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Oyster
Stew
by George
Lester |
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When
I was eleven I ate nothing but oyster stew for about six weeks. I
wasn’t a picky eater. It was the only thing I could eat without hurting
my throat.
During that era just about all kids had their tonsils taken out sooner
or later. Thank goodness, medical science no longer holds to that
theory. Before I had the operation I had heard that the first thing
they gave the patient was ice cream. I had even seen it in the movies,
a kid enjoying a big bowl of ice cream as soon as he came out from
under the anesthesia. When I regained consciousness my throat was
hurting so badly I didn’t want ice cream or anything else, not even
water for a while. I was so anemic the doctors had a hard time stopping
the bleeding after the operation and even two weeks later I had to
be rushed back in to the hospital when my throat started hemorrhaging
in the middle of the night. I knew by then that the image portrayed
about tonsillectomies in the movies was far from reality. When I could
finally start a liquid diet I tried several different types of soup.
Most of them had something in them that made my throat hurt. One day
my mother gave me some oyster stew. That worked just fine and that
was my staple for over a month until I could get back to solid foods
again.
I would watch the rest of my family enjoying things like fried chicken,
corn on the cob, French fries, beans, hot dogs and other delicious
foods. It seemed ages to me since I had enjoyed such fare. I reflected
back to the time when I could partake of anything I wanted and wondered
why I didn’t eat more when I had the chance. I vowed that once my
throat had healed I would make up for my deprivation by eating everything
in sight for the rest of my life. I pretty well kept that promise
too.
Many years passed and the operation became just a distant memory.
It would be reasonable to presume that I would hate oyster stew for
the rest of my life but the opposite was true. For some inexplicable
reason I developed an addiction to that dish for life. When I was
in the Marine Corps, the mess hall often served oyster stew. The rest
of the guys in my outfit would put up an awful fuss and make veiled
threats involving the cook. Not me, I was happy as a lark with gallons
of oyster stew all to myself. |
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