The Burgerless Burger

 I love to grill hamburgers and hotdogs over a hickory fire and enjoying getting together to share the food and fun.  As everyone built their hamburger to their liking, the subject of my famous hamburger arose.  I once told that when I was young, we could not afford hamburger meat so I would make a hamburger without the meat.  Friends would laugh at me and say that I was crazy.  I told them not to knock until they tried it.

When we moved back to Alabama from Illinois in 1960, Dad could not find work.  There were many times when we had little or no food in the house.  There had been a short time when we first moved to Illinois, that we had little or no food, but dad quickly got work there and we had plenty.

One of my favorite sandwiches is bread with butter baked in the oven and then sprinkled with sugar.  I remember momma with tears in her eyes saying to my sister and me that there was no food, but how good the sugar-coated buttered toast was.  When food was in short supply, mamma would always say she was not hungry give us her food.  She did that night with the buttered toast.

Back in Alabama, there were several times that there was no food.  Momma would always remind us that God would take care of us.  I remember one morning that the cupboard was bare.  We heard a vehicle in the yard and my sister, two brothers, and I went to see who it was.  It was an old 1950 baby blue Plymouth Deluxe, my Grandpaw Chapman’s car.  By the way, it is the same car that my daughter Angela had the fire department retrieve from our burning basement and I had restored.

Grandpaw had bags of groceries for us.  That morning we had milk and cereal for breakfast and other delights.  God used Grandpaw that morning.  A time or two later, my aunt would bring us food.

Daddy always felt bad that other people had to provide what he could not.  Grandpaw just encouraged him to keep looking for work which daddy finally did.  We soon bought a tractor and traded for some pigs.  After that, we had plenty of food.

At the family discussion, we told our guests, that one time one of the family took time and skill to create her hamburger.  This person had all the fixin’s a person could put on a hamburger.  This person had this knack for making food look delicious when they eat.  They use the expression “lambing good.”  All I know is that means it is delicious, I think.

This family member was about half way through eating the hamburger when they realized that they had failed to put her hamburger patty in the sandwich.  I told them, “See it is pretty good without the meat!”

When one does not have an abundance of food, one can be creative.  My family tells me that I eat like a pig.  It is not so much the sloppiness, but the things I eat.  The other day I fixed a potato salad hamburger.  I put the leftover potato salad on the meat in a bun.  It was pretty good.  Growing up I fixed many mayonnaise and sugar sandwiches.  One of my favorites is a peanut butter and cinnamon pickle sandwich.  My sister takes cucumbers and red-hot candies to make the pickles.  It is a Chilton county version of apple rings.

When there is a shortage of bread, I have combined bananas and turkey meat in the same sandwich.  Remember; don’t knock it till you try it.  With a shortage of hamburger and plenty of hog sausage, a sausage burger is real good.

Another good sandwich is leftover cold dried butter beans with catsup.  A mustard mayonnaise sandwich is good in pinch.  A leftover meatloaf spread with mayonnaise is real good.  My philosophy is, if is leftover, it can be a good sandwich.  Watching one the food channels I found out that there is a sandwich named the “Bobby.”  It is made with leftover turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and mayonnaise placed on sub sandwich bread.  After the program, my baby son Aaron said he could not believe someone made sandwiches like me.  He commented that he would like to try a “Bobby Sandwich.”  It looked good.

You will not believe it, but a story about Eddie Rickenbacker inspired this article.  Rickenbacker was a WWI flying ace that downed 26 enemy planes.  In WWII he worked in the Secretary of War Department and during one of his visits to troops was shot down in the ocean.  For twenty-four days he drifted.  About to starve to death, a seagull landed on his float.  He killed it, ate it, and lived to be rescued.

Rickenbacker’s story inspired a devotional titled “When the Seagull Doesn’t Come.”  The devotional is a reminder of faith in God.  God will never leave us nor forsake us.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  The Lord God is my strength . . . (Habakkuk 3:17-19a KJV).

I don’t know if momma knew these verses, but she understood the principle of faith.

