Son of a Butcher

 For many years Sherri has cooked Christmas brunch for our family. This year only my daughter, Susan, Clay our son-in-law and Holly, our granddaughter, were at the brunch table. We were enjoying the food and our conversations when, and I’m not sure how, the topic moved to fried chicken. As the conversation continued I mentioned that my mother fried chicken for our family every week, and that it was about the best fried chicken I had ever eaten. Then I mentioned that mom taught Sherri how to fry chicken. Sherri spoke up, “I would buy a whole chicken and John Paul would cut it up…” Holly, our granddaughter interrupted wanting to know what it meant that Pa cut up a chicken.. 

Sherri explained that cutting up a chicken meant that I took a sharp butcher knife and cut the different pieces of the chicken such as the legs, the wings, the breasts, the thighs and the pulley bone (that really confused Holly). Holly wanted to know how I knew how to  cut up a chicken. Sherri said, “Pa was a son of a butcher”…there was a pause and suddenly laughter broke out. It took a while for Sherri’s remark to sink in. Then I said, “Well, I’ve never been called a son of a butcher before, especially by my wife. I don’t think we ever finished the discussion about frying chickens.

My daddy was a butcher. When he began running our country grocery he decided that he needed to learn that trade. Daddy went up to Toledo Ohio where his older brother taught him the art of butchering. Daddy was a very good butcher and he wanted my brother and me to learn the basics of butchering so that we could help in the meat department. So he taught us enough that we could do some of the easier jobs. So I guess Sherri was right, I am a son of a butcher. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, is there? 

Not only were my brother and I the sons of a butcher, we were also the sons of a farmer, the sons of a good man and the sons of a Christian. Our daddy was a child of God, and a son of God the Father. My brother and I followed in the footsteps of our daddy. Both of us have daughters and they can say, “We are daughters of teachers, and daughters of preachers”, but more importantly they are able to say, “We are daughters of the Heavenly Father.” I wish and pray that every child would be able to say some day, “I am a son, a daughter of the Heavenly Father.”