When I was little I had to eat my vegetables.

Back in those days a kid didn’t have any say about when or what or how much a kid ate at dinnertime. A kid had to eat EVERYTHING that was heaped onto the plate. I do mean EVERYTHING, too. A kid better not leave one little sprout, sprig, or stalk in sight or that kid wasn’t leaving the dinner table to go romp around and play outside on a summer night. No way. A kid had to eat EVERYTHING.

And EVERYTHING might include artichokes, broccoli, cauliflower, dandelion greens, egg plant, fried tomatoes, green beans, hot peppers, iceberg lettuce, jellied beets, kidney beans, lima beans, mustard greens, navy beans, okra, parsnip, quinoa, rutabagas, spinach, turnip greens, umbrella squash, velvet beans, wax beans, xà lách, yams, and zucchini.

No matter that it tasted like grass or hay or clay or ash. No matter whether it was mushy or oozy or drippy or bushy.

No matter if it was pinkish or greenish or blackened or bluish. No matter what it was or what it smelled like or what it looked like or what it seemed like…if it was on a kid’s plate at dinnertime…a kid ate it.

Now, a kid might get away with pushing away a pea or a potato or sulking at a salad or sad facing the sautéed onions if a kid were at home with Mom and – I’ll admit it –a kid might still get a piece a pie or a scoop of ice cream even if a kid didn’t eat EVERYTHING on the plate at home BUT if a kid went down the shore to his Nana’s and Pop Pop’s cottage and the vegetables that were grown in Pop Pop’s garden were to be piled onto a kid’s plate…

Well, that was whole other plate of beans.

You see, when I was little, my family always took our vacation down the shore at Nana’s and Pop Pop’s place on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. My Mom would cram five kids into her old Chevy station wagon and off we’d go to the Chester, Pennsylvania ferry boat and chug over the Delaware river, then roll through small sleepy New Jersey towns, stop at a Jersey truck farm to buy sweet corn. Eventually, we’d actually and finally get there. We’d start to sniff the salt air and we’d all cheer when we saw the bridge that spanned the Little Egg Harbor bay to the Island. At long last, we’d be there. The mighty Atlantic Ocean! Horse flies, creamy fudge, saltwater taffy, miniature golf, French fries, frozen custard, swarms of mosquitoes, sun burnt skin, sandy shoes, outdoor showers, and a cottage crowded with cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents.

Yep, we were finally there and that meant a full house. When I was little, we’d stuff seventeen people into my grandparent’s tiny three-bedroom, single story beach shack. In our family there was Terry [that’s me] age five, Molly age seven, Timmy age nine, Bobby age eleven, Kathy sweet sixteen, and Mom. We’d join my Uncle Paul and Aunt Helen with their kids—Rita age seven, Terri [a girl]—known as Big Terri] age nine, Tony, age twelve, and Paul age fifteen. Then there was my Uncle Ralph, Uncle Bob and his wife Madeline. Of course, my grandparents –Nana and Pop Pop—were always there too. My Nana loved it when everyone came down and she never worried a bit about us feeling cramped or uncomfortable. Nana was tough and she expected everyone else to be just as tough.

How could we fit seventeen people? I have no idea. Uncle Ralph, Uncle Paul, and Uncle Bob would sleep on couches on the screened front porch. The older kids—my sister Kathy, cousin Paul, brother Bobby, and Cousin Tony—would curl up on cots in the narrow hallway and dining room. Us young ones—ages five through twelve—would sleep two or three in a bed with parents. Some people slept on fold up cots in the kitchen and dining room. Only Nana and Pop Pop enjoyed the luxury of room all to themselves.Somehow, we’d fit everybody. That’s how things worked in the old days.

As you can imagine, feeding that crew was quite a job!

That was my Nana’s duty. She was the Queen of the little kitchen. She’d be cutting, slicing, stewing, stuffing, frying, boiling and baking from the time she woke up until the early evening when she served dinner for all sixteen sunbaked and starving beach bums. She had pulled her own family through the depression and the World War Two with guts and brains and she had learned how to stretch a penny and feed an army on the gifts from my grandfather’s garden. Finally, with the war and depression gone into history, she could at last afford to buy some meat and fish but she spent every dollar with a frown and garden vegetables were always the staples of her meals…she made sure that the kids ate every sprout, sprig, and stalk on their plate.

