Love Language Out West

I’m here in the mountains of Wyoming again, cooking for the second group of hunters. Here in this primitive setting when men turn up at the supper table, it’s after hiking several miles up and down these mountains over the course of 16 hours, and if they’re lucky, they’re bloodied up from field dressing the kill of the day. Conditions here require a specific sort of menu—hearty, stick-to-your-ribs kind of fare: meat and potatoes, beans, good bread, and pie with a lard crust. It’s food I know how to cook because I grew up eating that way having been raised by folks that cut their teeth on the hard scrabble work done with teams, pitch forks and scoop shovels, not GPS-driven tractors with computerized implements. If you’d asked any one of them about GPS on the farm, they’d have guessed you were talking about “Gettin’ Plenty of Sleep” cuz they knew too well you were gonna need it.

As I laid out two big skillets of meat and beans with biscuits last night, I thought about my grandmother who was an excellent cook and had had decades of practice in feeding large groups of hungry men. One of her favorite sayings was, “There’s enough here to feed the thrashers!” She knew what she was talking about because she had lived through the days of feeding the thrashing crews.

Grandma was a feeder. She wasn’t the best at showing tender affection to those she cared about—that wasn’t really done much in her generation—but by gawd no one ever left her house hungry.

When you walked through her door you heard one of two standard greetings: “Have you ate yet?” or “Are you hungry?” And nothing made her happier than watching someone enjoy eating what she’d prepared.

This hunt camp cooking gig has given me a taste of that, as well.

Thinking about Grandma and her cooking brought to mind a book that became popular in recent years called The 5 Languages of Love, written by a Gary Chapman, perhaps you’ve heard of it. I’ve never read the book, but I know it proposes the idea that there are basically 5 ways people express their love and affection to others—through words of praise, physical touch, by giving gifts, doing things for others, or spending time with them. While all those things make sense, Mr. Chapman was obviously not from this neck of the woods, otherwise he would know there are more than 5 ways people can express their love and care for another.

If, like me, you were raised out here in the last century, around hard-working folks who had no time nor patience for monkeyshine, then you are probably familiar with a couple other languages of love. Besides feeding—my grandmother’s language—the second most prevalent love language I grew up with was yell-cussing.

“Get up, and get back on the sonofabitch!”

“Shut the damn gate!”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Until you’ve experienced (and survived) having to hold a flashlight while some intricate and extremely crucial repair is being made in less than favorable lighting, well… you have never  heard the true language of love. “A little to the right. No, dammit, MY right! What the hell are you doing? Over here. Right there. Pay attention, goddammit! Now DON’T move.”

Though some of it is funny to look back on now, much of it wasn’t funny at the time. But it wasn’t supposed to be. Raising kids to be competent, respectful and honest was serious business, back when parents weren’t afraid to make their kids mad, and kids knew they weren’t the ones in charge. That’s the sometimes-not-so-fun love language of real parenting—when shaping you up to be someone who could hold your own and get it done was how they showed you they cared.

I’ve heard it said a person’s subconscious mind will always retain the memory of the first language they heard spoken in the home, and I know that must be true, because I am still fluent in feeding and yell-cussing. These hunters can vouch for that. They’re pretty happy with the meals I’m putting out, so long as they remember to keep the screen door shut so the flies don’t come in. Then they’re liable to hear a bit of love language not mentioned in Chapman’s book.

“What the hell? Were you born in the barn?!”