Earliest recollections

My parents owned a cooking stove that had a logo on the oven door that read “QUALITY” in blue script. The oven stood on the left side of the cooking burners. Do not fear this is not a story of a terrible burn incident.

As I remember the stove was in a corner of the kitchen; an unlikely location but, this is how I envision it ninety years later.

My parents were raising children long before Dr. Spock wrote his now famous book on how to raise children. They did the best they could, it was all hit or miss.

This is the scene. I am in my highchair a few feet from the oven door and my father is doing his best to get me to eat a soft boiled egg with some small pieces of toasted Friehofers white bread that had softened in the liquid egg. I was not interested in eating, especially a gooey egg, and was frustrating my father. Today I like soft boiled eggs but at one year old the answer to the spoon coming up to my lips was to clench my jaw, press my lips together and turn my head to the right. In the direction of the oven door. My father kept trying to force the baby spoon with egg between my lips but, my mouth was closed tight.

This is the strange part of the story at the age of one year I could not read. The word “QUALITY” was what I focused on as I pressed my lips together, tighter and tighter, as my father tried to get the spoon between my lips. That logo is in my head if I close my eyes and place myself back in that highchair. I can really see it to this day; very elegant blue script on a white background of some kind of porcelain. I can’t remember if I ate any of the egg.