Bologna Sandwiches & Tea

[Kevin Fallon]

I was making lunch the other day, and I remembered the line 'bologna sandwiches and tea' from pfal in the '70s. Anybody else remember some specific foods or trends from their time with twi?

I live in the South, so for me, 'tea' is cold and sweet by default. However, as I recall, the reference above was to something hot with cream and sugar. Certainly not a combination that would have been palatable to me, even back then.

Other things I remember from that time period was that almost everyone was on 'the cleanse' at some point or another. Seems we all had toxins that we had to purge from our bodies so that we could be healthier 'to move the Word'. (Today, I only do this in advance of a colonoscopy.)

There were also some folks who were building 'survival kits' of food and other supplies in case there was some (undefined) cataclysmic event that was to befall the US. Anarchy would be rampant and only those believers who were prepared would survive. Was this throughout the US or just in the area where I was?

What else do you recall?

[JavaJane]

I remember the whole colon cleanse mess... mandated cleaning of one's colon was a little over the top for me!

[Twinky]

Huge bowls of fruit salad for the evening meal...not everyone's choice of meal, but something I love. (And because lots of people didn't like it and left it, there was always had more than I could eat.)

Very nice yoghurt on Corps Nights for sack suppers.

And (very surprising to me) a 5-grain cereal kind of porridge that we had for breakfast at times. As I hate porridge, always have, I was really shocked to find that I liked this stuff and would gladly make it for myself to eat now, if I knew what was in it.

There was also plenty to eat that was a little strange to my palate.

Mayo with most everything...

[Steve Lortz]

I really liked the peanut butter bombers on LEAD.

I was carrying one in the pocket of my jeans and the plastic wrapper split or something, and peanut butter mooshed through my whole pocket. A dark stain of peanut oil gradually spread through my pants during the course of the week!

Love,

Steve

Edited August 19, 2010 by Steve Lortz

[Jim]

It's a simple thing but I missed a decent cup of coffee in the morning. That chicory "extender" stuff was awful.

[waysider]

Sprouts-----lots and lots of sprouts

Edited August 19, 2010 by waysider

[GrouchoMarxJr]

I recall my time in the corps when I was assigned to join the group that was

to murder about 200 chickens and butcher them for consumption...

It was a small root cellar that was set up for this purpose. About 8 of us were down

there for most of the day carrying out this most disgusting task. The chickens would

arrive alive and clucking and we would promptly cut off their heads, bleed them, and

then proceed to send them down the assembly line to "prepare them" ...

My job was to slice open their beliies and pull out any eggs that were fully formed

and put them in a basket for future breakfasts...the rest of the innards I scooped and ripped out with my hands and tossed into a garbage can.

The stench was beyond describing...several folks were "whistling carrots" and had a green color

in their face...I must admit that the gag reflex set in a few times for me...but I never

hurled.

At the end of the day...after we showered and hustled down to eat dinner...I noticed that they had prepared chicken for everyone!...It was the only time in the corps that I couldn't eat...

Edited August 19, 2010 by GrouchoMarxJr

[Broken Arrow]

I was making lunch the other day, and I remembered the line 'bologna sandwiches and tea' from pfal in the '70s. Anybody else remember some specific foods or trends from their time with twi?

I live in the South, so for me, 'tea' is cold and sweet by default. However, as I recall, the reference above was to something hot with cream and sugar. Certainly not a combination that would have been palatable to me, even back then.

Other things I remember from that time period was that almost everyone was on 'the cleanse' at some point or another. Seems we all had toxins that we had to purge from our bodies so that we could be healthier 'to move the Word'. (Today, I only do this in advance of a colonoscopy.)

There were also some folks who were building 'survival kits' of food and other supplies in case there was some (undefined) cataclysmic event that was to befall the US. Anarchy would be rampant and only those believers who were prepared would survive. Was this throughout the US or just in the area where I was?

What else do you recall?

Oh no, the survival kit thing was all over the country. We had it Ohio too. You're talking late 70's. The Corps had "Mobile Abundant Living" or "MAL" packs. We needed to have toilet paper, other sundries, and cars were not supposed have less than a half-tank of gas. I'm surprised they didn't have "gas tank enforcers". We also were supposed to have a destination place set aside where we could run too in case the country fell apart.

Just another ploy imo to reinforce an "us against them" mentality. It also reinforced an elitism mentality, because part of all that is that "they" (whoever "they" were) would go after Way believers first. Among Way believers, they would go after the Corps first.

