Rites of August

It’s August. Time for corn on the cob.

I come from a long line of prodigious corn-eaters. At one time, my small family, then consisting of me, my sister, mom and dad, Uncle M, and my grandparents, could easily put away two dozen ears at dinner. In recent years, as the family and times have changed, we’ve slowed down a bit.

Almost every late summer lunch or dinner included corn on the cob. With so many small farms in our region of western Pennsylvania, fresh corn was readily available at roadside stands or right off the back of a truck parked at the edge of the field. Brown paper bags originally filled with ears were soon filled with husks and silk of the palest green. We kids used to marvel at how fast my father could shuck an ear of corn, taking all the silk off in one tear. With our small hands, it took us a while to clean an ear, almost the same time as it took him to do six. We would “Ewww” over the worms and dad would cut them out with his pocketknife.

While we stacked the corn on a platter, hamburgers and hotdogs sizzled on the grill. The corn would be served as the last course. Apart from cucumbers, which my grandmother usually smothered in sour cream and pepper, there was never anything green or remotely like a salad.

The uncontested patriarch of corn on the cob was my grandfather. Pappap loved his corn, and his early August birthday coincided with the first fresh harvest. He would lean forward from his chair at the head of the table in my grandparents’ humid kitchen, grab the topmost ear from a steaming golden pyramid, and get to work. At least three sticks of butter and two salt shakers sat in strategic locations on the table. Pappap usually had his own. His preferred method of butter transference was to roll the corn right on top of the stick.

We all ate our corn the same way, like a typewriter. Left to right, carriage return, roll the top away to get to the next row. No one ever cut the corn off the cob. That would be sacrilege.

Conversation at the table centered on varieties of corn. My mother and I preferred “Silver Queen,” white, small kerneled, sugary sweet. But “Silver Queen” usually matures later, so in early August we were more likely to have what is called “Butter and Salt” or “Butter and Sugar,” for its yellow and white pattern. Sometimes I think we ate regular old field corn, waxy and with huge gold kernels that stuck to our teeth like caramel. My grandmother and father liked this best, joking that they would be happy eating with the cows. If Pappap had a preference, it never showed.

When the feasting was over, Pappap would heap his denuded cobs and destroyed napkins on his plate, exhale heavily, and wipe the butter from his glasses with the edge of his corn-splattered white t-shirt. Sometimes part of a kernel would hang from a strand of his silver hair. Picking his teeth, he’d push away from the table and say, “I need to take a shower.”

Tonight I truly felt his granddaughter, as I turned away from the table, two empty cobs on my plate, fingernail between my teeth.