Doris Kannard left us about 3 years ago. But it seems longer than that since I’ve had a chance to pull her chain. Now that it is baseball season I miss her nasty text messages and phone calls during a game to heckle me. Especially since my Yankees and her nasty Royals are going to play this week.
Doris never had children and during the time I worked at the Towers we became friends and then she adopted me and called me adS which stood for adopted daughter Sandy. She was such a mess and loved to cause trouble all the time so I started to call her amT: adopted mom TROUBLE.
I will never forget the cinnamon roll classes I taught at the Towers. I would mix up the dough while the women sat at the table and watched and followed along with the recipe in front of them. Then the dough was divided and each woman at the table would have fun rolling it out and putting on the butter, cinnamon and sugar. Then they would roll the dough up and cut the rolls and put them in little pans they could take them home with them.
Doris always came to the class but it drove her crazy to watch me mix up the dough. She had been a lab tech and everything had to be measured precisely for her job and that carried over into everything she did. So she had trouble watching me mix bread dough.
I had fun watching her in class; she was my entertainment for the afternoon. When I put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in the mixing bowl she started to fidget. I don’t measure anything precisely; I have made the cinnamon rolls enough that I know just how much of each ingredient to put in.
After the first four ingredients were in the bowl and blended I added the warm milk and mixed it well. The dough was set aside so it could double in size before adding the last two ingredients. Then the eggs, oil and the rest of the flour were added. There would be more fidgeting at the end of the table while Doris watched me add the flour to the dough until the consistency felt right to me.
Then I’d dump the dough out and knead it just a little and divide it so everyone had enough dough for 4-5 rolls, depending on the size they cut them, to take home with them. Once they rolled out the dough they spread butter on it and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on. Then they rolled it up and cut the rolls and placed them in the pans. Each pan would have a different color toothpick put in the middle of a roll so we knew who it belonged to.
Once the rolls were baked I handed each pan back to the owner so they could ice them. Of course her icing had to be put on precisely, not drizzled over them. Most of the women just wanted me to drizzle icing on theirs, but not Doris; her rolls had to have the icing spread just so.
My favorite memory of Doris is the last bet we made on the World Series the fall before we lost her. The bet was $5.00 on the outcome of the series. She called me when the last game was over and told me she wanted her $5.00. I told her I would be there in the morning to pay off my debt.
The next morning I went to the bank and handed the gal at the window a $5.00 bill. I told her I wanted it all in nickels. I put the 100 nickels in a baggie and stuck it in my purse and drove to the Towers. When Doris came down to lunch, I was waiting for her. The first thing she said was: “Where is my $5.00?” “It’s right here” I said as I pulled the baggie out of my purse and poured 100 nickels onto a table.
I’d never seen her speechless but she was that day for a few seconds and then she started laughing as she looked at 100 nickels all over the table. She wanted to know what she was going to do with $5.00 in nickels. I said, “Not my problem; I paid off my debt.”
She put the nickels back in the baggie and then put the plastic bag into the cloth bag that hung on her walker. Then she fussed at me because she could hardly push the silver walker she used with 100 nickels in it. But I think she secretly loved the last joke I pulled on her.
I’m betting she told St. Peter not to let me in when I arrive at the gate. “We will see about that amT! I will be there one day to heckle you again and I will have my dad, the master prankster, to help me.” Today I am remembering Doris (amT) and the good times we had. To contact Sandy: [email protected].