 

"Dive Angela, Dive"

 My daughter Angela is a “Dumpster Diver.”  What is a Dumpster Diver?  Let me share portions of an article by Kari Abate and Kyle Looby on “The Art of Dumpster Diving:”

Dumpster diving is the deliberate art of gleaning perfectly usable items from commercial and residential dumpsters. It is legal in most areas as long as there are no signs posted against trespassing. To be sure, check your city ordinances, or just call the police department.

The term dumpster diving refers to the position most divers assume in order to retrieve items without actually getting in the dumpster: Picture yourself balanced on the edge of the dumpster, head in the dumpster and legs in the air behind you. (Novice divers may experience some initial discomfort around the abdomen and ribcage. This will pass.)

Safety should always take precedence. No bag of sheets or even the mother lode of brand-name designer shirts is worth a trip to the hospital!

Now, the fun part. Where does one dive? Generally speaking, any store that has a dumpster is up for grabs. Retail dumpsters include craft supply stores, party supply stores, drug stores (a great source of greeting cards, boxed chocolates, small gifts, cases of soda and toys), book stores, department stores, discount stores, pet supply stores, home décor stores, thrift stores and hardware stores.

Once you've started diving, you'll never look at a dumpster the same way again. To us, they are no longer merely trash receptacles, but rather secret treasure chests waiting to be looted.  But you'll never know what you may find in your local dumpsters unless you look, so get out there and lift some lids.

Strip malls are the best places to find retail dumpsters -- they're usually located behind the buildings. Apartment complexes, meanwhile, are a great source of furniture, clothes, small appliances, televisions, VCRs, household items and more.

Angela’s specialty is discarded furniture.  She has become very successful transforming old cabinet doors into plaques with Scripture on them.  People adorn their homes with these plaques creating a market for Angela to sell more.  Family has bought several from her and given them as gifts for showers, birthdays, and Christmas.  People love the transformed dumpster treasures.

Angela has refurbished tables and chairs, coffee tables and chairs, and home entertainment centers.

Angela has raided my shed for items that could be transformed into décor treasures.  She collected old car tags, a broken John Deere lawnmower steering wheel, an old sign or two and probably some stuff I haven’t missed until I need them.

Angela may have inherited the art of dumpster diving from my dad.  He did not dumpster dive, but he did collect produce that a grocery store dumped and daddy supplied the barrels.  It is amazing what stores discard.  We never had to buy butcher knives or aprons.  There was a steady supply from the store.

We started out slopping the hogs with this foodstuff, but we realized there was a lot of good food tossed away.  Pardon the pun, but we did eat high on the hog until the health department informed the grocery store that dad could no longer get the waste claiming that it was unhealthy.

All I can say the only way it was unhealthy it got the hawgs slaughtered and the Hopper family was a little on “porky” side in our size.  I wonder how people got by for centuries without health department regulations.

 

I read another article on dumpster diving where a father, a dumpster diver, cooked a very delicious breakfast from his dumpster dive.

Once you get over the initial shock that people actually do this, you'll quickly realize that it isn't as gross as it sounds. Commercial dumpsters are very clean because employee trash is bagged, while the good stuff is usually in a box or tossed in loosely. Actually, store dumpsters usually smell quite good because of the discarded candles, potpourri and perfume. (Most dumpsters smell like the stores that use them!) Dumpsters are designed to keep critters out, so you typically won't run into rats and other vermin.

As Americans, we are wasteful.  Bins of good food, clothing, and household items head to dumps while people need food, clothing, and shelter.  Company policies and government regulations prevent or halt what could be given to shelters and charity organizations for distributions to those who need it.

On another venue, our churches have all the resources to feed spiritual food, but as a nation we are suffer spiritual malnutrition.  A great example comes from a survey of women in churches by Dr. Denise George.

 In her book, What Women Wish Pastors Knew, she writes,

All around me I see women who exist with the barest scriptural basics and live with thin skin stretched over bones of spiritual malnourishment . . . As a nation, we possess all the necessary resources to feed starving people the life-giving meat of Scripture, yet hungry people search the trash bins of secularism in search of spiritual food.

 And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.  And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 19:9-10 KJV).

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11 KJV). 

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in (Matthew 25:35 KJV).