In Which I Learned to Eat Bleu Cheese Dressing ~

and Became an Independent Woman

My first real boy friend and person that I actually dated lived in North Carolina where we visited every summer and many Christmases when I was young. We met at church when I was 12 and he was 17. Rather shocking to my mother and her good Southern family knew his good Southern family so all was well. 

Late in that first summer he asked if he could take me out to dinner ~ he being older, of driving age, and with a car. All was arranged and I was very excited. It would be my first real date. Then my mother and her sisters ~ and I do have a sense of the sisters being in on it ~ decided to tell me how to behave. 

I had been out to dinner many times with my parents so we weren’t talking manners. We were talking food. I knew enough to check the menu with him so I didn’t order over his budget. But then came the horror of it all. Do. Not. Order bleu cheese dressing for my salad!!! After all a southern belle’s breath needed to be sweet and nothing would kill that quicker than bleu cheese dressing. 

All went well. We both decided on the same meal and of course I ordered first. ~ with French (ugh) dressing on my salad. Then he ordered ~ with Bleu Cheese dressing on his salad. WHAT???

Now we have all eaten out and changed our minds before the server left the table. Such an easy thing to do: excuse me, may I have the salad instead of the soup; would you put the sauce on the side? Easy. Except I was 12, on a first date, and a good obedient southern daughter and niece. So I had French dressing on my salad while his came with a gorgeous, delicious heap of bleu cheese. 

And in that moment I Knew ~ there was a flash of light ~ an epiphany ~ and I would Never let anyone make that kind of choice for me again. I would seek advice obviously whether about menu choices, colleges, jobs, raising children.  And then I would make my own choice ~ and live with it. But by golly No One was going to tell me I couldn’t have bleu cheese dressing on my salad!!