I was cooking up the three hundredth bowl of oatmeal for my eighty-four year old mother, when I decided to add the new product that I had discovered in the grocery store.

I took the jar out of the cabinet and scanned the label with increasing satisfaction; folic acid 20%, vitamin E 20%, magnesium 10%, thiamine 15%, phosphorus 10%, zinc 10%.

_________ Wheat Germ-toasted. Boy, she’ll be running laps around the block with this stuff, I thought.

    Dishing out a portion of oatmeal, I sprinkled  two tbsp. of the miraculous powder over the top and proudly set the bowl on the table.I stepped back in order to better see the look of struck dumb amazement and delight certain to appear on her face.

  ” Whats this?”  I whipped out the jar and set it in front of her.

   She tilted her head back to peer through the bottom of her bifocals, slowly mouthed the label ,and said;

   “Oh yes, daddy used to buy hundred pound bags of this to feed the hogs and cows.”