I’ve been bouncing around about what to write tonight. But dang it, all day long, my mind keeps drifting back to the bologna sandwich. So I may as well give in.
Isn’t it funny, how things call to our minds? I haven’t had any bologna in a long, long time. But the memories are vivid.
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved a bologna sandwich. Like crazy. Granted, that was the mainstay meat in our home. We had fried bologna with our fried eggs in the morning. Lunchtime was usually bologna sandwich on white bread (with some Fritos if we were lucky). Need a snack after school? Second verse, same as the first. One thing about those sandwiches: they were always made with love.
And I never tired of this childhood delicacy. I can remember sitting elbows astride my plate, chin right down next to that white-Formica-topped kitchen table (with the little-gold-fleck-design) and taking that bologna sandwich in both hands like my life depended on it. And then I would pitch in with all my might.
Each and every time, it tasted like magic. I always felt better after eating one. No matter where, or when, or how. The world was all right with Kahn’s on my side. (Just for the record. My bologna did not have a first name. And. My bologna did not have a second name either.) Just a singular name, and that was good old Kahn’s.
It was all so very superb.
Early on in our lives, at least for me, that seemed to be how things would go. I had lots of these happy moments. Mostly, things seemed good and alright. I was very lucky in this way. And if something would go askew, it was typically fleeting. Inconsequential.
But as adults, things get a bit thick sometimes. Downright sideways.
I have a good friend who is going through a terrible bout right now. Their life has been clipping along from one bad event to the next. There have been several difficult incidents and occurrences at every turn. The old saying, “When it rains, it pours,” is truly fitting here.
I keep asking if there is anything I can do or any way I can help. And there just doesn’t seem to be anything right now that will make matters improve.
I wish I could pull out a bologna sandwich and make it all better.
But it just doesn’t work that way anymore. There are times like these, when things get so complicated, and demanding, and troublesome, that all we can do is hang on. We can be assured, that there will be solutions, or settlements, or answers. Because life changes. It never remains the same. Yet, while we are there, in the difficulty and strife, it seems like there will be no end to it. But. We just have to keep breathing, and believing.
There will be good to come. You see. Right after breakfast comes lunch. That next bologna sandwich is right around the corner.
Made by someone who truly cares and made with a lot of love.
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“All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place.”
― Douglas Adams
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“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
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