The Sandwich

Killing time before going to pick up my wife from her Tuesday morning Bible Study, I decided to make us some egg salad for sandwiches upon our return. I got to thinking about sandwiches I've fancied. During my twelve years of public school attendance, I was a brown-bag kid; I may have purchased a hot lunch a half dozen times. Never did cotton much to 'institutional' cooking. I'd best stay out of prison and avoid the nursing home.

As a kid, I could eat my weight in baloney sandwiches. My wife likes fried baloney in ketchup; I can't get into hot baloney. If you want a hot sandwich you can't beat open-faced chipped-beef sandwich. My Dad called that 'shit-on-a-shingle.' (I think that term got traction in the military). Simple bread & butter works as does the classic peanut butter & jelly sandwich. A school brown-bag favorite was Spam with mustard.

Perhaps my all time favorite homemade sandwich came on the heels of a ham n' beans supper. After those Navy beans cooled in the refrigerator, I'd make a cold bean sandwich on white bread; thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I am sure all the white bread I have eaten has quickened the heaven bound trip.

Back in those school days, I would take egg salad and tuna salad sandwiches laced with mayo to a non-air conditioned school building and place it in a metal locker at 7:30 AM. I would eat the sandwich four or five hours later...never got sick. The Department of Children and Family Services would arrest my mother 'today.'