Punishment or the

Peanut Butter Caper !

It was late in the summer

of 1941; World War II was 

raging across Europe in 

full force. Most of the 

schools were closed. 

Life according to Dad 

'sucked'. People in the 

big  cities were panicking. 

The stores were empty 

and food was scarce. 

Everybody seemed to be 

hungry all the time.  

There was very little 

work for adults let alone 

teenage boys. All who had 

work were getting paid 

daily as no-one knew what 

would happen by the next 

day. Would the workplace 

still be standing or have 

been reduced to rubble 

over night?   

Shortly before the war 

started Granddad 

(Dad's Dad)had been 

promoted to Post-master 

and he had moved the whole 

family to live permanently 

to their summer home; 

Orchard Cottage. 

The name of their home 

explains it all. 

It was an old brick house 

set on twenty-six acre lot 

and had been in the family 

forever; and had been 

Grandma's inheritance. 

Except for the tasty stone hard 'gut ache creating' green apples, 

the fruit in the orchard was not yet ripe enough to eat.  

There was the kitchen garden full of summer squash, spinach, 

and beans etc.  All the good for you vegetables a thirteen year 

old boy didn't particularly wanted to eat (but did because either 

you ate it or you went hungry). 

Dad was absolutely infatuated with airplanes, and as schools were 

closed, spent most of his time at the airport with, Jancsi and 

Ferko, his two best mates. (Instead of weeding the veggie garden).

The American air force had commandeered this small private 

countryside airport.The way Dad told his tale it really wasn't 

much of an airport, just a bumpy overgrown runway with an old Barn 

converted into a hangar that in normal days had housed half a dozen 

small airplanes. It had an office and most importantly the top of 

the line short wave radio set up. All of this belonging to some 

cousin or other from Grandma's side of the family, as most of the 

small town did. 

The Americans really liked the  location  of the town as it was 

only a hundred or so kilometers southwest of Budapest. There were  

no  major industry nor any noticeable landmarks near-by; which made 

it easier to camouflage most of the area around the airstrip.  

Supposedly it had been only a small battalion of soldiers that were 

staying nearby the airport. Their duties were to  receive 

air-shipments and then to move all the necessary equipment and food 

stuffs by road  to the other battalions scattered throughout the area.     

The soldiers by now knew Dad and his two side-kicks by now and 

good-natured put up with the three teenagers being underfoot on a 

daily bases. The boys wanted nothing more than to see and learn all 

there was to know about airplanes etc. and to  help  unloading, 

schlepping and stacking stuff. (which also gave them a few pennies 

worth of earnings).At the end of the cargo stacking party the soldiers 

not only gave the boys  some trading valuables for their effort but 

they also fed them a good meal. 

As the story be told, the larger than usual cargo plane lands; 

the back-end doors get opened, the giant-sized quarter-master 

named Stan motioned the three boys to  get started with the unloading 

as it had to be done as fast as possible.  He himself has to help pull 

the camouflage screening over the nose-bit that's hanging out of the 

hangar . 

The boys and the unloading soldier crew are sweating as they hurry 

to pull off all the equipment.  Less than 1½ an hour later the last 

of the crates  is piled precariously over to the side.

Stan and the rest of the crew hurriedly readied the plane for take-off. 

During this time the top-most crate crashed to the ground spilling its 

five gallon-sized cans of peanut-butter. One blew open spilling some of 

its great smelling content.  

The boys looked around a little worried but their growling stomachs won 

the battle . Peanuts butter was not something  they were familiar with 

as it was not a staple in Hungary and they had never tasted  it before 

but it sure smelled good enough to eat.     

Each of them tried a small little  glob on their finger first...hmmm 

tastes good. They decided that it was worth a bigger scoop  next...Oh-oh 

there was Stan starring at them angrily...and there just was no way of 

even pretending that they hadn't  swiped  some...they couldn't swallow 

the mess in their mouths fast enough and their sorries just sounded like 

garbelled grunts...

