05.01.2008
Fatback is key to long, happy life
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Scott and Granny Jo in Winston-Salem. Ken Otterbourg photo |
The key to a long life? Eat plenty of fatback.
That’s what Josie Myers Flowers - or Granny Jo - told me. I was fortunate to receive that life-altering bit of advice at her 100th birthday party at the Friedberg Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, or as my daughter referred to it before we arrived, the Free Bird Moravian Church, a possible indication that we need to spend more time in a house of worship and less listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gold and Platinum.”
I didn’t know Granny Jo before I got to the church, but I know her now and if I ever had any doubts about the healthy benefits of fatback, they were erased when I was introduced to Granny Jo’s 104-year-old aunt.
When Granny Jo and Aunt Flossie decide to bottle fatback in pill form and hawk its age-fighting virtues on a shopping channel, they’ll make enough money to play high-stakes bingo for the rest of their days.
I was the surprise guest at Granny Jo’s birthday party. For the record, I think it’s generally a bad idea to surprise a 100-year-old person.
But Patti Chambers, Granny Jo’s granddaughter, asked me to attend the gathering of family and friends. Granny Jo, she said, has read my column for years, and since her eyesight dimmed a bit family members read it to her. Patti said she enjoys it, but I feared Granny Jo is only humoring family members, listening patiently, hoping they will hurry and finish whatever that knucklehead is writing about so they will get out of her kitchen and she can resume work on her experimental fatback energy drink.
As I drove from the foothills to the flatlands, I worried that I would stand in a room full of people and Granny Jo wouldn’t know who the heck I was or why in tarnation I was there eating her cake.
“Look who came to see you, Granny.”
“I don’t recognize him. Which grandson is that? He needs a haircut.”
“No, it’s the fellow from the newspaper?”
“Beetle Bailey? What’s he doing here? Why isn’t he over in Iraq fighting for freedom? Goldbricker.”
“He writes the column you like.”
“He doesn’t look smart enough to play bridge. Are you sure that’s him?”
“No, he’s the funny one - sometimes.”
“The one where I listen patiently, hoping you’ll hurry and finish whatever that knucklehead is writing about so you’ll get out my kitchen and I can resume work on my experimental fatback energy drink? Some 100th birthday this is.”
Instead, it was a wonderful experience. Granny Jo was kind and gracious, and, if not overwhelmed by the surprise visitor in her midst, she accepted my meager gifts of a promotional coffee cup and flowers as if I had given her the keys to the city. She was surrounded by a big, loving family who treated me as one of their own, and we feasted on barbecue, fatback’s more substantial cousin.
It was before the meal, though, that she shared that culinary secret of longevity. I, of course, had to ask her the question. It’s written on Page 42 of the Lazy Journalism 101 textbook: “When interviewing someone 100 years of age or older, ask the secret to a long life even though most people know it comes down to genetics, moderation and not getting kicked in the head by a mule.”
Granny Jo may have been pulling my leg with the fatback answer. I wouldn’t put it past her. But just in case, I’ll toss a hunk of fatback in the next pot of beans we put on the stove.
And then maybe Granny Jo will show up at my 100th birthday party. It’s set for Nov. 20, 2064, at the Full Gospel Redeemed Church of the Free Bird.