Bologna

As I sat at the kitchen table savoring a bologna sandwich it brought back memories of by-gone days. Childhood days of the family vacations, vacations that were always the same. Always the same pilgrimage from wherever we lived to the home of our grandparents in southern Louisiana. From as far away as California we would travel in the same 1951 Dodge each and every summer. It was a green four door sedan with a six cylinder engine and manual transmission but the transmission had a fluid drive coupling so you could start in any gear, even third, if you had the patience of Job. This I discovered many years later when learning to drive the very same car. I remember the little blue single wheeled trailer Dad always pulled on these occasions. It carried all the essential baggage for the two week pilgrimage. I don’t remember what the speed limit was but Dad never exceeded his limit which was 50 MPH. It was a grueling trip except for the evening stops at the Best Western Motels where my siblings and I enjoyed the swimming pool until forcibly removed and sent to bed. And then there were stops on the side of the road to eat our bologna on white bread sandwiches using the covered top of the trailer as a picnic table. Those were good times. In spite of whatever unintentional parenting mistakes were made…causing whatever pain and punishment I might have endured (deserved or undeserved)…it is all forgotten when the sweet tang of bologna touches my palate. Bologna is good. It is best when eaten on the side of the road over the tarp covering a single wheeled trailer on a hot humid summer day.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for bologna sandwiches, loving parents, and memories like these.
Amen.