Uncle Ray's Hot Potato Chips
Taste: These are good hot chips with a nice flavor. They won't win the contest for the hottest chips in the world, but they're still fairly hot and have a lot of flavor. They're hot enough that you might need to go get a drink of water after eating them (but it won't be a super-urgent situation to get water, as it is with some even hotter chips). The flavor powder on the chips is a bright red, similar to some ketchup chips. A good snack with some zing.
Aroma: A good hot barbecue sort of smell — it kind of makes your mouth water.
Review courtesy of
Taquitos.net.
Uncle Ray also has a nice little slice of life story about what it was like growing up in Detroit which he refers to as
Uncle Ray's Chapters.
Here are some excerpts:
Chapter 1
My First Business VentureThe Fisher Housing Project was hot in the summer. As a way to make money I tried selling Kool Aid for a penny a cup. I offered orange, grape, strawberry and lime. (Lime was not a good seller.) At 8 years old, I had a lot to learn. One day a boy came by and grabbed one of my gallons of Kool Aid and ran away with it. Naturally I took off after him. I never caught him and when I came back to my stand the rest of my Kool Aid was no where to be found. This taught me a valuable lesson. Always be sure to keep an eye on your business or it will get away from you.
That same summer my father tried to earn extra money by ordering various products from a magazine to sell. Things like men's work clothes, Gillette razor blades, Bayer aspirin in a tin, bobby pins, shoe laces, etc. He would sell some at the foundry where he worked. I went house to house in the projects and sold items for ten cents apiece. That was a good deal of money back then for razor blades and aspirin. I remember one young lady who bought many items from my tray. There was something very special about her. Her face was as white as snow and her kindness abundant. To me she looked like an angel, and maybe she was.
Chapter 3
Before Potato Chips There Were Blacken PotatoesIn the Summer-time we had a lot of fun living in the Fisher Housing Projects (S.W. side of Detroit). At 9 years old, everyday was an adventure as well as every night. At night we would dig a hole in the back yard and build a fire to roast potatoes. We would put them on the end of a wire hanger and stick them in the fire for an hour or two. Summer time was bare foot time from May until September; most of us kids would go bare foot. I can still remember the pain, because someone would always leave their red-hot wire on the ground after they took their potato off. I remember going house to house trading comic books at one time. I had comics stacked 3 feet high. Comics were 5 cents at the store and the best way to read new books was to trade. I remember marbles on the day I took a cardboard box and made holes in the side. The shooter could win 2 to 25 marbles, and the smallest hole was for 25. Very few would shoot for the 2 or 5 hole. Most would lose by trying for the hole that only 1 in 100 ever made. By the end of the day I had a large box of marbles. But I felt bad and gave them back. I tore up the box and never did that again. It's ok to play fair when everyone has a chance to win, but to take advantage of someone is wrong.
Chapter 4
Can't tell a book by it's cover (or a chair)As a 10-year old boy in the Fisher Housing Projects we didn't have extra money for the movie show and such things.
From time to time, I would take the cushions off the chair and couch to look for lost change. One day a neighbor put an overstuffed chair out in front for garbage pickup.
Looking at the chair, I thought there could possibly be some money stuffed down deep in those cushions. So I began my search. I found a quarter, then a dime, and another. Before I knew it, I had over a dollar.
As I removed the fabric from the old chair, the lady of the house came outside. When she saw a like new chair underneath the old one, she thanked me and took her chair back into the house. As she dragged the chair up the walk she hollered, "Keep the change!" I was ecstatic. I had enough movie money for a month.
It goes to show you, you always have a choice. You can choose to do what is right or what is wrong.
Our lives are like a seed that is planted in the ground. You will reap what you sow. Whether it be good or bad it will come back to you.
Chapter 10
A HARD DAYS WORK FOR A GOOD DAYS PAYAfter finishing the 8th grade at sixteen, I went to work at Great Lakes Gray Iron Foundry, where my Uncle Ira Jenkins was plant foreman.
At 6 feet tall and 125lbs., the work was the hardest I had ever done before or since. My job was to mix facing (fine sand and graphite). This was used to insure a clean finish on the casting. After a year, I became an assistant molder. One day we were pouring a 4-ton mold (8,000 lbs.) of molded iron when the flask split open. A stream of molten iron poured out on to the floor. We ran to keep from getting burned. The iron was 2-3 inches deep and melted shovels and everything in its path. Boy, were we scared !
After work, we stopped at a Polish bar for a boomba of beer (a boomba is the size of a small round fish bowl). The bartender didn't ask my age because with black soot on my face he couldn't tell how old I was.
A month after I left the foundry I was still coughing and spitting up black soot. My father worked 30 years in the foundry and died from Black Lung Disease.
I joined the Navy three weeks before my 18th birthday. The recruiter said I would be sent to the Navy Foundry in Norfolk, VA. He must have thought he was doing me a favor. There was no way I would go back to a foundry, so I became a cook on the destroyer USS Bristol.
One of the most important gifts God has given me are my memories. Thank you Lord.
For more about Uncle Ray visit his
WEBSITE.
