Mom was not a cook!

I was ten years old before I realized that fried eggs did not have to be tough and have a chewy brown, lacey edge. Once I had fried eggs at a friend’s home without this adornment, and insisted my eggs at home not have this quality, Mom (Aldine Busch) really tried to fry my eggs in the manner I wanted, but succeeded less than half the time. I think the basic problem was that she never really grasped the concept of how the gas stove flames could be turned high or low under the grease filled cast iron skillet; she always had the flames turned as high as they would go. She was aware of her cooking deficiencies and occasionally tried to improve upon them. I remember once when I was about 7 years old, and we were living in an apartment on Summit St. in Kansas City, MO. Actually, this was just before my Mom and Dad (Clyde Estes) separated and divorced, though I’m sure this incident had nothing to do with THAT. Mom purchased a ‘pressure cooker’. She was excited about the contraption and thought all her ‘cooking’ problems were over. The very first time she used it, it exploded. Luckily, no one had been in the kitchen, so no one got hurt. The noise was impressive though, people in the adjoining apartments (it was a two story brick 4-plex) heard it and came running, and there was food everywhere, the kitchen walls, and even on the ceiling! Mom immediately gave the bright shiny contraption to her friend Betty Ford, (who helped her clean the kitchen), who used it successfully, and teased Mom about it, for years. Mom had one way of cooking anything, burned! She could and did, burn toast in a toaster, scraping off the ‘darkness’ with a butter knife with short fast motions, dark crumbs falling into the kitchen sink, leaving me with a very skinny slice of bread. While she was removing the burned part of the bread, she would remind me that we were lucky to have a toaster, instead of having to toast bread in the oven. I do not think Mom liked to cook, it was not one of her life interests, just a means to an end, eating. She liked to eat though, but her idea of ‘food’ and ‘meal’ were not the usual. In her defense however was the fact that she always worked full-time, and we did not always have a car, both of which tend to make shopping for, and preparing food a little more difficult. Mom had three ‘meal’ modalities; sandwiches, eating out, and fried, burned whatever. We ate a lot of sandwiches! In the mid 1960’s she really came into her own, as far as food preparation, with the fad of the Lazy Susan. At that time, it was just the two of us and we lived in California, in a great two-bedroom pool apartment on Verdugo Rd. in Glendale. Mom had a good job, a car (a white Chevy Nova) and I was in my late teens (and fairly proficient at cooking by then). Maybe Mom couldn’t cook, but she could clean veggies, cut salami, cube cheese, take crackers out of boxes, olives, and pickles out of jars with the best of them. From that point on, she viewed ‘balanced’ meals in a completely different way.

Birth of a Writer

I can pinpoint, almost to the minute, the birth of my writing career. It was 1956, mid-fall, getting dark earlier, and crisp out. However, there had not been a snowfall yet. We were living in a red brick house somewhere in North Kansas City. I was ten years old and in the fifth grade at still one more school whose name goes unremembered, (there were so many schools as we moved about!).

I was sitting in the one remaining swing of an old, dilapidated swing set that prior tenets had left in the rocky back yard. My feet kept me barely moving back and forth. My mom was inside cooking dinner and my stepfather had not gotten home from work yet.

My Mom (Then Aldine Bush) were in the midst of still another round of domesticity; trying one more time to “make it work.” George Bush, had once more promised to stop drinking. Even at the tender age of ten, I knew it would not last long, it never did, and I was waiting for the blow up as you wait for the storm clouds to finally drown you.

I had finished reading the comic book Mom had bought home for me when she came home from work, but I did not want to go in until I was called. Gently swinging back and forth in that old swing, I pulled my jacket tighter around me, trying to stay warm against the evening wind. I again thumbed through the comic, and there, in the exact center of the magazine, was a two page short story; no cartoons, just words, and the only thing left unread. Glancing at the rapidly darkening sky, I tried to judge how long I would have enough light to read or how long until my mom called me to come inside for dinner.

Bored, I read the ‘story’. I was enthralled with the story as soon as I started reading it. It was like nothing I had ever read before; not at school, not at home, not at the library; it was my first young adult story, and my first short-short story.

When I had finished reading it, I rolled the comic book up into a tube and held it in my right hand. Pushing on the ground with my feet and straightening my legs I came to a semi-standing position. The sky was now totally dark and stars were winking overhead. I could see through the kitchen window where Mom was still bustling around the kitchen. But outside, in the deepening dark, around me, the night was quiet and cold.

Suddenly, and with breathtaking clarity, as surely, as if lightening had struck, I knew I was to be a writer. As if the muse, whose existence I did not even know about, had reached out a hand from heaven, touched me with an electrified finger, and marked me in some indefinable way.
I remained where I was for a long while, catching my breath, and dealing with the awe at what had just happened to me.