[Twinky]

They did the chicken thing when I was in too (at HQ). We were in pairs, one to hold the chicken's legs and the other to wield the ax to chop off its head while it was on a chopping block. Then we peeled the skin and feathers off, cut it open and removed any eggs, as Groucho said. I doubt my partner and I did more than 6 altogether, and perhaps only 3.

What I thought (after getting over the horror of killing something like that) was all the colors inside the chicken, the way everything fitted together...and that's just a chicken. And I thought how we, as human beings, are fearfully and wonderfully made...not just in our innards, which are more interesting, no doubt, than a chicken's, but all of us.

We got chicken for dinner too.

And it certainly hasn't put me off eggs, of which I eat a vast quantity.

[Steve Lortz]

When I was a kid in the '50s, we used to go down to my great-aunt's tobacco farm in the hills of Kentucky. Aunt Flossie would go out in the afternoon, and after deciding which chicken to eat for supper, pick it up by the head, and fling it around in such a way that it's head would pop off. No axe involved. Then we would watch the headless body dance around for a little while. After it was well and truly dead, Aunt Flossie would scald it in a pot of boiling water and then pluck it. Her chicken was always delicious!

Love,

Steve

Edited August 19, 2010 by Steve Lortz

[chockfull]

At the end of the day...after we showered and hustled down to eat dinner...I noticed that they had prepared chicken for everyone!...It was the only time in the corps that I couldn't eat...

Wait. They did that to me too. Slinks off to subscribe to conspiracy theories...

[Ham]

Pluck the Duck.. what do we have to lose..

[DogLover]

Some of the good food I remember from the Corps (13th): BLTs with really good cream of mushroom soup on Parent Weekend Saturdays (because that's what JAL had when he was a kid), the first Swedish Meatballs I had ever eaten at the HoHo Banquet at Emporia, fettucine alfredo Wednesday lunch before Corps Night (again Emporia), venison/beef burritos at Gunnison ... and best of all, the gravy (didn't eat the biscuits) from the biscuits and gravy at Emporia. By the time we came along, the food was pretty good ... nothing like the horror stories I have read on GreaseSpot by the 6th Corps their first year at Emporia.

I also liked those peanut butter bombers in our sack suppers ...

[dmiller]

Out on L.E.A.D. in 1985. Meals were skimpy at best. Several of us were hungry all the time.

Time came for the "duo", and it was worse (fasting for the day), and all that other good BS.

Done with the "duo", the meal was falafels when we all returned to "base camp".

Either the staff screwed up and made too many, or it wasn't "palatable" for some there.

I've always liked falafels, and so did a few others there. One guy (I don't remember his name now)

commented that this was the first time he felt "full", since there was an "abundance" of food that night.

I had to/ and did agree.

The next day we learned that docvic had died, and we were hustled outta the woods and back to civilization.

We were in the Black Hills of South Dakota (Rapid City), and the "gathering point" was the local mall.

We were all driven back there to our cars (for those of us who'd driven), and the L.E.A.D staff said goodbye.

Those who had hitched to L.E.A.D. along with those who had driven there, made a beeline for the burger joint.

Money well spent!

[waysider]

And we weren't supposed to use microwave ovens because "Grace said" they strip out all the nutritional value.

[JavaJane]

One of my fellowship coordinators told me that you should eat raw potatoes because they were natural penicillin... and that Mrs. Weirwille had recommended it.

And then there was the way Mrs. Weirwille could "rightly divide" pie...

[WordWolf]

(snip)

And (very surprising to me) a 5-grain cereal kind of porridge that we had for breakfast at times. As I hate porridge, always have, I was really shocked to find that I liked this stuff and would gladly make it for myself to eat now, if I knew what was in it.

(snip)

*plugs "5 grain cereal" into Google*

Here, it was probably one of these things.

http://www.bobsredmill.com/5-grain-rolled-cereal.html

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/5graincereal.htm

http://www.koshervitamins.com/shop/stores_app/Browse_Item_Details.asp?showpage=1&page_id=23&Item_ID=3146

http://www.organicdirect.com/wessex-grain-cereal-185oz-p-1252.html

[WordWolf]

(snip)

There were also some folks who were building 'survival kits' of food and other supplies in case there was some (undefined) cataclysmic event that was to befall the US. Anarchy would be rampant and only those believers who were prepared would survive. Was this throughout the US or just in the area where I was?

