Dottie and Mom were the best of friends. They pushed baby strollers up and down the boulevard at the same time. They played bridge with their husbands in a great group of friends. And they tortured their young daughters, Bambi and Susan, with the biggest, blowout birthday parties imaginable in the 1960s. But I digress from the subject.
They also loved to go shopping at Town Talk in Fort Worth. Even today, Town Talk is a mecca for treasure hunters searching for grocery specialties from closeouts, insurance claims, and overruns. Dottie and Mom searched for the biggest discounts and had fun doing it.
These two ladies were the Queens of Canned Foods, and those shopping trips almost required a trailer to be used to haul their treasures back to the suburbs in little Arlington. (Yeah, this was many years ago!) Treasures could be found in bins of bent cans, slightly out-of-date cans, or the surprise bin of cans without labels. Dad suggested we donate all the empty cans to the U.S. Navy for the construction of an aircraft carrier, but Mom frowned at that idea. Dottie and Mom’s trips became legendary like the Quest for the Holy Grail, the Search for the Loch Ness Monster (in a can), or the Lost Tin Man from Oz. One such trip produced its own legend, The Ballad of Wolf’s Chili.
One night an unusual aroma emanated from the kitchen next to our small round breakfast table where we ate most meals. Dad, sister Su, and I sat at the table comparing growling stomachs. We asked, “What’s for dinner tonight? It sure smells different!” (Notice the instant critique of the meal before it even hits the table.)
Mom was so proud. This was a family that really enjoyed chili, and she had now stocked the cabinets with a great deal on unlabeled cans of chili that would have made Frank X. Tolbert envious. She exclaimed, “It’s chili, and we have lots of it!” I immediately started working on the crackers to prepare for the feast. I pulled the jar of hot sauce a little closer, so I could get first crack at it. Even my spoon drooled in anticipation. We were all smiling when Mom set down big bowls of steaming chili in front of Dad and Susan. She returned with a bowl for me as she sat down with hers. We all bent our heads to pray, but the aroma somehow overpowered our thanks to God for the wonderful meal now in front of us.
Su again bent forward to smell and her smile immediately turned upside down. She looked as if she had been electrocuted. Su disappeared from sight – perhaps to the bathroom, under the table, or under her bed. Dad took a spoonful into his mouth. His eyes went wide as he lurched for his sweet tea, all the while staring straight ahead. Always the gentleman, he would rather have died than criticized Mom’s cooking, but his limit might have been reached that night. I had just shoveled a big bite into my mouth and froze.
In my youth, I played baseball and football, and sometimes my face ended up in the dirt or the mud. Once, I even went swimming in a dirty creek bed behind a high school trying to retrieve a 10-pound shotput. That mud tasted better than this chili. The gag reflex was on full blast, so I tried to envision the familiar red label surrounding one of the cans of chili. My mind could see Wolf® Brand Chili, and I tried to focus on the fine print that proclaims Since 1895, but it didn’t last long. “Mom, what is this?”
She looked at me, turned to watch Dad hurrying down the hall to the back bathroom, and turned back to me saying, “I think it is Wolf® Brand Chili but none of them had a label.” My response (not recorded here) got me a trip to the front bathroom to wash out my mouth with soap, and I was happy to oblige. The soap tasted better than whatever was in my bowl on the table.
She reported back the next day that Town Talk discovered those unlabeled cans were, indeed, dog food. I never found out if the Barrett family also had chili that night. It was not Wolf® Brand Chili, but your pet wolf probably would have enjoyed it.