Birthday schemes and Boston Baked Beans: Mother-daughter duo undergo grand search for classic candy
Beans, beans the musical fruit … or should I say, magical? We all know legumes are loaded with fiber and healthy for us, but I recently discovered one hard-shelled variety that is especially adept at warming hearts. Time to spill the beans. Anything but stinky, this adventure began when my mother, Mary Lou, called to serenade yours truly with a peppy rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
It’s a tune she has heard many times herself.
At 93 years young, Mama, as she is lovingly called – never Granny – has been a fixture on this planet longer than jet engines, McDonald’s restaurants and the Las Vegas strip. Fiercely independent, she still walks outdoors or rides a stationary bike most every day. Like the Energizer Bunny, Mama keeps going and going. Guided by a life motto of, “everything in moderation,” she makes one exception to this ironclad rule: coffee. The petite spark plug is always clutching a mug of joe.
Perhaps that’s her secret.
Gifted with a Starbucks card, I decided to buzz up to the South Hill and share a cup of caffeinated cheer with dear Mama. Busy raising my own kids for the past 25 years, I could not remember the last time we had hung out together on my birthday. Once an ear for my dishy dating dilemmas, these days our visits are riddled by tales of her own frustrations with thinning hair, robocalls and confusing internet technology.
After coffee, we strolled the aisles of Target. Out of the blue, Mama muttered, “Boston Baked Beans … I’ve looked everywhere for them.” I sensed this was a heartfelt issue. In a touching story, she shared her early memories of the tasty red peanut confections which once piled high and pressed against the glass of candy counter display case windows in downtown Spokane department stores. A roller -skating champion who attended Lewis and Clark High School, she often snacked on the treats with her best friend, Dolores Lashbrook.
I had to locate Mama’s beloved beans.
After striking out at Target, we hit the road on a sugary treasure hunt giggling like teenagers. Mama worked as a registered nurse for decades. My thoughts drifted back to those days when I fetched her from the hospital in a 1978 Fiat Spider and we sped off with the top down, our hair blowing in the wind. The two of us later shared lunch at Godfather’s Pizza. It seemed like just yesterday. No beans at Maverik or Nom Nom. On a whim, I checked the Walgreens website. Bingo. In stock. “They’re a dollar a box if you buy them in multiples of three. How many do you want?” I asked. “Oh, that’s cheap,” she said. “As many as you can get … at least nine.”
Everything in moderation? Hmmm …
A bean counter since birth, Mama’s life journey began during the Great Depression. She can still vividly recall the women cloaked in mink coats who stood in soup lines. As a young girl in the 1970s, I would often trail behind Mama in grocery stores watching as she totaled purchases on a red plastic calculator, her hand gripping a stack of paper coupons. A regular at bakery thrift shops, she periodically stuffed our freezer with bulk purchases of “day old” Twinkies and Ding Dongs from the Hostess outlet store. It’s a genetic trait I inherited: the sugary stock up.
Like Mama, like daughter.
Unable to locate her goodies in Walgreens, I asked a checker for assistance, but knew something was amiss when the girl led me to a display of canned beans. Amused, I shared a photo with her from my phone. This candied caper had turned into a complete gas. “Oh, those!” the employee said, with a laugh. She pivoted and walked me directly to that explosive stash. A true mother lode of Boston Baked Beans now rested on the store shelf within inches of my grasp.
Nine theater-sized boxes to be exact.
Mama lit up like a kid in a penny candy store when I delivered the nostalgic haul, but also felt a bit guilty. “That’s not fair. It’s your birthday and I got the present,” she said. Make no beans about it … We both did.