GRAVY!!!

I miss my parents. And while I’m in no hurry to see them again, that is one of the lures of Heaven – to be reunited with loved ones.

And if Heaven is going to live up to its hype, then the day I arrive will be opening day of the Gravy Festival. The annual Gravy festival was the highlight of my childhood, when friends and family would gather to celebrate Gravy in all its glorious forms: Beef, pork, chicken, with giblets, without … the imagination runs wild! Everyone would bring their favorite recipe, the judging would begin, and blue ribbons would be awarded. The year my Mother won Best in Show lived in family lore for years.

And the festival had so many fun activities: The Gravy dunk, the Gravy chug (did the winner really feel like a winner?), the Gravy toss, and the Gravy/Gravy – a dance competition that had to be seen to be believed.  Gravy sculptures were everywhere, it was truly Gravy Nirvana.

But all was not sweetness and Gravy. There were years where the Gravy supply was compromised by drought and other factors, and the festival took on a different tone – of urgency.  There were rosary sessions, “pray for Gravy chains”, and when the shortage was really extreme, sacrificing of first borns. When that occurred, oddly, no one would eat the dip at the First Born party afterwards. Perhaps the most memorable year was when we hired a shaman to try and bring the Gravy down from the heavens. It didn’t work, but he taught me a mean circle change afterwards.

But Gravy didn’t always bring out the best in people. The neighboring town constantly played dirty tricks with our Gravy, and they made an annual tradition of kidnapping Mr. Gravy (our high school mascot) and forcibly removing his giblets.

Unfortunately, not all my childhood memories of Gravy are positive. Emboldened by the profits he made on stamps when their price increased by 3 cents (he had bought in heavily), my Father invested the family’s life savings – and our house – on Gravy products. It did not end well.

As he described the unlimited uses for Gravy: on corn flakes, as a snow remover, a hair conditioner, Gravy Juice, you had to admire his passion for the future of Gravy . He even tried to use it as barter – attempting to trade a vat of Gravy for a car – and we thought it would make us rich. We even used Gravy to condition our baseball gloves. Our Mother used to rub it on our chests when we had a cold, but Gravy Vapo Rub never quite caught on. And after trying to replace our WD40 with aerosol Gravy, it seemed things were off.  And they were.

The combination of that financial reversal, plus the Gravy drought of 1974, left us in dire straits financially. But we were still able to preserve the Midwestern tradition of eating Gravy with every meal, on every imaginable foodstuff.  And Thanksgiving was Gravy thankfulness: 12 different food items on our plates, and a pool of Gravy on each. And my father hovering over us with a squeeze bottle of Gravy in case we ran out. Yes, Gravy does go great on Gravy! And prime rib with gravy! Amazing – much better than that weak ass au jus stuff.

In closing, I believe Gravy will be our ultimate salvation, when the Gravy based C19 vaccine is finally developed. Is there anything better than being injected with Gravy? Well, maybe a Gravy IV….