black-eyed peas

 I was hoping to hear some personal stories about those pasties. does he eat them regularly, or as part of some sort of a holiday, what is his favorite pastie?  Surely there is some story involving pasties, maybe an interesting tidbit about Beagles discovering pasties, and his reaction to that.  And of course there are many readily available puns on the subject.

Herrin Hospital had a cafeteria which was nice, all the personnel of the hospital eating together under the same roof from the actual godlike figures of the doctors to those of us who served by merely pushing a mop.  Not too long after I started dining there I noticed some spotted beans, well very well, I have always liked beans.  But when I got back to my table the natives informed me that these were black-eyed peas.  I had heard that name before.  

Those black-eyed peas, kind of dry, kind of tasteless, not much to recommend them, but if you cook them up with bacon grease they can be tasteful enough.

We CO's were given a choice of three places to go, and at the time I had been reading Faulkner so I chose the southernmost location.  Hardly the deep south, maybe more like Kentucky or Tennessee, with a bit of Appalachia. because of the fading coal mines.  But still plenty exotic enough for a Chicago boy such as myself.

Many years later I found myself in the even more exotic state of Texas in a bar where I was watching the Bears play the Redskins.  I was pleased and surprised to see that all those Texans were rooting for the Bears, did Texas, for some reason, like the Bears?  Not at all it turned out, they had a long-standing feud with the Washington Redskins, and it was all about the enemy of my enemy.

It happened to be New Years Day and in a huge cauldron in the corner black-eyed peas were simmering.  It turns out that eating black-eyed peas on New Years Day is a good luck southern thing, and before long the hospitable southern folks had pressed a bowl into my hands, and I reckon it had some bacon grease in it because it was not bad.  Not bad at all.

And that year the Bears won the superbowl for the first time ever.  And in the 35 years since, during which I have never again eaten black-eyed peas, they have not won again.  Coincidence?  You be the judge.