Onions

I really like onions. These babies come in a wide variety of shapes, colors and flavors. You have the green onion, the purple onion, the white onion and the yellow onion. You have the tasteless 1015's and hotter than fire devil whites. Depending on what you're cooking and how you want the onion to enhance the flavor, all depends on what kind of onion you use. The onion, in my opinion, is almost as important as salt when it comes to seasoning your food. If I open my refrigerator and don't see an onion in there somewhere? It's panic time. Onion and Heinz Ketchup must be in the fridge at all times during the day and night. It's a guy thing with me.

However, I have recently come to the conclusion that the onion is the most nefarious, wicked, sinful, dangerous and ultimately deadly poisonous plant on God's green earth. Here's why.

When I was a young boy, my grandfather, Hugh B. Means...at first...was nothing more than an old man to me. He was cool in that my parents could not correct me in any way, shape or fashion when he was around. One day my dad took off his belt to give me a few swats, but he wasn't thinking very clearly. My grandfather was only a few feet away and advised my dad that if he didn't want that belt used on him, he might want to put it back on. Dad complied...while giving me his dreaded 'Death Stare'. My execution was certain, only the timing had been delayed.

During the summer months, starting when I was about ten, I would go to my grandparents' house to stay for a couple of months. They lived in the country and these were the best of times for me. The freedom I had to romp and play and discover new things and meet new people are some of the happiest memories of my life. It was also during these times that I would go to town with my grandfather when he went to get the mail, groceries, feed or the bi-weekly haircut. He had a large chicken yard and sold eggs to the neighbors. So, I would go with him on his egg delivery rounds and meet interesting people. I was fortunate in that I learned at a young age to listen to older people when they talk. A person's mind can be opened to almost infinity if they listen to the experience of years. One day, as I was with my grandfather in his truck, he pointed to some cows in a pasture to his left. They were all lying down in a bunch. He said, "You see that?"  I looked over and nodded, then replied, "Yes sir." He winked at me and smiled. "That means it's gonna rain."  I heard what he said, but I thought he was pulling my leg. One time when I was five years old, I walked out on the back porch with a do-nut. Hugh B was sitting out there and he called me over to him. With a stern look on his face, he pointed at the do-nut. "Don't eat the hole, boy," he warned. "It'll make you sick."  Now, here was a man I trusted with all my being. I looked at the do-nut and figured he must know what he's talking about. So I ate all around the hole, leaving a thin crust of dough between me and certain death. Once I ate as much as I could, he told me to give the rest to him. He promptly popped it in his mouth and ate it. I said, "I thought those made you sick."  With no emotion he just said, "Do-nut holes don't make me sick." I never forgot how I was flim-flammed out of a whole do-nut. So, I'm looking at the cows and they didn't seem any different to me.  This could be another do-nut hole trick. I just said that was cool and we went on down the road. About three hours later, a toad-strangler hit and lasted for about thirty minutes. I never forgot that, either.

My grandfather always had two or three hogs in a pen that he was fattening up for butcher. One of my chores was to throw their slop to them. It didn't take long for them to recognize me as their favorite person. At dinner, I was noticing that my grandmother had to make small dishes of different things for him because he wouldn't eat onions. If a recipe called for onions, she made a larger dish for the rest of us and a smaller one for him without the onions. I asked him one evening why he wouldn't eat them. He explained that he wouldn't eat anything a hog wouldn't eat. I said, "A hog won't eat an onion? Hogs will eat anything."  He just shook his head and replied, "No they won't."

Well, I wasn't going to let this pass without the test. The next day I went to the hog pen with onion in hand. They came running up to the trough, seeing it was me, grunting their approval that I had arrived early. I reached over the fence and plopped the onion on the ground. The three hogs started fighting over the morsel. One would get it in his mouth and chomp on it. As soon as the flavor hit its tongue, he would drop it. Then, another would grab it and do the same thing. When they finally gave up on it, I have to admit it was gnarled up a bit. But, they didn't eat it. Later that evening I dropped an onion in with the bucket of slop. I was going to try camouflage. Perhaps in their gluttonous, zombie-like state they wouldn't even notice it was an onion and gulp it down. That would prove my grandfather wasn't the wisest seer to ever see a sight. That would elevate me to knight status or something like that if I were to fell his supposed knowledge. With courage and determination I marched to the hog pen and poured the noxious goo into the trough. It was always amazing to me how things that once looked so good and smelled so delicious could so quickly turn into vomit. Anyway, the hogs dug in with their snouts and slopped and slurped and chewed and swallowed and grunted and did the repeat, until everything was gobbled up....except....the onion.

It is the onion we must fear.