Mother’s kitchen when I was young by Tony Fallon.11816

 Mother’s kitchen when I was young by Tony Fallon.11816

Every Saturday my parent would go to town on bicycles

Whether it was sunny or on the roof there were icicles

My mother would come home happy my father subdued

There was no Guinness money after buying six bags of food

We kids wanted to empty the bags there might be a surprise

One week it might be oranges another week French fries

Our thoughts of course were on the side of the extreme

We expected that some day there would be ice cream.

She said the temperature wasn’t low and she really felt

That even if she put it in a jam jar it would quickly melt.

One time she did surprise us when in the month of July

She brought home the ingredients of an exotic pie

Blancmange it was and all us kids could do was bawl

When our mother told us John Joe Fallon ate it all

There was black and white pudding sausages and bacon

And one time ginger beer that could have been Jamaican

 One day there would be a bottle to help with indigestion

Another day a bottle to help with stomach congestion

And how about at Easter cute little chickens that were yellow

Other time there were mice or ducks made out of marshmallow

She’d warn everybody emptying a bag to save the receipts,

We didn’t care about the paperwork we were looking for sweets

One day it was mixed pickles the worst thing I ever tasted

My father made the curt comment “that’s good money wasted”

Even neighbors kids dropped in without any inviting

To see what my mother bought to make Saturday exciting.

I never will forget the look on poor Sean Doyle’s face

When he tried the mixed pickles, just after we said Grace.

I know my parents disagreed about those few shillings spent

But what would I talk about this evening if she didn’t experiment?