The Griddle

At the local library, I’ve been taking a class in memoir-writing led by a local author. She is quite organized with a free workbook for each of us and each session has helped stimulate more recollections into stories for me. Our first optional assignment this week involved putting a memory together from a list of prompts.

         Of the prompts, the words frying pan jumped out at me – it reminded me of the griddle incident from long ago, and I put the following story together.

In my grade school days, my parents both smoked. Their brand of choice for a while was Sir Walter Raleigh cigarettes because each pack had a coupon. My folks were saving the coupons to redeem for a griddle. When the griddle arrived at last, Dad enjoyed using it for cooking Sunday breakfast. The griddle had a ridge for the grease to collect. So Dad would fry the bacon, collect and drain the grease, and then fix the eggs or pancakes on the still slick cooking surface.

         One Sunday, I was the only one up when Dad started frying. He finished the bacon, and I watched as he lifted the griddle to drain the grease. For some reason, the griddle tilted at the wrong time, and the hot bacon grease ran onto Dad’s forearm! The moment seemed so unreal! Dad calmly set the griddle down and walked to the bathroom to run cold water over his arm and check the medicine cabinet for something else to put on it. The pain had not yet set in. I guess he was in shock.

         Dad came out of the bathroom and called my Aunt Rita on the phone. She was a nighttime nurse at the county jail. He told her what happened and asked if he should rub the arm with butter? Aunt Rita said, “NO! – you do not put grease on a burn!” She told him to keep the arm under running cold water as cold as possible for as long as possible.

         The pain, severe, serious burn pain, set in. Dad kept his arm in the kitchen sink with the cold water. He watched the blister form along the entire length of his left forearm. A while later my Aunt Rita called and asked how he was doing. The blister had not opened, and skin was not shedding off of his arm. Aunt Rita felt confident that Dad’s arm was going to be all right – but she was surprised – from what he had described, she thought there would be skin grafts at the least, some loss of arm function at the worst. But Dad had kept his wits about him during the extreme emergency and he had done everything just right. Through it all he endured a heck of a lot of pain and a long recovery. And when everything was healed, there were no scars! Well, that was Dad!

011 20180228 The Griddle Incident