When I was 19, some coworkers, a young couple from Fort Payne, invited me to dinner. I gladly accepted. When I got there, however, I was in for a big surprise. “We prepared this meal just for you” the wife said. “Since you’re a farm boy, this meal is all vegetables.”
As I stared at the spread consisting of green beans, peas, squash, and spinach, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I didn’t eat vegetables. None. I do eat salads now and broccoli with cheese, but that’s about it. When I was younger, however, nada. Zilch.
So I thanked them for being so considerate, drank a lot, played with the food, and try to distract them with questions and stories, but it didn’t work. They eventually realized that I had not taken the first bite.
This quirk made for an especially hard childhood when your dad was a farmer, and a farmer who ruled with an iron fist. Well the iron fist was more in the form of a leather belt, but you get the idea. Many times I was given the choice as a kid to eat vegetables or get a whupping. That was an easy choice for me – swing away.
And although I have gotten a little better as I’ve gotten older, some things I will never eat. Okra is number one on the list. You might as well deep fry a breaded earthworm. It couldn’t be any worse. Coming in at number two is squash. Yuck.
And guess what the number one crop was that dad grew. Well, actually it was tomatoes, but okra and squash were close behind. Dad would sometimes rent 20 acres of farmland just to grow okra. I’m sure picking it was made worse by how much I hated the taste of it.
I was reminded of all this Saturday night when I took a friend and her little daughter to Western Sizzlin. The little girl is two years old and loves to sit in my lap and feed me from her plate. She reached the fork back and I opened my mouth. Then I saw the food. “Wait,” I said. “What is that?”
“Fried okra,” her mom answered.
“Oh no,” I said. “I can’t eat that.” The little girl looked up at me with those big sad eyes. I still wouldn’t eat it. But then she started to pout. I held firm. But when she started to cry, I knew I had to do something I didn’t want to do. That’s right; I put her back in the highchair.
Hey, if my dad couldn’t make me, she sure couldn’t. She didn’t even have a long leather belt.
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