Stan called for one of the soldiers who was in charge of the kitchen. By 

now the boys were really, really worried. They looked at each other 

thinking that this might be the last time they saw each other...

The cook  lifted the blown can off the ground and motioned for the boys to 

follow him. He led them to the small camouflage-netted mess tent just by 

the hangar doors. He motioned for the boys to sit down at cleanly scrubbed  

table. 

Stan had followed them into the mess tent and stood in front of the boys 

with the most menassing glare. Dad  recalls Stan to have been a 

huge-humongous-armoired-sized man. The rest of the crew that has assembled 

all around looked as grimy and wrinkled as the boys themselves were. Whereas 

Stan even after having taken more than his fair share of the unloading still 

looked all 'militarish' his uniform still looked clean and tidyand crisp. 

Stan was quite scary actually as he growled at the boys in a deep cutting 

voice. ".....stealing from the US air force is unacceptable and punishable 

by a jail term of no less than five years......Do you boys understand the 

severity of your situation? I'm not quite sure how to handle this". 

I(Stan)being a fair man who understands that you boys are owed  for the 

heavy work you have done unloading the plane today. Here is what we're going 

to do. He(Stan) would go finish his job which would take  a little more than 

an hour and if by that time the evidence of the open peanut butter can had 

disappeared without a trace, he(Stan) would have to accept that there was a 

mistake made in the counting of the inventory before it was shipped...

but only as a favor for work well done today and in the past......"

Dad, Jancsi and Ferko were quite taken-a-back by this what seemed to be their 

lucky break. Even at that, Dad was wondering why Stan had this wicked grin 

on his face as he left the Mess Tent. Behind them on the table was THE giant 

can. The cook handed each a big wooden spoon and then left to fetch a big 

pitcher of water with three mugs also wearing a grin from ear to ear...

"You better hurry boys" he said "Stan is not someone you want to mess with 

especially when you were caught stealing form the US army".

It took  the boys only ten minutes to figure out the reason for the wicked 

grins. The first tastes of the Peanut-butter were quite good but a little goes 

a long way.  Thirty minutes into their time they were only half way down the 

can and they were gagging and already so full they felt they would explode...

the cook came by with fresh water to refill their cups. "Hurry now boys you're 

more than half way passed your time and still half left in the can". The others 

from the unloading crew had assembled and were trying to cheer the boys on, 

while shaking their heads saying in their broken Hungarian that they sure should

be going to jail, after all stealing food...Stan is gone soft in the head for 

even suggesting such...

As the story unfolds Dad, Jancsi and Ferko didn't go to jail. They polished off 

the five gallon vat of peanut butter. All three didn't go back to the airstrip 

for a while as they were sicker than dogs...

They had not told their parents about almost becoming jail-birds. It wasn't for 

years that Grandma spilled the beans about Stan  visiting each of the parents 

and explained why and what he had done to  scare the be-jeepers out of the 

teenagers...Naturally  each set of parents applauded Stan's tactics. 

Even years later Dad, confessed that he would never want to eat anything to do 

with peanuts ever again.

The war ended. Dad grew up, he met and married Mom. The revolution drove them 

out of Hungary. For twelve years in Belgium, no-where was there any sign of 

peanut-butter, as it wasn't a well known substance there either. (Then)

We came to Canada August of 1969,  the first trip to the grocery store in 

Midland, a four foot section of shelves full of all the different peanut-butter 

name brands. Kraft,Jiff....crunchy, extra crunchy, smooth with chocolate swirls 

mixed and whipped with honey...What do you think Dad does? He buys three 

different types and forever  renames peanut butter as *Punishment * .

Dad  was so excited about his jars of peanut butter  he didn't even help lug-in 

the many papersacs of groceries. He headed straight for the kitchen his jars in 

one arm and a loaf of  fresh bread in the other....HMMM...good...

I guess when it's peanut butter one can be a sucker for punishment.............