I think oatmeal is different today than it was fifty years ago. Today’s oatmeal is finer, not nearly as chewy as years ago. Back then, a small bowl of oatmeal would really fill you up. But I guess oatmeal was best used for cookies. My mother, Aunt Muriel, and Grandmother all made oatmeal cookies. Mother’s were round, flat and chewy. She usually put raisins in them, and sometimes chocolate chips. Aunt Muriel’s and Grandmother’s were more of a spoon drop cookie. I suppose they contained more flour, as they stayed chunky and did not flatten out. In the fall, Grandmother collected hundreds of black walnuts – she placed them in her driveway where she ran over them with her car to remove the hulls. Then, in late fall she would hand pick the black walnuts from the shells and cook tray after tray of oatmeal cookies with walnuts, then freeze them.
Scottie and I liked to fish. The best fishing hole was on the creek by the calf barn. We fished with a cane pole or a real fishing rod with worms and float. Scottie and I would meet at daylight because that was when the fishing was the best. By nine o’clock or so the sun would be heating up, the fish would stop biting, and we would be so hungry! Grandmother’s house was the closest to the calf barn, so to Grandmother’s house we went - oatmeal cookies and Mayfield milk. That is the best breakfast we ever had.
