Pancakes and Dreams

When we were children the beginning of the Christmas season was not announced by the first snow or the annual slew of greeting cards or even the distribution of the obligatory candy plates between neighbors and friends. No, we knew Christmas was truly on the way only with the arrival of the JC Penny and Montgomery Wards Christmas catalogues. Having rarely been inside an actual toy store where the sole commodity was playthings, the catalogues came to us like manna from the elves. Oh! The possibilities that lay before us on those dog-eared pages each of us perused so carefully. The Christmas wish list was nothing to be taken lightly. After all, the hopes and dreams of an entire year were hanging in the balance.

When Ray was perhaps nine or ten, the pages of the catalogue spoke to him. Maybe he didn’t even know he wanted it before he saw it, but suddenly his Christmas wish was right in front of him: The Burger Chef. Now some might compare it to a Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven, but don’t be misled. This was no sissy cake baker. Good grief, man, this thing could cook meat! I can see the dreams that may have run through his head: The dinners he would whip up for the family, the amazing delights he could make for his friends, standing beside Dad at the family cookout and matching him burger for burger. Yes, the Burger Chef would make for one incredible year!

To his delight, Santa concluded that he had indeed been good enough that year, and the Burger Chef was his. To make the dream complete he announced that he was going to make Christmas breakfast for the family. After he and Mom set up the stove, which consisted mainly of screwing in a low-wattage light bulb, he pulled out the packet of pancake mix included with the set and readied himself for glory. It wasn’t long, however, before there was a pinprick in the bubble of his delight. Quite quickly he realized that the breadth of his pancakes was going to closely resemble that of a quarter. Nonetheless he concluded that the difficulty of size could easily be overcome by quantity. Many little pancakes could just as easily fill a stomach as one large one. Thus saving his hopes from the jagged rocks of despair, he pushed the pan inside, and with his nose nudged against the plastic window, he eagerly watched the cooking process.

Behind him, he began to hear complaints from the other children, “Geez, Ray! I’m hungry! When are we going to eat?”

With every minute that passed, he became more deflated. They didn’t seem to be cooking at all! It was becoming clear that he was not going to be able to provide an entire breakfast, but even more disconcerting was the idea that if the thing couldn’t even cook pancakes, how was it ever going to cook meat?!

Many hungry complaints later, some very smallish, scary looking pancakes were served. While his siblings grumbled, and Mom began making pancakes on the larger and more reliable cook top, Dad stacked three on his vast plate, topped them with a dab of syrup, and cut into them with knife and fork. Two bites finished the meal, and turning to Ray he said, “Mmm! That was delicious, son!”

And just like that Ray’s pride was restored. It didn’t matter that he had taken his first stony bite of reality. It didn’t matter that he had begun to see that not all dreams are delivered as they appear in the catalogues. It didn’t even matter that his family would not eat the pancakes made by his own hand. No, the day had been a success: His father had declared it so, and he couldn’t wait to see what other “delicious” delicacies could be created with The Burger Chef.