The Good Life

During the early 1970’s shortly after Pam and I got married, we lived in Arroya Verde (out in the boonies at that time) in Fritch, Texas. We had one neighbor across the street and one on the street behind us. The area was brand new. Our time at this location turned out to be what I call the Good Life. Here’s the Story.

The Good Life

Sometime after we got married, I found out that’s Pam’s dad had previously been a butcher and he still had all his tools. I got to talking to him about buying a beef and cutting it up in my garage. So we decided we would buy a whole beef in Amarillo and bring it back to my house and butcher it. PoPo had a friend that worked at one of the slaughter houses in Amarillo and asked him to save us a good one. At 5 AM Saturday morning, we took my old pick up and headed to pick up the beef. The beef was huge and we paid about $500 for the whole thing. They quartered it and loaded in my pickup and we drove to Fritch and went to work. PoPo was the butcher, I ground and blended the hamburger meat, and Pam and MaMo wrapped and labeled the meat packages. We worked for about 8 hours and loaded our freezer with our half of the beef. The next day, I grilled some of the steaks. Those steaks were melt in your mouth good and in my opinion the best I have ever eaten in my life to date. We had hit the jackpot and had a freezer full of the beef.  Part of the Good Life stems from the fact that we always had fine cuts of beef at our finger tips and we tended to eat much better that we otherwise would. I can remember having my brother Craig over to eat steaks. It always amazed Pam that Craig would eat the whole steak including the fat and there would not scrap left on his plate. After eating one of those steaks, he would often stretch out on the couch and take a nap.

 

PoPo’s  buddy picked us a good beef. It was truly fantastic.

 

The Charcoal grilled steaks from the beef were out of this world. Ummmmm Good.

 

My brother Craig asleep on the couch in Hog Heaven after totally consuming one of those heavenly grilled steaks.

 

 

On the Dumas highway near Stinnett, Texas, there was a guy that raised the best Sweet Corn ever and sold it at a barn beside the road every year. Pam and I would stop and get six full bushels every year we were there. We would take two bushels to MaMo and PoPo and blanch the rest of it for freezing. We would put three ears per plastic bag ( one for Pam. One for me, and a half each for the girls). The corn was so good we had it more often than we probably should.

 Sweet corn fresh from the field headed for our freezer.  Another year of fine dining.

 

In the summer time we would spend two weeks at South Fork Colorado. We started canning trout and would bring home four cases of canned trout each year. The Trout paddies were much better than Salmon patties. We always were out by the time our next summer trip came around.

 

Canned trout fixed like Salmon Patties are excellent. Trout patties with Mac and cheese and a fresh garden salad makes a wonderful meal.

 

In the Spring every year, my Dad would start calling me a couple a of times a week to go fishing in the evenings after work. We nearly always caught a several large walleye which we filleted and put in the freezer. About once a month we would have a fish fry and have all the family over.

 

Chunks of filleted Wall Eyed Pike with fried potatoes and sweet corn make for a wonderful  meal at the fish frys we had.

 

I grew a garden every year in the rich Sandy soil there. We always had fresh vegetables for the table and we canned pickles and green beans. The turnips grew as big as apples. I often ate them like apples.

 

That’s Me working the garden area shortly after planting one year.  Soon there will be fresh vegetables on the table.  My crack might be showing from behind. Just a good ole boy at work.

 

As I think about it now, I wonder why we didn’t get to be porkers while we lived there. But for sure it was the Good Life.

Thanks for reading The Good Life,
Bill