I never did care much for canned pork and beans until, in 1967, I visited Dave, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to a school in the remote southern Delta. During my first year teaching at Eastern Nigeria University, I’d hitchhiked all over the country, including on a small plane that, weeks later, crashed and killed the pilot; in a VW bug driven by a man whose straying hand was discouraged my lit cigarette; and in back of a lorry with chickens and goats. But, like most “Europeans” (what all White people were called), I’d never explored the Delta, a vast mangrove swamp edging the Atlantic Ocean and drilled by gas and oil companies. Ignorant but game, in a jam-packed Peugeot “taxi”, I hurtled from Enugu to Port Harcourt. I was such a surprising sight there that in no time I’d hitched a ride on a Shell Oil speedboat. Everybody seemed to know where Peace Corps Dave lived, so we sped through the vast mangrove swamps and twisted estuaries right up to his two-story house. After treating me to an island tour—I was a sensation, apparently the first White woman ever seen—my tall, dark, handsome host celebrated my adventures with a memorable lunch.
Dave’s Delta Not Just Any Pork and Beans
Pour the contents of a can of pork and beans into a medium pan and stir in a heaping tablespoon of mayonnaise, a squirt of ketchup, and maybe a little French’s mustard. Heat and eat with bread and butter. Fifty-some years later, I still make those additions to pork and beans and am always reminded of mangroves, adventure, and Delta Dave. Sometimes I add a little ham. I used to cut-up a hotdog, but I don’t eat hotdogs any more, except once a year, in a white-bread bun with everything. Thanks, Dave! (With apologies for forgetting your last name.)
