A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
As I grew older, I finally came around to enjoy what my folks liked for their breakfast. By then, their taste had changed to scrambled eggs, bacon or ham, and toast with coffee. Of course, I was still drinking milk with my breakfast and didn’t pick up the taste for coffee until much later in life. This breakfast usually supercharged me for most of the morning but made me sleepy during my late-afternoon classes at school.
Photo Credit: https://www.juddscatering.com/breakfast.html
After leaving home for a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy (at shore stations and onboard several ships), my breakfast usually consisted of scrambled eggs (powdered), sausage patties (from canned war surplus, some dated 1943), home fried potatoes, and milk (powdered). The alternative was commonly known as ‘SOS’ (anyone associated with the military will know what that acronym stands for). Neither one of the above-mentioned breakfasts is the most appetizing breakfast, but since I didn’t have much of a choice and I didn’t want to starve, I learned to tolerate them. Your guess is as good as mine about some of the items shown in the photo below. I believe I recognize the eggs and maybe one of those gray blobs is beef-gravy (?) and the toast, but the other, you got me.
Photo Credit: navy-tales-life-and-food-aboard-an-aircraft-carrier/
After my tour with the Navy was done, and during my college years my wife, DiVoran and I were living on a very tight budget and my breakfast consisted mainly of a stop at “Randy’s Big Donut” for three or four freshly baked French donuts ($.10 each back then) and a half-pint carton of milk. I usually didn’t have time to eat the donuts there in the donut shop, so I mostly ended up eating them on my way to class once I got to school.
Photo Credit: https://images.search.yahoo.com/randys+big+donut
That was a quick and easy breakfast for me at that time because that was about all I could afford on my meager part-time job. The chocolate covered French donuts were my favorite. Many of my breakfast choices changed for the better once I landed that full-time job and my schooling shifted to evening classes.
Photo Credit: https://www.google.com/search?q=french+donuts
After finishing college, our family moved to Florida where I worked at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on NASA’s Manned Space Programs for many years. My breakfast during those hectic years reverted back to my childhood, usually consisting of cold cereal, with milk, and maybe coffee, if I got up early enough and had the time for any breakfast at all before heading off to work.
Photo Credit: https://images.search.yahoo.com/breakfast/cereal/coffee
My sister, Judy, tells me that she and her husband, Fred, now enjoy scrambled eggs with Canadian bacon, buttered toast, and hot English Breakfast Tea for breakfast. That sounds a lot like a left-over family tradition from their college days when Fred lived with our folks for a year before he and Judy got married. She tells me that when they were stationed in Germany, with the U.S. Air Force, they enjoyed Sara Lee Pecan Coffee Cake and hot English Breakfast tea. After moving back to the U.S. their favorite changed to Sara Lee Butter Flavored Streusel Coffee Cakes with their hot tea.
Photo Credit: https://images.yahoo.com/sara+lee+coffee+cake+butter+streusel
—–To Be Continued—–
Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 65 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing. He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville. Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.
One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is: John 10:10
Old Things R New 
Mostly delicious.
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