I can cook. How the hell did that happen?

I think it started when I was about ten.  It was 1949, and my mom had to go back to work after my dad passed–insurance ran out and we needed rent and grocery money. 
One of my first after school chores was to peel the potatoes, since we had mashed potatoes as our regular starch dish with dinner. My mom taught me, and I knew it was my daily job.
Dinner preparation in a typical New York City lower middle class household circa 1955 was straightforward. Fresh veggies were rare to non-existent. Birds Eye frozen veggies–peas, green beans, broccoli, corn and yes, spinach–are what filled our freezer. If you could read, you could follow simple instructions on the frozen veggie package. With my other critical skill, opening cans with a manual can opener, dinner was halfway done.
For meat, we stuck to what we could afford. Hamburger, canned corned beef hash, pork chops, chicken and hot dogs were common choices. I learned from mom how to prepare them and voila, I was a dinner cook. Occasionally, like on Friday, a slice of flounder fillet was a possibility (another learning experience). By the time I was a teen, I was preparing dinner most every day.
My cooking chores sorta ended when I started to work after school.  But cooking stayed with me.  Like riding a bicycle. You don’t forget how.

It’s now 1962 and I’m a new lieutenant C-130 navigator at Charleston AFB. I shared an old  4 bedroom house with three other lieutenants. A neat bachelor pad.
Guess what? I was the only dude that could cook. Big advantage. I could cook what I liked and they did the dishes.
My cooking talents helped with the dating scene too. A nice steak dinner and a bottle of Chateaubriand or Rose Mateus wine, combined with a background of Chopin’s Preludes, played on my new Telefunken Stereo, was a superb dinner date combo at my place or hers.

Marjorie, likes to say when she said , “I do,” I said,” I don’t” to cooking. I must admit, I only cooked occasionally in the early, child-raising part of our married life.
After retirement from both my Air Force and Trident Technical College, I became the primary cook for Marjorie and me. The kids were adults and outta the house.
Marjorie has her specialties–pasta, beef Burgundy, shrimp creole, and chili–for which I gladly surrender my kitchen fiefdom, but I’m the daily chef de la maison.
That, dear reader, is the history of my cooking prowess from potato peeler to chef de la maison in about 70 years. Enuf.