Broccoli and Jesus

The first time I ever saw broccoli I was in Seminary having dinner in Claude Drouet's garage apartment. Claude was actually born in southern Louisiana but is convinced he was stolen by Gypsies from New York City and left in a cotton field. He is much more a City boy than a country bumpkin and I later had the opportunity to visit both the City and Monroe, Louisiana with him.

"What in the hell is that?" I asked pointing at the green bulbs on my plate.

"Broccoli," he said eyeing me suspiciously.

"What the hell is that?" I demanding extending my line of questioning having never heard of the stuff.

There was no such thing as broccoli in Port Wentworth, Georgia in the 1960's! You couldn't find it at Crosby's Meat Shop, the L&A Market or even the Bargain Corner in downtown Savannah!

You could find green beans, pole beans, Lima beans, okra, collards, and watermelon, and corn. Those were vegetables we had when I was growing up. When company was over, we put out the china and served tossed salad with French Dressing to show we were sophisticated.

So I nibbled at the broccoli.

It had no taste.

To my horror, I learned that Claude had not used broth, lard, butter, bacon or salt to season this so called vegetable.

He had steamed it ... whatever the hell that meant.

The only thing we steamed growing up were oysters.

After dinner, Claude pulled out a new album he wanted me to hear. Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" instantly converted me to a fan that night. We listened to it repeatedly and later I went on to write one of the Seminary's definitive papers on the Boss being a later day prophet. I think I made a "C" on it.

Dinner with Claude continued to confirm that I wasn't in the south. At restaurants when I ordered tea it was hot and in a cup.

Grits were not served in fine dining establishments.

Some horrible abortion of a Krystal was available called a White Castle which had holes pressed in the meat.

To make up for all of this, Kentucky invented bourbon ... so I learned about forgiveness outside of the classroom.

These days I eat broccoli with regularity though I avoid White Castles at all costs. I still listen to Springsteen, prefer New York over Monroe, Louisiana, and bourbon is wonderful on a cold day.

To this day, you can only get a sack of Krystals in the south though for some strange reason you can buy frozen White Castles. It's a paradox of the universe that was never covered in Seminary and, to my knowledge, Springsteen has never addressed the matter in one of his songs.

I am pretty certain though that Jesus prefers collars, Krystals, bourbon, grits with his fish and sweet tea.

Because as we all know, on the 8th day ... God made sweet tea.