Robbery

When my husband had the junk yard there was a family of men who worked for him. After he no longer had the yard they worked off and on for some of the other junkyards in the area. 

They were all fairly young men with young families. All of them except a cousin who was older with a wife and no children.

I began to manage one yard of three that a friend owned. One of that family worked for me. He was a good worker and I could depend on him.

Our family moved to another state and we lost touch. I did get newspapers from the other state however.

One day I read some upsetting news. It concerned the family who had worked for us.

The young man who had worked for me and the older cousin were working for a yard in a bad area of Detroit.

Someone entered the yard intending to rob it. They shot the young man and killed him. They also shot the older cousin and I do not know what his condition was.

But the tragedy does not stop there. Someone called the other young man. He was the older brother of the young man who died,

He immediately got ready to go to his brother. As he frantically ran out his front door he suffered a heart attack. He died right away.

They left 6 young children to grow up without their fathers. 

Walnut Chews

My mother was an extremely generous and giving person. She was creative and talented. What I am about to tell you will surprise you. It certainly surprised her children.

When I was a teenager she found a recipe in a woman's magazine. Mom thought it looked good enough to try. She made them at Christmas that year. They were good but nothing to write home about.

The next year Mom made them again with a few slight changes. They were better.

Each year Mom would tweak her recipe a bit. It took a few years before she got the perfect bar cookies. They were a family favorite.

They are called walnut chews. You can find recipes for walnut chews on the internet. They are not the same nor are they even close to as good.

Mom's recipe had a sort of short bread layer covered by chewy filling and topped with walnuts. The bars are very rich and you cannot eat too many.

When we would ask her how to make them she would shrug her shoulders and say that she just put in a bit of this and that. I understand a bit of this and that but I do not have a clue about what the ingredients are.

One year while Mom was making the walnut chews my sister saw the recipe laying on the book of recipes. My sister leaned over to peak at it and Mom slammed the recipe book shut!

As I said Mom was generous. She taught all her children to cook. But she would not share that recipe.

After Mom died my sister and I were going through her things. When we came across that recipe book we looked for the walnut chews recipe. Not there. We never found it. Mom took it with her I guess.

I have tried many times to make anything that comes close to walnut chews. I have not been successful.