OROWHEAT BREAD: DAD'S FAVORITE

One of the things that my dad really loved was Orowheat's Wheat Berry Bread.  He'd use it for all of his sandwiches.  He would include two slices of it toasted for his dinner, butter it, then slice the toast into finger-width slivers, making it the perfect finger-food.  By itself it was terrific.  That is what Dad could do is turn ordinary foods into cuisine and turn ordinary occurrences into events.  Will never forget his famous 3-day old meatloaf sandwiches, where he'd place a couple of slices of meatloaf, mayonnaise, horseradish, and Grey Poupon dijon mustard on the sandwich.  And before he'd wrap it up in tin foil, he'd place nearly a half of an onion and yellow peppers as condiments.  Will never for the time when he, Chuck Pullman, and I drove down to San Diego one Saturday morning as Roger Miller's "King of the Road" played on the radio in Chuck's Buick. 

I was in the back seat popping the diamond-shaped bubbles of his seat covers.  

As to the old car seat covers, this is evocative of those covers and those days.    

living in SoCal your legs stuck to 'em and felt like you ripped skin off getting out. 

The comments are funny.

How about the summer times?!  I remember people using them on their couches too.

And this reply:

I never sat on them, so I can’t relate to the skin peeling off in the summer heat, nor the cracking in the cold.  

I was mainly thinking of protecting the original upholstery more than anything else.

The old auto parts store, Western Auto, is mentioned in that article.  I do recall the franchise.  Their sign was blue and gold unless I am thinking of AAMCO. It was not much, pretty plain which I liked. Didn't realize that Western Auto was founded by the same guy who founded Pepperdine University out in Malibu.  Now THAT IS interesting.

Western Auto Supply Company—known more widely as Western Auto—was a specialty retail chain of stores that supplied automobile parts and accessories. It operated approximately 1200 stores across the United States and in Puerto Rico.^[1] It was started in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri, by George Pepperdine, who later founded Pepperdine University.^[2]

Western Auto was bought by Beneficial Corporation in 1961; Western Auto's management led a leveraged buyout in 1985, leading three years later to a sale to Sears. Sears sold most of the company to Advance Auto Parts in 1998, and by 2003, the resulting merger had led to the end of the Western Auto brand and its product distribution network.

Though I remember Western Auto, I think it belonged to the Sears brand.  So if you bought a Sears battery you were getting a Western Auto battery.  But Sears acquired Western Auto in 1988, the year that Dad left us.  Today, Western Auto is Advanced Auto.  I don't see too many of them here in Southern California, but they're all over Denver and the Front Range.  

Back to my story, as we wove south on Interstate 5 down through San Clemente I saw through the starlit, predawn hour the blue and white sign of International House of Pancakes illuminated off the highway. 

Dad here has a gold plated medallion of the Virgin Mary around his neck, a gift from Marilyn who picked it up in Egypt on her travels there.  He loved that medallion. The photo has to be 1985 or 1986.  On the stove behind them is Dad's pot of chili.  On the bar is the most recent LA Times with the sections stacked.  On Mom's pink tiled counter-top is Dad's signature 7-Up.  Dad was so proud of his Virgin Mary medallion. Chuck was so happy and proud to be in my dad's orbit.  In the cabinet behind them at the left always hung a catholic calendar.  

And, boy, could I smells those pancakes.  But it wasn't just the pancakes that I loved about IHOP.  It was the restaurant itself.  In my mind, it was an old-world, German bakery/restaurant, and I wanted all the comfort and exclusivity of such a place. 
I asked dad if we could stop to eat.  He replied, "Soon."  In lieu of the aromatic pancakes, hot syrup, and bacon at IHOP, he extracted from a brown paper bag on the floor between his feet a cube of tinfoil folded and wrinkled and offered it to me.  I took it.  In the early morning shadows, I peeled back the tinfoil to find a sandwich made of Orowheat Wheat Berry bread piled high with 3-day old meatloaf, cold mashed potatoes, mayonnaise, and Dijon mustard with horseradish.  

Would I?  Would I really bite into this concoction that was made by the loving hands of my father?  I would.  I tell that story just to illustrate how he viewed certain food items as healthy food.  And compared to white bread, wheatberry was healthier.  That is until the bread companies began using enriched wheat where the germ was removed.   

Then Orowheat added honey to make Orowheat Honey Wheat Berry Bread.  And though he loved this bread, too, it was not as healthy.  It was tastier, it was sweeter, but not healthier.  

Dad was health-conscious in his retirement years.  At least in retirement, his favorite cereal was Kellogg's Cracklin' Oats.

Though I don't remember what year it was, I do remember that he quit smoking cold turkey.  He smoked Tareytons almost exclusively.  

And he really enjoyed dining out at the Seafood Broiler in Glendale.  It had to be in Glendale.  Glendale is where my dad's friends lived.  Nora almost lived in Glendale in Burbank.  Marilyn and Frank moved to Glendale from Sherman Oaks.  They lived at 13633 Morrison Street, one block north of Notre Dame High School where I, Tom, and Joe would go and play tennis or basketball.  Her home was elegant.  The front room had a recessed section closer to the back sliding glass door.  And Marilyn and Frank kept a little library of sorts.  I remember reading their copy of Guinness' Book of World Record, learning about a bearded lady and thought how awful that must have been.  You can see an external picture of their home here and a map of its location is below.  I remember watching an episode of the Saturday Evening Movie on CBS with Ralph Story introducing the movie.  He had a terrific voice, one that resonated both with the WWII folks and Baby Boomers.  I remember that Dad bought a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken while we were at their house.  And I remember that Frank smoked cigars.  Those were great days.  Me, Tom, Joe, and Dad stayed with Frank and Marilyn one summer down in the scalding environs of Palm Springs back in 1972 or thereabouts.  We played doubles tennis in the morning, ate, then for a short swim before we made back inside.  But I do remember walking a few blocks to a store and back and how it felt like I was walking in a . . . well . . . a desert.  I recall the vapors rising off the asphalt road.  It is a good memory.