthouse politics, the weather, and the rumor that yhe vacant lot near being cleared near Walmart is going to be a Burger King.

But I pondered more intriguing matters. Recalling the morning when Sister Claudie Mae claimed her pew. Was the song leader’s opening hymn selection merely coincidence or quick thinking when he invited the congregation to join in the singing of “I Shall Not Be Moved.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.