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Terry Sutherland

U.S. Army

173rd Airborne

Photo © by Ron Sylvan - istockphoto.com

The Venerable Fruitcake

Ok, Woody, this is my theory. In the dawn of mankind the first cave baker accidentally dropped his nuts and some honey and berries in a pot of coarse ground grains that he was preparing to form into cakes and distribute amongst his tribe. While that accident was devastating for a hunter-gatherer baker, through ingenuity, he formed the concoction into cakes and advertised it as a new wonder breakfast full of all of the natural and necessary ingredients to benefit the health of the cave people. 

While the cakes looked appetizing, they were simply too hard and dry to consume. They looked pretty though, and not knowing what else to do they used them as an offering to the cave gods to insure a fruitful harvest and after a few years of drought determined that even the gods hated fruitcake.

Knowing that once produced their fruitcakes were indestructible, they decided to share them amongst themselves as birthday gifts.  Soon this practice was outlawed in cave courts so a secret fruitcake society was started to insure the yearly distribution of the cakes---the society of the knights of the fruitcake was born.

I think that Ray is really a counter operative in the fruitcake lover’s society. I think he has duped you into believing that he eats them--------but I think he is just a collection point for redistribution-------I have often thought that I received the same fruitcake two years in a row.

I believe that you believe that you like fruitcake--------it is obvious that the fruitcakes that your mother and family made are counterfeits and edible food and not the original fruitcakes that get passed around every year. I think Fat Daddies thought he had a real fruitcake and saw the antique value in it and sold it to Eddy’s Bakery, in Cut Bank, Montana; they probably still don’t know they have a counterfeit. 

---------Oh yeah, I know you’re going to say you have eaten fruitcake that wasn’t counterfeit, and you’re going to tell me that you drank sea water too. After seeing your before and after photos that you have posted, I’m inclined to think that you have discovered the fountain of youth----------maybe it’s the fruitcake.

Sans Peur

© 12/20/2006 by Terry Sutherland

(This is the result of my recounting a story about my mother’s famous ‘Care Packages’, which sometimes contained several small fruitcakes at Christmas time. Earlin C. Jones, AKA ‘Fat Daddies’, dearly loved those packages from home. We were stationed together in the early Sixties on Cut Bank Air Force Station, a remote radar site in northern Montana. 'Daddies' especially awaited, with great anticipation, the Christmas packages containing the fruitcakes, in spite of what Terry thinks. - T. P. Woodfork)

 

Awarded 11 May 2009


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