OATMEAL…It Sticks to Your Ribs
“Jimmy, eat your oatmeal. It will stick to your ribs,” she promised. I never doubted Mom, just wondered how oatmeal took a trip other food didn’t.
That was over 40 years ago. Mom is still with us, and I guess I still believe her. Everything else she taught has proven of great value in my life. So I’d like to share a bit of Mom’s wisdom this year with you. Some will be from the book I wrote which highlights her instructive philosophies to us nine Pratt kids.
The world is in dire need of simple, straightforward medicine of the moral kind; time-tested values. Mom was right about the oatmeal, and she is still right about what works for a person seeking to be happy. Now an excerpt from: MOM, The Woman Who Made Oatmeal Stick to My Ribs.
“M’m, m’m, good!” That famous jingle originating in 1931 still rings in my ears after all these years. In fact, if life on earth were snuffed out, and travelers from a distant planet arrived seeking to understand how we had lived and what caused our demise, they might draw a conclusion or two from what they would find in America’s pantries.
There they would doubtless discover several cans of Campbell’s Soup, a brand that could be called “America’s Official Soup” because it is so ubiquitous. The other item most likely to be discovered would be round, cardboard canisters of oatmeal.
An alien arriving from deep outer space, landing on an earth devoid of living human beings, might radio these initial findings back to his superiors on the mother ship:
“It would seem that the American humans subsisted mainly on two foods. One of them is a liquid mixed with a variety of plant and animal parts. The other is a dry, dusty meal that one can only assume would be hard to swallow. In fact, if eaten in the quantities it appears to have been consumed, it might well be one of the chief killers of this civilization.”
“Explain your conclusion.”
“The dusty meal appears to be almost inedible, due to its dry nature. One would almost certainly choke and die from asphyxiation, unless the meal were mixed with some form of liquid, perhaps the soupy liquid found in the cans.”
“And you say this dry meal is to be found in almost every dwelling?”
“Yes, Commander. And it appears to come from a single, central source.”
“Explain.”
“Each of the containers of this flat, grainy substance displays the likeness of a round-faced, rosy cheeked, white-haired, and cheerful-looking male, wearing a black cloak and a broad brimmed head covering of some type. A hat, I believe the former inhabitants called it.”
“And this hat would signify leadership of the American tribe?”
“It appears so. No doubt they respected him greatly, for his image is always found on these containers of what they called ‘Quaker Oats.’”
“We shall call it oatmeal, for the record,” the commander responds. “Is there any way of knowing what may have induced the inhabitants to consume this dry meal in such large amounts?”
“Perhaps. In one habitation, we found a written message next to the carton containing the dry food.”
“A communication?” the commander in the mother ship responds excitedly. “It might contain valuable, even secret information—perhaps from the happy male himself—their leader,” he adds.
“Yes, Commander. Or might I suggest this message comes from the feminine side of the race. Everywhere, we find images of these American females preparing foodstuffs.”
“Then a message from a female American to the happy man you described?”
“That may be so. Shall I send the message to you through our portable translation screen?”
“Proceed.”
“Scanning.” The alien on the ground passes the note through the handheld device, beaming it up to the command ship.
The words pop up on the screen before the alien commander, seated at the control console of the command ship. He reads: “Jimmy. Don’t forget to eat your oatmeal. It will stick to your ribs. Love, Mom.”
In illustrating a truth, sometimes it is useful to take something to the absurd. Mom was not sophisticated, but she had the knack of unconsciously using metaphors to communicate her teachings. The oatmeal speech she frequently gave us is one such example. In her desire to fortify us against the day ahead, Mom would often say, just as the imaginary mother above, “Eat your oatmeal, children. It will stick to your ribs.”
My younger brother, Rex, the brother I grew up closest to—you know, the one you blame for the mischief you get into, cheat at board games, take advantage of and ask to test the cold water of the swimming pool first—was in the hospital a few years back, awaiting major surgery that would take the surgeon through his rib cage.
