Sam Venable  

Special Contributor

I have this friend named Bernard. Except he doesn’t answer to Bernard. He uses Kelly, his middle name. It goes without saying that Kelly is not overly fond of the name Bernard.

“I hate it,” he once told me. “I hated it when I was a kid, and I hate it now. Parents do their children a terrible injustice when they give them stupid names. Children should simply be numbered. Then when they reach the age of 21, they can choose a name they like.”

I hold somewhat the same theory about green vegetables.

Green veggies are far too valuable to be wasted upon children, let alone forced upon them. Nonetheless, this dinner table warfare has gone on since the dawn of creation.

“Eat your ferns, Ikbot!” Carl Caveman would say. “They taste good, and they’re good for you. They’ll give you strength to outrun saber-tooth tigers.”

“Yuck!” Little Ikbot would reply. Then he’d stick out his tongue.

“Young man! You can just stay in your cave until the new moon!”

You would think by now, jillions of generations later, parents would learn. No way. Peek into the nation’s dining rooms any night, and I promise you’ll see the same scene.

The truth of the matter is that green veggies do taste good—except for Brussels sprouts—and are good for you. But truth matters not.

Kids are born to hate green veggies and won’t acquire a taste for them—except for Brussels sprouts—until they approach adulthood. Ask Dr. Spock if you don’t believe me.

The reason I know so much about this topic is that I once (1) was a kid and (2) had green veggies rammed down my throat.

Especially okra.

I was raised on okra. My folks always grew it in the garden. We ate the stuff—three meals a day, plus midnight snacks—from July until September.

And we ate it boiled.

A bowl of boiled okra is the most nauseating thing you can set before a child, regardless of the child’s state of hunger. It might as well be a bowl of boiled, green, garden slugs. Boiled okra goes down like spaghetti, except spaghetti is not hairy and gooey.

“Eat your okra,” Big Sam would say. “It is good and good for you.”

“Yuck!” Little Sammy would reply and stick out his tongue.

“Young man! You can just go to your room for the rest of the evening!”

I slipped and slid through years of boiled okra. As I did, I vowed to never, ever visit this horrible monster upon my own children. Assuming I should live so long. It’s a scientifically proven fact that children forced to eat mountains of green, hairy goo rarely attain puberty.

Then one summer day shortly after we were married, Mary Ann returned from the store carrying a large plastic bag. It was full of okra.

“Good wife,” I said, “I am a kind, considerate, compassionate, forgiving man who loves you dearly. I truly want this marriage to work. But if you don’t get that awful, hairy, slimy stuff outta here in 30 seconds, we’re through!”

“Slimy?” said Mary Ann. “Fried okra isn’t slimy.”

“Fried?” I said. “You don’t fry okra. You boil it.”

“Boil it?” said Mary Ann. “Yuck! I bet that would taste like a bowl of boiled, green, garden slugs.”

That’s when I knew I had picked the right woman.

Mary Ann whipped up a pan full of fried okra, and I was converted on the spot. It was more dramatic than St. Paul’s episode on the road to Damascus. I went from an okra persecutor to an okra lover. Take a glance at our garden and you’ll know what I mean.

But I still hate Brussels sprouts.

Sam Venable is an author, stand-up comedian, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. He may be reached at mahv@outlook.com.