The Corn Flake Cure – a Tribute for Father’s Day

copyright by Ruth Lampert June 2008

There must be 150 varieties of cold cereal in the market, and although I virtuously choose the crunchy high fibe “Heart Healthy” there will always be a special place in my heart for plain old corn flakes, the grain of tender memory.

I was about eight years old when I came down with whooping cough. That nasty childhood disease has now largely vasished. .I have forgotten most of my experience with it except for how exhausting and incessant that hacking cough was. What I remember is my father, and the loving part he, and corn flakes, played in smy recuperation

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was wrapped in that delicious euphoria that comes with feeling better. Not yet completely well – still weak enough to be pampered. Mother, Bob, and Cine were out somewhere, and Daddy stayed home with me.

Just the two of us! How rare a treat. No need to share his special presence, his scent of shaving lotion and cigars, his gentle jokes. The apartment was warm and cozy. We listened to the radio - I don’t remember what was on, all the really good shows, like Jack Benny, Rudee Valley, and Major Bowes Amateur Hour came on in the evening – and after awhile he said
“Snack time! Doctor Daddy’s orders for the patient!”.

I still had no appetite , but it sounded like fun anyway. Declaring that this was a special occasion calling for the dining room, he brought out the fresh bottle of milk which had been standing on its head in the refrigertor so the cream would disperse evenly throughout (no homogenization, no 2%, no slick cardboard cartons, no lactose-free or soy milk back then, just the regular milk-man-delivered milk in a regular glass milk bottle, cream risisng to the top as things of quality and richness do ) He assembeld it all on the table with a fresh, unopened box of Kelloggs Corn Flakes.

There weren’t many choices of packaged cereals then. Rice Krispies were good, although they didn’t exactly snap crackle and pop as advertised. I understood Wheaties. The Breakfast of Champoins, to be for boys, as attested to by its sponsoring of the radio program “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy” (We hadn’t yet evolved to gender neutrality) The various bran varieties clearly were intended for old folks who seemed to need some help with certain vaguely hinted at bodily functions that had to do with something called “regularity.” Puffed Rice wasn’t bad in a pinch, but my cereal of choice was Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

I took one spoonful, just to please him. It was delicious! No ad, no singing commercial, could ever describe that heavenly crispness, slightly tenderized by fresh cold milk. Daddy laughed as I finished my bowl before he was halfway through his, and asked for seconds.

“You bet, but slow down a little, your stomach is empty and if you get sick, Mother will really holler at us!” A joke, because we both knew that he was the principal healer in the parental dyad. (Although as I think back,
I realize it was Mother who was there while he was at work through my long days of whooping and hacking.)

I finished off the second bowl, and then we “retired to the living room” to sprawl on the couch, and lazily listen to whatever was on the radio.

I dozed off, lulled by the sweet combination of returning health and quiet intimacy with a beloeved parent. The sound of his gentle snoring woke me briefly. I went back to sleep, waking again to see him looking at me with such tenderness in his eyes that I burst into delighted laughter.

The key turned in the front door lock. There was more laughter as Mother, Cine and Bob burst in, bringing cold Chicago winteriness in with grocery bags from the A&P. bringing cold Chicago winteriness with them. . .
They all exclaimed about good my color was, how chipper I seemed, how well I had done in Daddy’s care. He smiled a falsely modest smile, and said, “Nothing at all, she was just ready to make the turn around I happened to be here. I can’t take the credit. It was mostly the Corn Flakes that did it.”
“I think you’re good for her,” Mother said.
Indeed, he was.