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Goodie Box

By “Pete Moss”

With the deployment of the Arkansas Army National Guard to Iraq also comes the mobilization
of family support. The other day I noticed a house in Dover that was virtually plastered with yellow ribbons. I must add these to our list. Their son is already overseas, has been there for quite a while, and will be due home shortly after our soldier flies over the Atlantic.
Times change. Troops went into battle in the 1940s after a long sea voyage across the pond. The only thing I remember about World War II was the long lines of airplanes that flew over our house in New Jersey. I have never known if they were on their way from one base to another or whether they were already on their way overseas. I can also recall my father using the term “flying boxcars” and will have to research that a little more. I was still too young to know much about what was going on in the Korean conflict, except that there were news stories on television and some of the names, such as Pork Chop Hill, certainly didn’t sound Asian to me. Vietnam . . . now that’s another story. Though there were no immediate family members of ours over there, we did know people who were. More often, though, with my being in graduate school at the time, I knew more people who weren’t over there; but that, too, is another story.
What strikes me as being radically different between these engagements and the first deployment
of the 39th is the amount of communication available. I had an uncle in WWII and I believe that my mother only got a few letters from him. During the
Vietnam era I exchanged letters with a few people located over there, but never made or received any phone calls. A few years ago there were letters, packages, phone calls and emails being tossed back and forth around the globe. It was amazing.
An amusing part of this happened
one sultry, summer afternoon.
I happened to be up at my firstborn’s house when a call came in from Baghdad. Mama
Goodie Boxestalked to Daddy first and at one point in the conversation the oldest grandchild was allowed to speak with her father. She did and when she finished, she clicked the phone off! (I almost wrote there that she hung up the phone, but that’s as out-of-date as saying someone “dialed” a number!) We all looked a little horror-stricken, because the call was not yet complete,
but everything was happy once again when there was a ring and communication one third of the way around the world resumed.
Not everything is high tech nowadays. There’s still something
comforting about snail mail and a package from home. A couple of those have already been launched to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. The first arrived in a remarkably short time, but when I last checked, the second two, one from each family, hadn’t been seen yet. Hopefully they’ll be there before a short visit home in early March, prior to leaving for what is said to be ten months in Iraq. Maybe we’ll chance another box, as originally planned, before then.
Just what is it that goes into these goodie boxes? Well, one thing that is definitely not recommended
in the summer is chocolate. With Iraqi temps above a hundred, this is a no-brainer. The best things are personal supplies, such as a specific type of razor blade that might not be available locally over there. Add to that positive news from home and special treats, homemade or purchased, that you know are favorites. I haven’t quite figured out how to satisfy that suggestion by sending
a pecan pie, but the solution to this dilemma could well be sending little pecan tarts. They travel better and probably stay fresh longer. Cookies that don’t crumble are always welcome, but I suspect that even if there are cookie crumbs in a package, they will not go to waste.
A few weeks ago I cooked up the last of the Halloween pumpkins
that were sitting on our front porch. All right, I admit that Christmas was long over and I was just getting the fall décor cleaned up, but it’s been a busy year! I decided to use some of the pumpkin right away to make bread, which is really pretty close to being cake, and send some to Camp Shelby. Wrapped in plastic
wrap and then aluminum foil, this meets the travel-well requirement.
I also threw in a jar or so of jelly and cushioned everything with copies of The Dover Times and The Mansfield Citizen. I’ll include the recipe for the bread here, even though I shared it with you a number of years ago.
Pumpkin Bread
3 cups sugar
1 cup salad oil
3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin
3 cups sifted flour
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped nuts (Pecans are best!)
Blend sugar with salad oil. Whip in eggs and add pumpkin. Blend well. Sift flour with salt, baking powder, soda, nutmeg and cinnamon. Toss raisins and nuts with flour mixture and stir it all into the pumpkin mixture. Grease two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans and line the bottom of each with wax paper. Divide the batter between the two. You may also sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on top. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
I found that this recipe can be adjusted a bit and is very forgiving.
I had some apple slices in the freezer and decided to make apple bread as well, but was almost out of oil. That was OK, because I used butter for half of it and it turned out fine. In the interest of cleaning out the freezer, I thought that maybe a peach-blueberry combination might just be the next adventure, and then there are blackberries in there that would probably travel better in bread form than as pie or cobbler. We’ll just have to see!