Every year around mid-October, I have a little ritual I do to commemorate an event from 1972. I fix a big pot of my best chili and a pan of my favorite cornbread and then sit down and eat like there’s no tomorrow! Here’s the story behind this yearly ritual.

One cold, fall day in mid-October 1972, my dad, brother Mike, and I headed to the sawmill and filled a dump truck full of ends and pieces from the mill conveyor. Then we headed for home, and dad dumped that load of wood in our yard. That pile was half the size of our house! My brother and I were in charge of ricking that wood so it could dry and be burned in our big pot-bellied stove – our only source of heat for the coming crisp, cold, Idaho winter.

After working all afternoon ricking that load of wood, Mike and I had worked ourselves into a fury. We were sick of being overworked and underpaid! According to our Idaho math, we were responsible for nearly 100 percent of the work being done around our place. We had slaved-away in the cold, while mom and dad and our lazy sisters sat in the warm house – probably sipping hot chocolate and eating donuts! And to add to our misery, we had missed Hee Haw, our favorite weekend TV show! We two boys had reached the breaking point! Mike and Birdie, our task master parents, needed a wake-up call!

So, as we threw the last few chunks of wood on the stack, we laid out our plans. We went in the back door and gathered our sleeping bags, a few blankets, our rifles and knives, and a gunnysack full of canned food out of the pantry. We decided we were gonna “live off the fat of the land” to quote John Steinbeck’s story. We had a place picked out along the bank of the Salmon River about a mile away. We were both euphoric thinking about Birdie and Mike crying themselves to sleep because their ‘free labor’ had quit and was GONE, never to return. That’d teach them!

Just as Mike and I were about to head off into the sunset and embark on our new lives living down by the river, dad called that it was time for dinner. “Get in here before it gets cold!” he yelled. We looked at each other and decided one more meal with these ungrateful people would probably be okay.

We threw our stuff down and walked into the kitchen. The table was set with a giant pot of mom’s best chili and a huge pan of hot cornbread, fresh out of the oven. A bucket of honey and fresh, hand-churned butter sat next to it. We ate fast; there wasn’t much daylight left. That chili and cornbread was the best meal I had eaten since dinner the day before. Mom was arguably the best cook in the whole state of Idaho!

After dinner, I raced into the back room, gathered my gear and was headed for the door. Mike held back and had a contemplative look on his face. “Jeff, moving down by the river would teach mom and dad a lesson they desperately deserve, but you gotta admit, we will never eat this well if we leave.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! “What’s wrong with you, Mike? We have a plan, and we’ve got to stick with it! Are you just going to give in, all because of food? We can’t let these people win!” I pleaded.

“No, man, I’ve decided I’m not running away. Tonight’s dinner changed my mind. You go if you want; but I’m staying. I like good food, I guess!”

And just like that, my brother and I traded in what would’ve been a happy, contented life living down by the river for a continued life of oppression and sorrow…just so we could eat well.

Over the years, as I’ve matured past my 8-year-old self from 1972, I thank Heavenly Father every day for parents who did not sanitize my environment. Even though I was just a kid, they expected me to do hard things. In that mountain valley of Central Idaho, I learned fortitude, responsibility, skills, and a work ethic that has been foundational my whole life. And I admit…thanks so much, mom, for being a skilled cook.

So, now you know the backstory – why, every year around this time, I celebrate those times 50-some years ago with a big dinner of chili and cornbread! Sometimes in life you just gotta recognize and celebrate things of intrinsic worth.