Popcorn: Incident One

In our house in the 1950’s mom, like most, did the grocery shopping about once a week. If packaged and processed food existed in the 50’s, it certainly did not exist in the Jensen household. Snacks consisted of apples, carrots or raisins. Getting hungry between meals and looking in the refrigerator for something good to eat was really an exercise in futility. Mom always told us that if you did not want carrots or raisins, you simply were not hungry. You were pretty sure you were hungry, but wise enough to know better than push mom to show you all the perfectly good food in the frig that you could be eating if you were truly hungry. Hence, popcorn, being inexpensive and sold in a large enough quantity to actually last in the house for any period of time, was the snack food of choice. Mom would make us popcorn as an after-school snack or we would have it on Sunday nights while watching The Wonderful World of Disney.

There was a definite art to the making of the popcorn. You had to use the popcorn pan for starters. This pan was really used for no other purpose. It was an old, beat up looking saucepan that I could never conceive of as being new. You had to add just a bit of oil or Crisco to the bottom of the pan along with the popcorn and wait for the oil to heat the corn and start the popping process. The key was that you had to shake the pan the entire time the corn was popping and remove the pan immediately from the hot burner once the popping stopped or you would burn it.

Well, one night mom and dad went out and left DJ and RJ in charge of KJ and me. Ken was probably about 7 at the time and I was around 4. KJ and I decided it would be okay to make some popcorn. We had seen it done and were sure we were entirely capable. Self-sufficiency over safety was our motto. Who knows where RJ and DJ were, obviously not watching us. Not able to reach the top of the stove, we had to push a chair over to stand on while we cooked. Ken was the cooker and shaker of the popcorn. I think I was the assistant, getting the bowl, etc. When the corn stopped popping and we knew it needed to come off the burner post haste we encountered our first problem. Where to put the hot pan? KJ took the pan off the burner and carefully got down off the chair and took the pan from the stove and placed it on the chair. These were our chrome kitchen chairs with a padded back and seat ~ very deco. Mom had just that day, or the day before, finished reupholstering them in a trendy pink vinyl embedded with what appeared to be flecks of silver glitter. We did not have a lot of new furniture in our house and mom prided herself on reupholstering what we had to make it look up to date.

Oh…the horror! KJ and I stared in shock at the seat of the chair upon lifting the pan. Where there was new pink vinyl there was now a seemingly gigantic hole with stuffing protruding and the now slightly blackish pink vinyl melted to the bottom of the pan. I think we immediately put the pan back over the gaping abyss hoping that we could somehow reverse the damage. This I believe was my first brush with pure panic. An entire eternity eclipsed waiting for mom and dad to get home. The waiting was really the worst part of any punishment. The phase of the Jensen house for such impending doom was, “boy, are you going to get it!” Even at my tender age, I knew that whatever “it” was, I certainly did not want it. KJ and I thought of trying to cover up or hide this disaster only to decide that throwing ourselves on the mercy of court was really the best option. I do not remember if we got punished, because as luck would have it, mom had some leftover vinyl and was able to redo the chair. A stroke of luck that saved us from the much dreaded “it”. I am not sure what I thought was going to happen to us as we were never punished with any severity, but I learned about the power of fear. This is only one popcorn incident of many. Stay tuned.