Mike Caldwell has been in the kitchen whipping up special treats since his wife Charlotte returned to work thirty-five years ago, and his evening meals went from special treats to left-overs. His other half still isn’t sure if he was trying to show her how (it could be done even with a full time job) or show her up. This was especially true the days he came home and had dinner on the table in under an hour presenting his family with such treats as Indian food and homemade pasta. Her ego is still bruised.
Sunday morning biscuits and gravy were treats that his children - Sean, married and father to three, and Heather, married with two little boys - now recreate for their own families. And the grand kids also think their Papa is at the top of the heap, because when they visit each summer, it is Papa - not Mama Chat - who is in the kitchen fixing them pancakes each morning.
Mike was born in Alexandria, Louisiana; raised down the road in San Marcos and attended school in San Antonio. The right age at the wrong time, he was a member of the Armed Forces during the only war the US ever lost. Fortunate enough to serve his overseas tour of duty on the top of a mountain in South Korea rather than in the steamy jungles of South Viet Nam, he has some interesting tales to tell.
Retiring from SBC (now ATT) at the age of fifty-five after not quite thirty years, the final years as a manager in one of the special services division, he also managed to squeeze in twenty-five years of sailing. Fifteen of those years were spent traversing the waters of Eagle Mountain Lake, north of Fort Worth, where weekends found him manning the bar-b-que pit attached to the aft railing of his 27´ Catalina. The last ten years of his watery avocation were spent traveling down I35 on his (and his wife's) monthly trips to Port Aransas, where his prized possession, Island Rose, a 40’ Endeavor was berthed.
…And if he has tales to tell of Korea, they pale in comparison to those that can be told of his salt water sailing experiences! Don’t ask...but, as a hint, they have nothing to do with cooking.