Starving Children in Africa

I found myself dissecting a rotisserie chicken  to the Nth degree like I was an apocalypse survivor or perhaps a contestant on Naked and Afraid.  After I caught myself and had a good laugh I went back to blissfully wasting food, telling myself it isn't like there were starving children from Africa around.

That got me thinking the first time that line got used on me. It came from my paternal grandfather. You have to know that he was the head of his household and he served. Everyone sat down, said grace, and then he picked up a platter and filled it. You got the plate he filled for you.

You can bet that as a giant of a man used to a lifetime of manual labor, he put much more food on the plate than your average suburban kid needed. I remember my mom trying to curb his enthusiasm for piling our plates full. I also remember the withering slit eyed stare he gave her in return.

Anyway, there I was not cleaning my plate, which may be attributed to the massive quantities of food on it or it may be attributed to the fact that my grandmother insisted on making some mystery "relish salad" every meal. It was pink and lumpy and not something I would associate with food. My grandfather admonished me to clear my plate because there were starving children in Africa.

That stopped me in my tracks. I had to ponder that one. It did not compute. It went against all the other kid admonishments that I heard every day. You know, the ones about share your toys, help the less fortunate, blah, blah, blah...  But this... Now you're saying I have food and some kid doesn't, so I should eat mine up real fast????  It didn't seem real Christian.

Anyway, that's childhood for ya, filled with contradictory messages. And just so you know, I did clear my plate today. Twice. I did not share with any starving African children, but I did give some to a Siamese cat that was almost on death's door from hunger (or so she says).

The Fine Print: Stamp by Stampin' Up.