The Things That Shape Us
Posted: March 10, 2014 Filed under: Musings | Tags: Bob Bonsall, dad, family, Robert Bonsall 3 CommentsI made a bologna and mayo sandwich for lunch today.
This isn’t really significant in itself, except for a few things. First, I rarely take my lunch to work. I’m more of a “get out of the office” kind of guy, even though working in Arlington makes that an expensive proposition. Second, even when I do take my lunch to work, I’m usually too lazy to actually prepare a lunch; I’ll just grab some leftovers or a frozen meal. Finally, I greatly prefer a hot meal to a cold one, so whether eating out or dining in having a cold sandwich really isn’t my style.
So why this sandwich, and why today? I didn’t really give it much thought, other than that I was craving bologna and mayo. Then as I was making lunch this morning it hit me all at once: Dad would have been 68 today.
It’s a small thing, nothing really, and yet everything. Dad was a great cook; he could make everything from chili to French onion soup to a complete turkey dinner with all the trimmings. He was a master at the grill or the stove, and yet he never lost his love for something as simple as a bologna and mayo sandwich. It’s the first kind of sandwich I ever learned to love, and I even put it on a hoagie roll, because that’s the kind Dad would have liked.
I don’t think about Dad every day any more, which is as it should be I suppose, although I think about him more days than not. I still miss him, and I always will, but I have to get on with my life. I’m just grateful to realize that he’s always going to be with me in all sorts of little ways, ways I won’t even realize. My love of music, my love for animals, my fierce loyalty to my family, even my temper…
And bologna and mayo sandwiches.
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My Not So Humble Opinion 
❤
That’s so thrilling that you remember your Dad like that. I used to disagree with my Mother on some things but now that she’s gone I think of the sense she had for advice about some things.
I’m the same way. I often remember the Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”