I remember my Nana as a woman with gray hair, gnarled hands, a sharp tongue, and a steely voice. She worked hard in her kitchen all day while we played on the beach and in the ocean. I don’t recall ever seeing her on the beach. The cottage was her kingdom. She could be mean when a youngster crossed her or disobeyed a command. We were all a little afraid of her. I believe that she loved us all—in her way—and that she was determined that we’d all be God fearing, respectful, healthy and well fed. Well fed, I might add, with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Even as a kid I always loved fresh garden sweet corn, tomatoes, watermelons, and berries. As an adult, I’ve learned to love green beans, summer squash, peppers, and a basket full of other garden vegetables. But it was tough—as a kid—eating all of the vast variety of veggies that my grandmother favored. Cooked spinach, for example, was always a challenge to force down the pipe with a smile.

But there was one vegetable meal—a particular favorite of my grandmother—that struck fear into the hearts of us kids. The mere thought of it made our poor stomachs tremble and caused the taste buds in our tongues to shudder. The sight of it brought tears to our little eyes. The smell of it brought tears to our little noses or something very close to tears.

You see, my Nana loved creamed peas. She would cook the peas, mix in the cream, and whip them into a green mash that would run over our plates like a monster from a science fiction movie. We would not dare to whimper. We would not dare to whine. We would never have the courage to complain. But it was with utter dread that we dipped our spoons into that horrid swamp of greenish slush and lifted those spoons to our slightly opened mouths.

I can still taste the anguish in my mouth as I recall that day when my cousin Tony came running from the house as we all walked down the hot tar street from the beach. He let out a blood-curdling screech as he pronounced that dinner was ready and Nana was dishing out corn on the cob, yellow squash and …………………………………………

Even now, I find it hard to repeat the two words…………..

the two most terrifying words of my childhood…………..

CREAMY PEAS

When he said it we all stopped in the middle of the street and fell to our knees in shock and horror.

NO! We cried.

Please, Tony, say that this is nothing but a cruel joke.

Alas, the sickly look in Tony’s eyes spoke the truth. This was no joke. We really, truly, definitely were having— those two words—for dinner. Aghhhhhhhhh…

This was the dark night of the summer. This was the night when all that is evil and ugly rules on land and sea. This was the night of…

CREAMY PEAS

This was, however, a a night to be remembered. It was the night when us kids fought back against the evil Creamy Peas.

You see, there was one advantage that we kids had in this battle against the Creamy Peas. Remember, it was a small cottage with seventeen people who needed to be fed. The dining room was hardly bigger than a postage stamp. Only the adults could fit around the dining room table. There was no room for kids except for the teenagers - Kathy and Paul. The rest of us—seven in all—were scooted out to eat on the cement porch and steps in the back yard. Usually, we resented this but not we were glad to be exiled on that particular night.

Timmy came up with the plan.

There was a large overgrown scrub bush that grew near a concrete wall on the property that separated our yard from our neighbors. The plan was simple. One by one we would sneak behind the bush and bury the Creamy Peas in the sand. The other kids would keep guard while each one of us slithered behind the bush and disposed of the hated green poison.

I was nominated to go first.

At five years old, I was probably too trusting to realize that I was just being used as a guinea pig. I was rather proud, to tell the truth, that I had been selected. My older brothers coached me on the plan and I carried it out to perfection. I walked fearlessly over to the bush with my plate of food and a little beach shovel. I deftly ducked behind the bush and set my plate on the wall behind it. I quickly dug a hole in the sandy soil and pushed my Cream Peas into the hole. I then covered the hole with sand and returned to the back porch.

When the others saw that the Creamy Peas had magically vanished from my plate, they were all eager to be the next volunteer in line. Timmy, however, announced that he would go next. He did. Again, it was a successful mission. Then Bobby went and did the deed. Big Terri hurried after Bobby and dumped her pile. Then Rita and Molly. Only one last trip to go and we’d have pulled it off.

Tony was the last to go behind the bush.

I had been assigned to guard duty since I was the first one to jettison my peas and also to finish my dinner. Timmy had opened the back door halfway so that I could peer through the screen door and keep tabs on the enemy. By the time Tony had disappeared behind the tangle of scrub bush, our little band of renegades had relaxed. The adults had been oblivious to us the whole time. They were eating and talking at the dining room table and not one of them had even given us a second glance It seemed like fate was on our side.

Then fate turned.

I saw her get up from the table and start her slow shuffle toward us.I felt a cold panic seize my entire body. At first I tried to speak but no words came through my mouth. I had to summon all my strength and determinedly whisper the warning.

“Nana’s coming.”

