Following in the footsteps of those who came before me is no easy task. Words like commitment, sacrifice, and love are all qualities that I learned growing up in Lucedale, Mississippi as a child in the Pennebaker household. I saw it played out daily in my home. My parents were my teachers, and I am blessed that they taught me those principles. I learned what mattered was not what you have, but rather what you have to offer. I can remember my daddy inviting door to door traveling salesmen into the home and feeding them dinner because they were either young and scared or looked hungry. I recall stories of my grandfather leaving thanksgiving turkeys on the doorsteps of needy families during the night. Granddaddy wouldn’t even stay around for a thank you. He would just knock on the door and walk away. I can remember Mama and the breakfast she made everyday for the family. Mama would get up before anyone else and have the table set before waking us to come and eat. I really miss the smell of biscuits coming from that tiny kitchen. That smell brings me to the reason I’m writing this.
This morning before climbing out of bed I thought for sure I smelled those biscuits. I was in that unique state between wakefulness and sleep, somewhere between Lucedale, Mississippi and Pensacola, Florida. I was again ten years old and my stomach was growling. As the smell of those biscuits made its way down the hall and finally into my bedroom, I couldn’t take it another second. I sat up in bed, put my feet on the floor, and with the aches and pains of a bad knee remembered that I was fifty four, and it was all a dream. Bittersweet memories of home, of my parents now gone, an aging body, and an empty table awaiting me downstairs was suddenly my reality. I immediately realized I had a choice to make. I could either fall back into bed, which I was heavily in favor of, or I could make that breakfast myself. With all the enthusiasm I could muster, I chose to do what Mama would have done. This Southern boy was going to have his biscuits.
Jimmy Dean pure pork sausage, check. Pillsbury buttermilk biscuits, yes! Fig preserves! Oh, God is so good. Everything I need sitting before me in the refrigerator. A bag of Starbucks coffee in the cupboard was a plus. 450 degrees and a cup of coffee later I was sitting down at the table with my breakfast. The phrase ‘southern ambrosia’, passed through my head as I readied that biscuit like a Marine would ready his uniform before an inspection. I made two for myself. One with fig preserves. Not just fig preserves, but fig preserves that I had made earlier in the summer from our own fig tree. The other I prepared ala ‘Steven Martinez’ style. Steven and I were combat medics attached to a Marine unit stationed out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Steven taught me how to make the combat MRE’s more appealing by adding Tabasco sauce to everything. I grew to like it quite a bit. So the second biscuit was smothered in that piquant hot sauce from New Iberia, Louisiana. Now it was time to eat. I stopped an inch short of putting that biscuit to my mouth and remembered why all this busy work began in the first place.
As I put the biscuit back down in the plate, I bowed my head and thanked God for giving me my family, for giving me the food set before me, and also for giving me the parents I had growing up in south Mississippi. I realized that it was much deeper than just putting food on the table. It was also about love, accountability, and tradition. I almost wished for a moment that a young hungry salesman would knock on the door. How I would love to share this second biscuit with him. Even if he gets the one smothered in Tabasco sauce.
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