By Mickey Dunaway

Sandy and I try to eat unprocessed, fresh food whenever we can find it. It is not cheap, but we believe that 1) it is always better for you, and 2) because it tastes so much better, we tend to eat less of it, and therefore, it helps maintain a healthy weight. And that makes it worth the extra expense at the grocery store.

Today Sandy asked me to stop by the local grocery and see if I could find a loaf of legit sourdough bread after I finished playing billiards with the guy up at the clubhouse. When I got to the bread aisle, I was confounded and amazed by the variety of bread I found at this modern supermarket. After reading the ingredient lists on several loaves labeled as sourdough, I settled on the one with the fewest ingredients. Arnold’s beat out Pepperidge Farms because, in the final analysis, it looked more like homemade sourdough.

We had sandwiches with it a little later, and it tasted like most any other processed sandwich bread—slightly softened cardboard. About the same color, too. Thankfully, the ham, cheese, and mustard improved it enough to eat. But it was not sourdough bread. I don’t care what they put on the label.

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After lunch, we sat down a bit and rested our eyes—Damn! That is what my granddaddy used to say when he wanted to take a nap! Am I that old? Yep. Just before I drifted off, the word sourdough rang a bell in my not-quite-conscious-brain. After a minute of trying to dredge up why and where it originated, I remembered. 

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Back in the 1990’s, when I was an Alabama high school principal in Alexander City’s Benjamin Russell High School, it was summertime, and I was interviewing teachers for faculty vacancies. There is no way I could remember which vacancy I was interviewing for on this given day, except that it wasn’t HomeEc—you’ll see why in a line or two. I put prospective teachers through their paces, trying my best to determine whether they could teach my kids at the level expected by my boss, Dr. Paul Fanning, the citizens of Alex City, and our teaching staff at BRHS. So, after asking questions about her teaching experience, what went into a lesson plan (I was big on lesson planning, right, LLP?), how she evaluated her students, and how she turned that evaluation into grades. After about an hour, I always asked a question that I felt was an absolute softball thrown to the applicant. I asked, “Tell me something about yourself that you think I need to know, but I won’t find on your application, transcript, or resume.” 

I was always looking for a response about how much the candidate loved teaching, kids, and their subject area; perhaps the importance of a spiritual life; and why the candidate wanted to teach for us. It always gave me the final piece of the puzzle, convincing me that this was or was not THE person we wanted on our faculty. 

This day, I sat up in my chair anticipating a unique response that might improve a fairly lackluster interview, and man-oh-man did I get it. The candidate, probably in her early forties, professionally dressed, but sweating a bit after more than an hour fielding my interview questions, thought a bit, rolled her eyes, and said, “Well, Dr. Dunaway, the only thing I think of is that I have used the same sourdough starter for the last seven years.” 

After metaphorically picking myself up from my office floor, I thanked her for her time and told her I would let her know something after I completed my interviews for the position.

THAT was what came to my mind today as I was resting my eyes. Never before and never again did I have an interview that surprised as much as that candidate’s truthful, but wholly inappropriate response to that final question of the day!

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“The future depends on what you do today.” — Mahatma Gandhi