Excited, I went inside. Mom was frying fish in a big iron skillet, turning the pieces with a long handled fork (which I still have in my own kitchen drawer).

I sat down at the table and told her what had happened to me. I was afraid that she would make fun of me or would not believe what happened. Instead, she listened while dredging still more pieces of fish in a corn meal mixture and layering them in the skillet. Mom almost always listened to me.

Then she talked, as she put the fried fish on a platter, about how much she liked to read (especially spicy Romance Magazines!), and how she wished she had the talent to write. Mom told me I could be anything I wanted, even a writer.

I could not fall asleep for a long time that night though warm and cozy under a lot of blankets, my reading light clipped onto my headboard on, and my bedside radio turned on, the volume low; I could not even concentrate on the book I was reading (Nancy Drew?), thinking about what had happened to me.

That was the beginning of my pursuit of ‘art’ instead of homes, vacations, or husbands!

The Candy Dish

This was my Mother’s (Aldine Busch) ‘Crystal’ Candy Dish and one of her favorites too! I do not think there has been a day in my 62 years that I have not seen this dish sitting on one table or another.

I have no idea if it is really ‘crystal’ or cut glass; and I don’t care, it is tradition in this family now. A tradition started by my Mother.

I have no idea of where my Mom got this candy dish to begin with, if she purchased it herself, or if it was a gift, but she did love it.

Depending on who was going to be visiting, Mom usually filled it with chocolates of various types, often my Mom’s own favorites, chocolate covered peanuts, or chocolate covered malted milk balls.

Now it is my Candy Dish and has been for many years. Though I often keep it safely put away in a cupboard, it is often out and in use. Right now, it is sitting on my dining room table, filled with a mixture of hard candies.

Visitors often reach out and help themselves to a candy. Isn’t that what a ‘candy dish’ is all about, comfort and hospitality? This one, no matter its origin, or if it is crystal or cut glass, has served well, for well over half a century now!


I was ten years old before I realized that fried eggs did not have to be tough and have a chewy brown, lacey edge. Once I had fried eggs at a friend’s home without this adornment, and insisted my eggs at home not have this quality, Mom really tried to fry my eggs in the manner I wanted, but succeeded less than half the time. I think the basic problem was that she never really grasped the concept of how the gas stove flames could be turned high or low under the grease filled cast iron skillet; she always had the flames turned as high as they would go. She was aware of her cooking deficiencies and occasionally tried to improve upon them. I remember once when I was about 7 years old, and we were living in an apartment on Summit St. in Kansas City, MO. Actually, this was just before my Mom and Dad (Clyde Estes) separated and divorced, though I’m sure this incident had nothing to do with THAT. Mom purchased a ‘pressure cooker’. She was excited about the contraption and thought all her ‘cooking’ problems were over. The very first time she used it, it exploded. Luckily, no one had been in the kitchen, so no one got hurt. The noise was impressive though, people in the adjoining apartments (it was a two story brick 4-plex) heard it and came running, and there was food everywhere, the kitchen walls, and even on the ceiling! Mom immediately gave the bright shiny contraption to her friend Betty Ford, (who helped her clean the kitchen), who used it successfully, and teased Mom about it, for years. Mom had one way of cooking anything, burned! She could and did, burn toast in a toaster, scraping off the ‘darkness’ with a butter knife with short fast motions, dark crumbs falling into the kitchen sink, leaving me with a very skinny slice of bread. While she was removing the burned part of the bread, she would remind me that we were lucky to have a toaster, instead of having to toast bread in the oven. I do not think Mom liked to cook, it was not one of her life interests, just a means to an end, eating. She liked to eat though, but her idea of ‘food’ and ‘meal’ were not the usual. In her defense however was the fact that she always worked full-time, and we did not always have a car, both of which tend to make shopping for, and preparing food a little more difficult. Mom had three ‘meal’ modalities; sandwiches, eating out, and fried, burned whatever. We ate a lot of sandwiches! In the mid 1960’s she really came into her own, as far as food preparation, with the fad of the Lazy Susan. At that time, it was just the two of us and we lived in California, in a great two-bedroom pool apartment on Verdugo Rd. in Glendale. Mom had a good job, a car (a white Chevy Nova) and I was in my late teens (and fairly proficient at cooking by then). Maybe Mom couldn’t cook, but she could clean veggies, cut salami, cube cheese, take crackers out of boxes, olives, and pickles out of jars with the best of them. From that point on, she viewed ‘balanced’ meals in a completely different way.