So here's the short of it, 
Chow Mein - Howard style!

And here's the long.

Russ got into Chattanooga sometime late yesterday evening.  He and Mom ran errands most of the morning.  He's so good to figure out what kinds of things need to be done when he's visiting and then get them done.  Mom's had a leak in the hall bathroom - something I didn't even know about.  He got up on the roof, figured out what needed to be done, and then they went to Home Depot and got the stuff.  He'd probably already have it fixed if it hadn't started to rain this afternoon!

Anyway late morning, Mom called to say that Russ had decided we should make old timey "Howard Chow Mein", and to ask what I thought about that.  Oh My!  What a wonderful idea.

Dad had such an adventurous spirit in so many ways.  We must have been really small children - I suppose I was very small and maybe Steve had just been born.  Here's the way Mom tells the story.  Dad had been away for a convention.  At the time he was working as a County Agent and had probably gone to Lexington.  The group of them must have gone out to eat at a Chinese restaurant.  Mom says that he started coming home with cans of Chinese vegetables, rice, and such.  When she asked him what he wanted her to do with it, he told her that he thought they might make some Chinese Food.  So the great Chow Mein Adventure began.

My memories kick in with Dad in the kitchen cubing pork to make the Chow Mein.  Russ remembers helping Dad with that task and the great detail with which he removed the fat and made the pieces just right.  I don't have lots of memories of the way things were put together; Russ has much clearer memories of that.  I do remember that there was always a can or two of La Choy chinese vegetables in our food shelves.

My next memories - I was still really little - are of Dad telling us that we couldn't have any of the Chow Mein, because we weren't big enough.  Of course that really whet our appetite to try this food that no one anywhere else in our world was eating.  I for sure knew that Dad didn't know what he was talking about - I was certainly old enough to be eating Chow Mein.

I have another clear memory of a Chow Mein night.  It was in the Lynnwood Terrace house in Pineville.  We were eating in the Kitchen at the wooden round table.  Dad and Mom had been making the Chow Mein.  The noodles came in a can.  Mom would put the whole can into the oven on a low temperature to warm up.  The rest of the meal was done in skillets on the stove top.
We were all there - the family of five.  Mom and Dad sat next to one another and we kids sat around filling the table.  The food was in steaming bowls on the table.  There was an exact way every one put their plate together.  First the rice went on the plate.  Then there might be some variation.  I always put the Chow Mein mixture next and then the noodles on top of that so that they would stay crispy.  It seems that some one else put rice, then noodles, then the Chow Mein.  Dad still chuckled and told us that we couldn't have any because we wouldn't like it - although he knew that we all loved it.

Now here's another memory.  Dessert.  Dad and I both loved to have some of the leftover rice with sugar on it and then milk.  I can't remember if Mom or Russ or Steve ever partook in that particular delicacy.  It was a bit like his dessert on the nights when we had cornbread with our meal.  Cornbread crumbled into a glass with milk poured over it - eaten with a spoon.

Russ and I had a good time cooking the Chow Mein.  At dinner Mom asked if we thought it tasted like Dad's.  I loved Russ's answer.  He said - I think Dad would have to be here for it to taste the same.  It was good, but Oh Yes, Russ you're right -

I'm looking forward to more good days of visiting with Russ.