I looked at the faces of my brothers, sister, and cousins and noticed that their faces had all turned to the color of creamy peas. Timmy, Terri, and Molly looked like statues. My brother Bobby, however, remembered the most important part of the plan. He bent down quickly, picked up a big stone from the gravel yard, and hurled it into the bushes. It was the warning stone. Of course, I never saw Tony’s face when that stone whistled into the bush but I’ve always pictured it like when a guy turns the corner and sees the vampire in a Dracula movie. And then the vampire bares his sharp teeth and then…

She was there, at the screen door. Nana. She looked older, grayer, and sterner than I had ever seen her before.

“Hello Nana,” I said in a meek and shaky voice.

“Did you kids eat everything on your plate?” she asked gruffly. “You won’t get a single blueberry from my blueberry pie unless you licked your plates clean.”

She opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch to get a better look at our plates. She looked like a lioness stalking prey. But there was no prey to be found. Every one of our plates was as empty as an Old West ghost town. She glanced suspiciously from plate to plate but then a look of grudging satisfaction swept over her face.

“OK – I’ll bring you all a slice of blueberry pie –God knows I slaved over the oven all day to make it.”

She was about to turn away and go back into the house when she suddenly stopped.

“Where’s Tony?” she bristled fiercely.

For the longest time we had believed that Creamy Peas were the two most dreaded words in the English language but the dread pulsing in these two words uttered by my grandmother in that moment–where’s Tony?–surpassed all dread that we had dreaded. This was the

BIG DREAD

And how were we supposed to answer her dreaded question?

I, being only five years old, did not know.

But my brother Timmy was nine years old and had a bigger brain.

“He went down to the beach to hunt for soda bottles,” replied Timmy without a moment’s hesitation. Kids were always hunting for glass soda bottles on the beach because you could get two cents each for returning them to the little market in the back of our house. Big quart bottles were worth a nickel. So, we’d plunder the trash barrels placed on the beach to keep the litter off the clean white sand. Sometimes we’d earn two or three dollars this way.

“Down the beach!” fumed Nana. “Without permission to leave the dinner table?”

Well, it was more like the dinner porch and steps but nobody was going to correct her.

“Bobby, go down and get him and make sure you’re back in ten minutes or you’ll both be scrapping pots and scrubbing floors all day tomorrow!”

“Yes, Nana,” muttered Bobby and he took off for the beach like a bolt of lighting.

Nana stomped back into the house and we heard here scolding Aunt Helen about Tony’s “impudence.” Fortunately, she had not thought about Tony’s missing plate or the status of his dinner.Fate, again, went our way.

What happened next will be retold a hundred times in family lore.It still sends a chill down my spine. Cousin Tony became Zorro. Robin Hood. The Phantom.

We all stared in amazement as Tony climbed over the back wall and took off like the wind through our neighbor’s yard, running with fright and fury up the street and to the beach.

About ten minutes later Tony returned to the house with Bobby through the front door. In the meanwhile, Timmy had sent me back to the bush to retrieve Tony’s plate. This time, I buried corn and yellow squash as well as Creamy Peas. I returned the plate to its place among the other dinner dishes.

Our secret was safe.

Tony didn’t get any blueberry pie that night. Nana waved her finger in front of his face and berated him for being “impudent.” He was made to wash and dry the dishes. He was grounded at home while we all went bottle hunting up and down the beach. Uncle Ralph and Uncle Bob ordered him to make sandwiches and bring them beers while they watched the baseball game on the fuzzy screen of the little television set that Ralph had bought for the shore house.

Yet, Tony was happy.

Why?

Because his punishment was like eating ice cream compared to the sentence my grandmother would have imposed if she had caught him dumping her beloved Creamy Peas behind the backyard bush. Why could none of us even imagine what that punishment might have been? No, we didn’t dare think of it. It was much too frightening. And we knew – we all knew – that Tony had taken one for the team. Because if Nana had figured out that we ALL had buried our Creamy Peas in the same hole…well, they say that the winter hurricane of 1963 was the worst storm every to lay waste to the Island in its history but it would have seemed like nothing more than a light drizzle compared to the storm of thunder, lighting, and anger that would have blasted over Long Beach Island that night.

So, there you have it, a story of adventure and danger from when I was little. Believe it or not, we continued to secretly bury that hated green slime behind that big bush every time we had it over the years to come.My grandmother never found out. She died in 1972 not knowing the truth. I was sixteen. Only then did I tell my mother this story –who was shocked and–I think – somewhat delighted by the tale.

I will never forget those many years of deceit and deception. The years of lookouts and mad dashes to that wonderful overgrown bush. Yes, we courted dread and disaster to rid ourselves of that most yucky of all yucky vegetable meals. I believe that we would have faced Dracula himself – and we did risk my Nana’s wrath - rather than eat…

CREAMY PEAS

The End.