RIP Patricia Hobbs Winchester Ploutz

My Aunt Pat passed away yesterday. My condolences go out to her children and her grandchildren and her sisters.

 

Growing up as a kid in Oneonta, New York, my best friends were my cousins. I remember sleeping over at Pat’s when I was a kid. My cousins Doug and Steve and I spent a winter’s day building snow forts that looked like they’d been designed by Dr. Seuss after a few cocktails and throwing poorly aimed snowballs that rarely hit their marks. The next morning we got up and Aunt Pat said she would make us pancakes for breakfast. While we waited, we passed the time with scatological embellishments to the Disney characters in our coloring books. You’ve probably noticed that quite a few Disney characters don’t wear pants making it a straightforward process adding a trail of turds behind a waddling Donald Duck, for example. When you’re five years old, few things are as hilarious as poop, leading to gales of laughter as we passed our works of excrement themed works of art around the table. This, in turn, led to Aunt Pat shouting from the kitchen, “What are you boys up to?” in a stern and demanding voice.

I’m sure our response of “Nothing. We’re just coloring.” provided little real reassurance.

Eventually the pancakes arrived but our excitement quickly ended with our first bites. These were the worst pancakes that had ever been griddled. They literally tasted like dirt.

Now, I and my cousins had grown up in houses where food was a precious commodity and failing to clean your plate would only embolden the communists. Even so, the prospect of a second bite of those pancakes was more than we could bear. It fell to Doug, Pat’s oldest, to speak up.

“Ma, these pancakes are awful!” Doug shouted to his mother.

“Those pancakes are fine! You eat those pancakes!” Pat yelled back.

“But they taste like dirt!” Doug responded as I cowered in fear at what might come next. I had been spanked by a shoe once by my mother but I had yet to be spanked with a kitchen utensil and I feared the impact of a slotted spatula.

“YOU EAT THOSE PANCAKES!”

And we did. In very small bites. Was it karma for defiling the images of Donald Duck, Mickey and Minnie, Goofy and yes, Tinkerbell? Perhaps. Those pancakes certainly seemed like a punishment.

As we finished and were disconsolately carrying our plates and silverware out to the kitchen sink, Pat entered the dining room with a plate stacked with pancakes. We were still standing at the kitchen sink when we heard her say, “Oh! These pancakes are bad!”

Pat did not eat those pancakes.

As I look back now I can’t remember with clarity just how badly those dirt pancakes tasted. Instead, I remember how a sleepover at Pat’s, hanging with my bros Doug and Steve, felt like a second home. Those memories are suffused with the reassuring warmth of faux mahogany wood paneling and the low grade buzz of fluorescent light. Those horrible only technically edible pancakes are the anchor for that memory and I hope I never forget them.

We haven’t lived near enough to Oneonta over the years to stay in close contact with my aunts and cousins but we visited Pat when we visited my Mom. She was always gracious and her home always felt welcoming. I’ll miss that. I’ll miss her.

Rest in peace Patricia Hobbs Winchester Ploutz.