It was never my intention to join the Civil War Round Table of Chicago. While I admit to being interested in Civil War history, I never dove very deep. But that all changed during a neighborhood BBQ in my leafy Chicago suburb. Making polite conversation with a neighbor, I mentioned my tangential interest in the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wrong move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I didn\u2019t know was that this wizened gentleman taught history at a local high school and the Civil War was his prime area of interest. Before I knew it, he was grilling me on various battles, uniforms and military culinary needs. Not knowing any of the answers, I was tap dancing like crazy. Just about then, he hit me up with an unexpected request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI insist that you come as my guest to our Civil War Round Table meeting Wednesday evening. We\u2019re always looking for new members and I just won\u2019t let you say \u2018No\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was trapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time, I was an ad agency copywriter writing TV commercials featuring the Pillsbury Doughboy and his Poppin\u2019 Fresh biscuits. I just couldn\u2019t envision how I\u2019d ever transition from daytime biscuit writer to nighttime Civil War student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walking into a roomful of Round Tables at a downtown hotel, I noted that I was the youngest person in the room\u2026by decades. It looked like a Civil War reunion. As I searched for my host, conversation sputtered to a stop. Grey beards and canes were everywhere. A low-lying cloud of Old Spice aftershave floated through the room. I saw enough hearing devices to pick up signals from the International Space Station. Several men looked like they stepped off a Smith Brothers Cough Drop box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As they closed in on me, they had no way of knowing that I still had biscuits on my brain as their questions rang out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat did you think about the proper way to build a trench?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow do you feel about the grade of wool used in uniforms?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow much do you know about hardtack?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Staring blankly at a fancy chandelier, I thought this last question was one I could answer. Good thing, as I was now completely encircled by a platoon of Civil War scholars. If memory serves, one may have even been on horseback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNever really had the pleasure of tasting hardtack,\u201d I vamped. \u201cBut I do know a thing or two about biscuits. I\u2019ve been working on biscuits all day. I bet those soldiers would\u2019ve loved a flaky, piping hot Pillsbury biscuit or two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The world stopped rotating. A waiter dropped a tray of Sausage Johnnycake. A fly paused on the tablecloth. As I stared from face to face, these Round Table Regulars, frozen in position, were slack-jawed, speechless and stupefied. Taking advantage of the moment, I executed a flawless military retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My neighbor never mentioned the evening. However, during our next neighborhood gathering, he shot me a withering look as he dramatically removed my biscuits from a table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It just happened to be round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was never my intention to join the Civil War Round Table of Chicago. While I admit to being interested in Civil War history, I never dove very deep. But that all changed during a neighborhood BBQ in my leafy Chicago suburb. Making polite conversation with a neighbor, I mentioned my tangential interest in the … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-non-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-Eq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2506"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2606,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2506\/revisions\/2606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Jim has never met anyone else who has written about biscuits, but he’s sure they’re out there somewhere. He has fond memories of his days with Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy. Jim’s only regret is that he never asked his doughy friend why he was so anxious to pop out of his tube, only to be eaten.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"