What else do you recall?

Some threads discussing some of these things:

http://www.greasespotcafe.com/main2/waydale/waydale-documents-html/the-ways-y2k-document-for-all-way-followers.html

http://www.greasespotcafe.com/main2/waydale/waydale-editorials/martindale-the-pope-and-the-aircraft-carrier.html

If you really want to dig into some of the conspiracy theory stuff,

do a search on "the Liberty Lobby" and "the John Birch Society"

and be prepared to read all weekend.

[brainfixed]

wasn't that cereal called familia? i used to make it come out my nose.

[Steve Lortz]

Out on L.E.A.D. in 1985. Meals were skimpy at best. Several of us were hungry all the time.

Time came for the "duo", and it was worse (fasting for the day), and all that other good BS.

Done with the "duo", the meal was falafels when we all returned to "base camp".

Either the staff screwed up and made too many, or it wasn't "palatable" for some there.

I've always liked falafels, and so did a few others there. One guy (I don't remember his name now)

commented that this was the first time he felt "full", since there was an "abundance" of food that night.

I had to/ and did agree.

The next day we learned that docvic had died, and we were hustled outta the woods and back to civilization.

We were in the Black Hills of South Dakota (Rapid City), and the "gathering point" was the local mall.

We were all driven back there to our cars (for those of us who'd driven), and the L.E.A.D staff said goodbye.

Those who had hitched to L.E.A.D. along with those who had driven there, made a beeline for the burger joint.

Money well spent!

I think I was on that LEAD trip, too. I remember going up in the ranger's fire tower, and the ranger was explaining that they watched for smoke. One of the LEAD participants said "Like that over there?" pointing to some smoke in the distance. And the ranger hadn't noticed it before.

There were outhoses with seats at the ranger station. There was a warning sign outside the outhouse that said "primitive facilities". That was the only time out there we were able to sit instad of squatting over a slit trench to do our business. We thought is was luxurious!

Love,

Steve

[Kevin Fallon]

You're talking late 70's. The Corps had "Mobile Abundant Living" or "MAL" packs. We needed to have toilet paper, other sundries, and cars were not supposed have less than a half-tank of gas. I'm surprised they didn't have "gas tank enforcers". We also were supposed to have a destination place set aside where we could run too in case the country fell apart.

Yep - definitely late 70's. The thing that got me was that (in our area) unless you were Corps, or a BC or above, nothing was ever said. I was just a lowly TC, but I knew something was up. I even asked both the BC and AC about it - and they denied they were doing anything of the sort - while in their closet thay had bags/boxes of stuff they kept 'for emergencies' - the AC even had a rifle in there. I guess if something did happen, TC's and average joe's were expendable. Elitism at it's finest.

When I was a WOW, my FC WAS a 'gas tank enforcer'. Since it was my car, I usually had to pay for the gas - even though others (FC especially, who did not have a car) could use it. More than once I got chewed out because I had less than half a tank when the FC used it. Do you think the FC would put gas in it then? NO! Those were the days......

[cheranne]

French fries with brown gravey at Big Boys IF you had the money to splurge!

[waysider]

French fries with brown gravey at Big Boys IF you had the money to splurge!

Oh, Yeah!

Never had that while I was in TWI but I love it with breakfast!

Edited August 20, 2010 by waysider

[Ham]

what I'm trying to figure out is how someone with a reasonable mind could consider a pack of gum as a "snack"..

a condiment.. a refresher.. but a "snack"?

yep.. I inhaled a whole pack of gum.. how nourishing, nutritious, satisfying..

maybe the gum was different in the old days..

[GrouchoMarxJr]

Yep - definitely late 70's. The thing that got me was that (in our area) unless you were Corps, or a BC or above, nothing was ever said. I was just a lowly TC, but I knew something was up. I even asked both the BC and AC about it - and they denied they were doing anything of the sort - while in their closet thay had bags/boxes of stuff they kept 'for emergencies' - the AC even had a rifle in there. I guess if something did happen, TC's and average joe's were expendable. Elitism at it's finest.

I believe what you are referring to was the "mal pack situation"...

This was a fabricated scenario that was devised for corps training...the 10th corps to be exact.

...the problem was that the training got outside of Emporia...other people on "the field" took it seriously as well. To this day, I still have my Keltny back pack.