Like the good, brand-new wife that I was, I made Arnie, my young husband, a scrambled egg and fried bratwurst breakfast. This was my one day off from working as a nursing assistant for the week, so I planned to crawl back into bed for a couple more hours of sleep the minute I kissed Arnie good-bye.

After he left for his job at the Praschak Machine Company, the house felt too quiet, so on my way back to bed, I stopped in the living room to turn on the stereo. 

A few hours later when I crawled out from under the covers, the sun was much higher in the sky. I felt guilty for spending so much of my day off in bed, but I rationalized, “I needed the extra sleep because I’m in my second trimester of pregnancy.” From the living room I could hear, “The Age of Aquarius” by the 5^th Dimensions playing on the stereo. They were singing, “When the moon is in the 7^th house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars…” It made me think of how, though hard to imagine, just a little over a year ago astronauts had landed on the moon.

While eating buttered toast, I wondered what to make for supper. My inexperienced kitchen skills limited me to what I could make. My husband’s brand of pickiness also limited me. He’d once told me, “I’m not a picky eater. Just make me meat and potatoes and I’ll be happy.”

It never occurred to Arnie that he really was a picky eater. He hated most vegetables, wouldn’t eat casseroles, and he considered it fancy cooking when I added a can of mushrooms to fried venison steak. Many years passed before my husband eventually learned to eat and enjoy more than meat and potatoes.

I felt pleased with myself after settling on making boiled potatoes, heating a can of sauerkraut, and using leftover bratwurst for supper. Then, a daring thought came to me. It would be nice to make a loaf of rye bread!

The idea of making bread had always intimidated me because there were so many steps to the recipe. Working with yeast seemed to me like caring for an exotic animal at the zoo! However, an overabundance of pregnancy hormones made me feel like Mother Earth, convincing me I could successfully make my first loaf of bread.

After a quick run to a grocery store for yeast and flour, I went to work. Feeling like an accomplished Susy Homemaker, I sang along with Lynn Anderson on the stereo. She and I sang, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” The afternoon sunshine made the inside of my avocado-green themed mobile home glow.

The loaves of bread finished baking before Arnie arrived home from work. It didn’t look right. The loaves were darker than I thought they would be, and unnaturally heavy. They were also queerly shaped, each like one half of a football. On the stereo, Simon and Garfunkel were singing, “A Bridge Over Trouble Waters.”

Arnie spotted the bread on the kitchen table the minute he arrived home from work. After examining it, he began to laugh, and said, “Let me get the camera so I can take a picture of it! They look like rocks the astronauts brought home from the moon last year.”

Snatching the loaves of bread off the table, I put their flat sides together and tucked them under one arm and scolded, “Don’t make fun of it!”

“Come on,” Arnie chuckled. “Let me take a picture of it!” As I started to walk away, he began to follow me. Our home was small, so a lap around the living room and kitchen didn’t take long. The faster I walked, the faster he followed. Laughing, I shrieked and turned to run down the mobile home hallway to the back door. The cement patio was just a couple feet below, so I jumped down and headed toward the driveway.

Arnie managed to wrestle the loaves away from me in the driveway. Carefully placing them on the cement as though they were a rare specimen taken from the moon, he took a picture of it.

Pregnancy always seemed to produce an overwhelming desire within my heart to make bread. However, during my subsequent pregnancies, I never failed as badly as I did that first time. As the years passed, I became a better cook. I also learned how to make bread that turned out so nicely that it won a blue ribbon at the Central Wisconsin Fair in Marshfield.