Got Any Brains?

Oh dear, how my brain goes down rabbit trails. All I was doing was checking the "wundermap" weather map to see if I ought to put out more laundry. Well, it shows all the topographical features, just as if you were looking down on the land in real life. I was looking at Oklahoma, then somehow I drug the map over to the Texas panhandle. Then I scooted it over a bit more to northeastern New Mexico .... wow the memories came flooding back!


That red-and-white camper you see in the photo above (of our back yard a long time ago) was a homemade deal built by my dad. It had a full bed and two bunk beds in it, and the full bed swung up out of the way to make a breakfast nook. There was a closet and a kitchenette. We would go to Colorado every summer for about a week of vacation at a campground in Manitou. We'd see the sights, eat good stuff at the camper or somewhere else (but please don't mention cotton candy to me), and enjoy cool air and mountain showers.


Then when I was maybe jr. high age (?), we were in Manitou, and somehow Dad got the bright idea that with a few days left, maybe for a change of pace, we could go down and check out Red River, New Mexico. Manitou was starting to get sort of crowded and losing its appeal. So to Red River we went. History was altered forever - we went there for a summer vacation from then on! Red River was smaller, VERY touristy, and had a variety of things to do ... all in that mountain setting we liked.


So then when summer vacation rolled around, we'd head in a "southerly" western direction instead of a "northerly" western direction. Our route took us through the Oklahoma panhandle, then on into northeastern New Mexico. Wow, was the terrain different there. It's kind of harsh landscape, there are buttes (like Rabbit Ears Mountain north of Clayton) and volcanoes (like Capulin Mountain, which we visited once and my brother hiked around the rim!). The main towns we went through were Clayton (where I liked to get a hot sausage from the convenience store where we stopped for gas), Springer, Cimarron, Eagle Nest (which has a big lake) and then on up to Red River.


Well. One time we got to Springer around dinnertime (which is mid-day for us country-oriented folks), and we stopped at a cafe there. They had a special that day, WHICH I DID NOT GET, of "brains and eggs." Now ... folks who have grown up in that older generation that my folks were in, are used to things like that. Coming through the depression and "Dirty '30's," you ate what you had, and you didn't waste. They had things like head cheese (which used meat scraps), tongue, liver (as in that wonderful dish of "liver and onions"), and other such things that didn't waste "parts." Brains was one of those parts. I guess they boiled it, then would chop it up in with some scrambled eggs, and there you had "brains and eggs."


Mom and I got something else, but Dad got the brains and eggs. A delicacy from his childhood, I suppose! I guess he liked 'em, he ate 'em. I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole!


So .... the next year rolled around, and once again we took a little vacation with the camper to Red River. Once again it was dinnertime when we were in Springer. Once again we went in this little cafe. The waitress came up to the table, and thinking of the previous year's special, Dad asked her, "Do you have any brains?" Thankfully, the waitress was good-natured and laughed! We laughed the rest of the day over that! And sorry to say, I don't think they had them on the menu that day. But I sure didn't miss them!