I like spinach!

I like spinach! Yes, I really said that. I like spinach! I would eat it in a boat or with a goat or in a house with a mouse. Ok, not really... well I really do like spinach, but I’m not going to start eating it with rodents anytime in the near future.

Why do I tell you that?

Well, I don’t know what the percentage of the population that likes spinach vs. those that don’t, but I will tell you that if you are a kid, and you do like spinach, it could be detrimental to your popularity.

I remember the day as if it was September 17, 1970-something, (Yes, I really do know the year, but it just sounds better, like I’m one of the Goldberg’s).

I was a second grader at Rummel Creek Elementary school in Houston, Texas and I was in line waiting to buy my lunch. Spinach was on the menu and it was one of my favorite vegetables, at the time, thanks to my dad who I admired.

It also didn’t hurt that it was Popeye’s favorite food as well, after all, who didn’t admire a guy who could slurp down a can or two of raw spinach and then throw a guy twice his size 30 feet across a room.

At that point in my life no one had ever told me that eating a particular type of food was not cool and could potentially influence my social status. And although, at that time, there were no choices in the lunch line - as every meal was the same. I sat down and started to eat my spinach when the guy next to me asked me, “Why are you eating that? You know you don’t have to, right?”

I said, “I like spinach.” He turned to me and said (as any scholarly second-grader would do) “Spinach is gross and I can’t believe you’re eating that!” Other kids started paying attention and I got nervous... I quit eating my spinach, at that very moment and didn’t eat it again for more than 30 years.

Why??!!! After all, I liked it. I grew up liking it and yet one kid’s stupid opinion, influenced me, not to eat spinach for more than 30 years!

Crazy! But why? I think deep down most of us want to be liked, and accepted by our peers. I believe that is why, that in that one brief moment... I turned my back on something I truly liked... in the hopes of... being liked.

That may not make a lot of sense, but I really believe that on some level many of us still do it everyday.

A similar incident happened to me in high school. Growing up, I wasn’t in the popular crowd, although I wasn’t in the geek crowd, I was like Ronald Miller from the movie “Can’t Buy Me Love” desiring to be popular, but really didn’t exist on their radar crowd.

I have always been fascinated with Hawaiian shirts, simply put, I love them. I love bright colors, I always have and my wardrobe reflects it. Shoot... pimps ask me where I shop.

Seriously though, one Friday my Jr. or Sr. year in high school, I wore a Hawaiian shirt to school (after all it was a Friday).

I was an office aid at the time and as I walked into one classroom to pick up the role, one jackass yelled out, “It’s not Maui the Mustangs week, why are you wearing that?”

I walked out and didn’t reply to his comment, but I don’t think I wore another Hawaiian shirt until many years later.

Again... why??!!

Because kids are cruel... perhaps... that is partially right, but I think there is so much more to it than that.

The bottom line, is that I didn’t stick to my core values. I backed down. I was more concerned with trying to become popular than I was in being true to myself. I was willing to give up the things that I truly liked in the hopes that I could get people that I really didn’t care for - to hopefully, like or accept me.

That is a tough lesson, especially when you are in that situation at that particular age.

The interesting thing is that I lost on both ends. I gave up something I truly liked or enjoyed, and... I was never embraced by that particular group after all.

Side note - I’ve had my revenge...

We’ve had Hawaiian shirt Fridays every week at work for the last five+ years (although I think I subconsciously stole the idea from Classic Country 97.1 FM.)

I also eat spinach, almost every time I go to Heaven’s Waiting Room - I’m sorry, for those not familiar with that term, I'm referring to Luby’s Cafeteria.

Be yourself! Don’t let some jerkwad tell you what to eat or what to wear. Don’t... be ashamed...to be... You!

As the famous womanizer, I mean comedian, Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.”