The Ward Corn Boil

What could be more fun than a quarterly party at the church. Mary once told me that her favourite part of growing up was the parties where the kids could run around the church. What else are halls made for? Oh, on Sunday the halls are made for reverent walking, but at a ward party the halls and the stage seem to be free for everyone who likes to either run, or bounce a basketball on the stage or stick their face out between the cracks of the red velvet curtain, or come out and make a mighty jump from the stage to the floor.

The kids seemed to know who could do what. The Johnson kids have no trouble with gigantic leaps, since they make them often from monkey bars.

Matt Racine selling corn to High River residents July 2018
High River online.com

Taber corn was about 90% wiped out this year. 

But the Tom Johnson farm was saved from the hailstorm that ruined the rest of the crops, so the corn for the party was brought to Claresholm by the farmer and then Dave Williams went and picked it up there and brought it back to Calgary.

Now that I think about it, I wonder who shucked all of that corn, and then who boiled it.

When I saw it, it was already on the buffet table beside a bucket of melted butter. I had described to the kids how corn is wiped along the top of a pound of butter, really twisted into the butter, but for this party there was just a full dipping into a tall bucket of melted butter.

The Johnson kids don’t like corn. I told them only take from the buffet what they want to eat. Michael had a hot dog and two small carrots. There was a vegetarian feast available (as well as the hot dogs).

Yesterday I told Michael that in the far distance past of his grandfather Johnson’s time, at corn parties, people were challenged to eat their height in cobs of corn.

At the party, I showed Michael how to chew down one row of corn without stopping. He was amazed as he watched me and he asked, “Can all grandmothers do that?”

Joan Turnbull was there so I turned to her and she said, no, that was a skill she didn’t have. She showed him how to take one small bite at a time. Since he doesn’t like corn, he was not about to try either way. I didn’t really think about the way to eat corn using perfect etiquette. I am sure it is not fashionable to use your teeth to run from one end of the corn to the other without lifting them off of the cob. I wondered about the corn I had eaten – I was given a smaller cob. Wikipedia says that “the average ear of corn has 800 kernels, arranged in 16 rows. There is one piece of silk for each kernel. Each tassel on a corn plant releases as many as 5 million grains of pollen”. I have to say that ins formation me a new respect for corn. And a new respect for the 800 kernels that I had consumed one complete row at a time.

This morning, I wondered what was wrong with me last night, only eating one cob. At our table, since 3 of the kids didn’t touch the corn at all, there might have been at least 3 cobs extra. What was delivered at the party wasn’t just ordinary corn. This was sweet, delicious Taber corn.

I thought the desserts would be a big sell. Joan did too, and told Michael he could only take 3 of them to start with. But when he got back to the table, he wasn’t that interested in any of them although we explained to him the origin of Nanaimo bars. That couldn’t have been that interesting to him, given he wouldn’t have even know where Nanaimo was.

Michael left his desserts and ran to play again on the stage or in the halls. Alice came back frantic at the very least in the evening. Betty was lost. Or if not lost, nearly lost for she couldn’t find her. Joan and I told Alice to take one more tour of the church and if she couldn’t find her, both grandmothers would go looking for Betty.

Alice did find her and bring her back, and was bawling Betty out.

“Why did you nearly get lost Betty?”

“Because you were going too fast for my legs to catch up.”

And that ends my story of the ward corn boil.

A good time was had by all.

Arta