First Food Fight

Diane and I will be celebrating eighteen years of marriage in a couple of months and sometimes it's fun to look back and remember some of the things that happened in the past. Other things are not so fun to remember.

We have had many fights, arguments, disagreements, etc. over those years, but I still vividly remember our first. It happened before we were even married.

We were a part of a just about to be married and newlywed group at our Church. Incidentally, the leader of our group new how to deal with fights. He had been the Base Commander at some Army Base in Germany and he told us about how, at the base concerts, they would invariably have fights break out all over the place. He believed that this was because of the spirit of anger and rebellion that the rock bands they brought in induced.

He fixed this fight problem by bringing in polka bands. Not surprisingly, he said, the fights went away and the concerts were peaceful. Someone did make the quip that it is had to have "fights" when only three people show up. But, that point aside, he knew how to deal with fights.

One night, our group planned a dinner at the leader's house. Incredibly, Diane signed us up to bring a salad. A salad? I was from Nebraska where our idea of salad was some iceberg lettuce with some of those chopped up carrot strings. If you wanted a fancy salad, you put blue cheese, thousand island or even some of that Dorthy Lynch dressing on it instead of ranch.

I asked her, and she admitted that she too had never made a salad. What was this woman thinking?

"You've eaten a salad, haven't you?" She asked through gritted teeth, her frustration clearly rising.

Well of course I had, but I had also eaten plenty of other things and I obviously didn't know how to make them either.

After plenty of angry back and forth, we went ahead and made the salad, and it was a hit. It turns out that salads are not that hard to make. Now we make them regularly. We even have the kids make them sometimes. It's always good to help them avoid some of the pitfalls we have faced.