Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 31, 1994 TAG: 9406020001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LOWRY BOWMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
One of those signs hit me in the face the other day. Driving back to Virginia from a meeting in Florida, I stopped long enough to enjoy a slow lunch and to read the Atlanta Constitution at a hostelry in Valdosta. A paragraph in the venerable Constitution ("Covers Dixie Like the Dew") caught my eye.
"Restaurants in Florida," it said, "say that a serious okra shortage has reached crisis proportions."
Well, I was shocked. And alarmed. Those who grew up outside the Deep South doubtless will be unable to see how an okra shortage could reach crisis proportions. My own children detest the luscious pods of Abelmoschus Esculentus and probably are muttering "good riddance." Many readers of the Times & World-News probably will feel the same way. But I predict that when news of the crisis gets around, letters to the editor will arrive attributing it to the fact that "they took prayer out of the schools."
Okra was a gift to America from the people of West Africa. We introduced them to slavery, and they introduced us to okra. A thoroughly Christian exchange on the part of the West Africans. They were forced to leave homes, families and friends, but they took their okra seeds with them and thus blessed their oppressors.
I am not among those who read the pessimistic signs of America's decline. I have lived too long to be deceived by these things. We have faced these crises before and have come through the better for it.
Many of those of my generation may recall the great "Zucchini Crisis" of 1933-34. The zucchini crop of those years was a worldwide disaster, and there were predictions that Armageddon was at hand. The U.S. government, struggling with the Great Depression, attempted to impose some kind of rationing system, but it was a failure. Only hospitals with desperately ill patients were allowed to buy zucchinis on the open market, but many totally healthy people feigned illness in order to be admitted to hospitals where zucchini was served. The overburdened health-care system almost collapsed.
The government banned those ubiquitous advertisements in newspapers and magazines listing recipes for zucchini bread, zucchini biscuits, zucchini shortcake, zucchini sherbet. It was felt that they only whetted the national desire for zucchini.
The great Prohibition experiment had ended in 1933, but now those same rum-runners became zucchini-runners. Unscrupulous men in fast boats plied the Caribbean exacting shameful profits from zucchini black marketeers.
Oddly enough, America was doing everything right in those days. There was prayer in the schools. Each school day began with the Lord's Prayer, the raising of the flag and the pledge of allegiance. Bible readings (King James Version, of course) not only were allowed, they were encouraged.
Despite these wholesome measures, the zucchini crisis raged unabated. But America survived. Black America came to the rescue with thousands of recipes for the lowly sweet potato.
Do not despair. Plant okra.
Lowry Bowman of Abingdon is former owner and editor of the Washington County News. He is retired.
by CNB