Cheese-hound

The slices at right are what went on my grilled-cheese sandwich. They are equivalent to what Killian would get. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—Every two weeks on Friday Yr Fthfl Srvnt has stewed-tomatoes and a grilled-cheese sandwich.
I no longer have my tomato-lady, who used to can tomatoes grown in our garden.
She also made whole-wheat bread from scratch, and I used that for my sandwiches. (No bread-machine either. She kneaded it herself.)
Since she died, I had to start buying canned tomatoes from my supermarket, and supermarket bread also.
I still eat whole-wheat bread, which contradicts my preference for enriched white bread as a child. Sprouted multi-grain etc. It looks like bread flecked with seeds.
That’s my wife’s legacy. She made me who I became. Yrs Trly is a child of east-coast suburbia, while my wife was the rural outback of western NY.
Now I live in a very rural setting myself; my nearest neighbor being 200 feet across the road. I don’t know his name, although I talk to him often.
Side-neighbors are unknowns 400-500 feet away.
It’s what my wife wanted: return to her rural roots, and now I’m rural myself.
Ever since I lost Killian, I no longer buy so much cheese. Killian was a cheese-monger.
Any cheesy meal signified cheese for Killian; chili, pizza, a grilled-cheese sandwich, etc.
Killian loved cheese. “Looka this, big monkey.” I’d hold up the cheese, and out he’d come.
Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! Chomp! Down the hatch!
What I'd slice off for a grilled-cheese sandwich is how much he got.
So here I am slicing extra-sharp cheddar for last night’s grilled-cheese sandwich. I looked into my living-room where Killian woulda jumped onto my Castro-Convertible……
No Killian; the dog that kept “Helluva” in business.

• “Helluva” brand cheese.