On April 20, 1945 — eighty years ago — my grandfather, Private First Class Bill Tower, was freed from a POW camp just south of Berlin. His German captors, knowing the end of the war was near, simply left. Not wanting to encounter the oncoming Russian army, he and his fellow soldiers started walking west toward the Elbe River.
He had been captured in Großlangenfeld, Germany, on December 17, 1944, just days into the Battle of the Bulge. Food had obviously not been abundant while imprisoned. Not being a smoker, though, he had been able to trade his Red Cross-supplied cigarettes with the German guards for extra rations.
In his journal from January to April 1945, written on the paper from the insides of those cigarette packages, he described in single-minded detail exactly what he ate each day, his prayers to God for strength and deliverance, and his longing to be home with his family.
Shortly after beginning the march toward the American lines, he came across his first fresh green vegetable in months: wild asparagus.
For good reason, then, my grandfather became an avid gardener when he returned home to Michigan. He grew all the standard home garden vegetables, but he was particularly fond of the asparagus he nurtured in his backyard’s sandy soils.
He may in fact have overdone it with the asparagus: it did not become one of my mother’s favorites. I don’t think I was once asked to eat it as a child. My first experience with asparagus was while on a study trip to Germany during college. The blanched version I was served there — Weißspargel — was delicious. It surely wasn’t as incredible an experience as my grandfather’s, but I can say that I too had a defining asparagus moment in Germany.
My wife grew up with only canned asparagus — which she thought was asparagusting. But early in our marriage we were treated with the fresh-picked stuff from a friend, and we were hooked.
The problem was that we moved every three years during my Army career — not long enough to reap the benefits of growing our own asparagus, since it’s a perennial that takes a couple years to establish. We’ve finally been able to do so now that we’ve settled down on our own sandy soils here in Michigan, and the results are just what we hoped for: delicious, tender, sweet shoots — whether thin or thick — that are wonderful raw but even better when sautéed with olive oil, salt and pepper.
“Food, faith, family and freedom” was no cliché to my Grandpa 80 years ago this month — these were the things and ideas that his life revolved around. May we all remember to keep the most important things front and center. And to cherish our asparagus!
And that’s the view from the country.
