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Tough Rhubarb
This story took place in the mid 40's. WW II was a very recent memory and its results were still fresh in people's memories. There were still "Victory Gardens", sales of War Bonds, and gas and food rationing. The necessity of the above would soon disperse, but there was still rhubarb in our garden.
The new oleomargarine was fine, even before it was colored. It was fun when we had to mix the red dye to create the “almost” color of real butter. We also used brown sugar mixed with coffee to replace maple syrup and it tasted much better than it sounds. The lack of chocolate candy didn't bother either. But to continue to grow rhubarb in our garden was too much. I hated rhubarb. Still do.
My grandmother could sweeten it until the cows came home, but it was still rhubarb. I dared not to pull it up or cut off the stalks. She would know who the culprit was. I had to think of something else.
One day a friend and I were playing in our back yard. He had needed to use our bathroom, but waited too long to be able to make it to our upstairs facilities. In stead he said he was going to go behind the lilac bush.
A light clicked. I immediately told him to "go" on the rhubarb. It was out of the way plus I told him we used the young lilac stalks to make arrows for our homemade bows. I later explained my plight to him about the rhubarb.
It was the beginning of the campaign to kill the rhubarb. Friends went out of their way to help kill it. I started hunting fireflies almost every night (even when there were none in sight) using the cover of dark to "water" the rhubarb. I punched holes in the stalks with a sewing needle to help quicken the rhubarbs death.
It did not die. It may have been in poor health, but it did not die.
Our next large sit down dinner had two rhubarb pies, one sour cherry, and one apple pie, all from our back yard. When it came to desert, guests came first, and then adults, then my sister and I and then my grandmother were last. When it came to my grandmother and myself, only the rhubarb remained.
When I explained I wasn't hungry she told me once again about the children in China and we each ate our piece in silence. The pie didn't taste any different to me, as it was always bad. Knowing what had gone into the holes of the Rhubarb and the soil around it however, made me physically sick just thinking about it.
My grandmother did not get sick. She never said a word, but the remainder of the two pies disappeared and rhubarb never appeared in the garden again.
Whenever I think of rhubarb I remember that year and feel the guilt that I did that night watching her eat that piece of pie in silence. To my knowledge, she never knew.
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