Not sure what triggers it… but for a moment I am a child in my grandparent’s house, in the tiny kitchen with tongue-and-groove walls painted soft yellow, empty dinner dishes on the table, Granddaddy in his plaid shirt pouring coffee in his saucer to cool it, Grandma in her apron serving flaky biscuits from the oven, Granddaddy grasping the thick glass bottle with the dark blue label reading King Po-T-Rik, adorned with a lion’s head, the dark, dark molasses drizzling into pool on my plate, his handing me a buttered biscuit, me sopping molasses with it… it is heaven, it is home, home, home, it is a hundred, a thousand years ago, and right now, in my remembering…the old ways, they stay, forever, forever, forever.

King Po-T-Rik molasses was manufactured from the early 1900s to 2015.
No other molasses compares to it.
As an adult, I once went to a country buffet that had molasses and biscuits.
I poured the brown richness on my plate and sopped it with a biscuit,
just like Granddaddy and I used to do,
One of the old men, watching me, said:
‘That’s old-school…”
and I was proud.

I’d go back and sop with you in a minute, Granddaddy.
There’s much to be said
for the old ways.