I had promised that our family would pray for him, and I called him to let him know I was aware of his needs the hour before the surgery was to take place. He was in a well-known Los Angeles hospital, and I had expected merely to leave a message for him. Somewhat sedated from the effects of prep drugs, my brother personally picked up the phone in his private room. Our conversation went something like this:
“So, Rex, you worried?”
“No . . . not . . . really . . .”
“I’m praying for you.”
“Oh . . . well, uh, I’m . . . kinda . . . drug . . . ged . . . right now.”
“Well, I know everything will go well.”
“Oh . . . O . . . kay . . .” he slurred as the drugs took greater effect. “I’d . . . bet . . . ter . . . go . . . now,” he added, drifting away from the conversation.
“Can you do something for me?” I asked.
“What?” he demanded, but as kindly as he could under the circumstances.
“Ask the doctors a question when you come out of recovery.”
“What?”
“Ask them if they found any oatmeal.”
“What?” he squeaked out. “I got . . . ta . . . go . . . ’Bye . . .”
“’Bye. Love you, Brother.”
Click.
The surgery was a success, and when I called Rex the next day to check on him, I just assumed he would remember our pre-operation conversation of the day before.
“So,” I said. “The prayers worked.”
“Yeah. Guess so,” he answered.
“You ask the doctors the question?”
“What question?”
“You know. They cut through your ribs to get to that gland and fix it, right?”
“Yeah . . . so?”
“So did they find what I asked you to have them look for?”
“Jim, what are you talking about?”
“Oatmeal. Did they find any oatmeal stuck to your ribs?”
Silence.
Rex was still under the influence of the drugs he had been given and wasn’t yet thinking clearly, so I let him off the hook.
“Talk to you later,” I said. “We are remembering you in our prayers. But ask the doctors for me, will you?”
“Yeah . . . sure. ’Bye.”
Click.
See, Mom never lied. Unlike our Dad, who lied to get into World Ward II so he could save the planet, Mom always told the truth. I’m not sure if she ever mentioned it to any of her other children, but Mom definitely had always told me when I lived at home: “Jimmy, eat your oatmeal, it’ll stick to your ribs . . .”
Today my own kitchen cabinets are full of oatmeal—all flavors. I still eat the stuff regularly. But I never quite understood what Mom meant by it “sticking to my ribs.” I have never asked either; I just assumed if she said it would stick, then it would.
I recall as a boy feeling around my ribcage after eating my oatmeal and wondering if it took a trip other foods didn’t. Maybe oatmeal really did hang out down there. “ . . . and it’ll keep you warm,” Mom would add, an assurance that eating the entire bowl would be good for me.
See, I trust Mom. So I had never in my life, not even to this day, in my fifth decade, asked why she thought oatmeal, above all other foods, would adhere to my ribs instead of becoming digested in the normal way. The idea that I took from Mom, especially when I was living thousands of miles away from home in South America, and eating almost daily a soupy gruel of watered-down, cooked oats for breakfast (consumed as a drink rather than a thick porridge) was that oatmeal was good for me and that it would also somehow keep me safe. It was a comforting thing. Whenever I brought the cup of warm, soupy oat drink to my lips, Mom was there with me.
As I think on it now, the oatmeal must have comforted Mom too. She just needed to know that something she did would stick to us away from home, when we seven boys and two girls ventured out into the cold, hard world.
Oatmeal might not literally stick to ribs, but I never, ever, eat it without hearing Mom’s voice. So it wasn’t just the oatmeal that stuck to this boy. The porridge was a symbol of something else that would stay with me—her love and pride in me and the time-tested values she taught, which provided real warmth and a shield against the punches life would deliver. Obeying Mom by eating the hot cereal was a way of assuring myself that I could succeed.
Mom always got it right, because she always gave the best. There are no perfect moms or dads, any more than there are perfect children; but some moms come pretty close. After all is said and done, knowing Mom cares makes a boy feel safe.
And as for the oatmeal, every time I eat it I smile and think about it sticking to my ribs in a special way, a way that causes me to silently say:
“Thanks, Mom. Your warmth and caring has stuck where it matters most, and it still is protecting my heart!”
