It’s a bit much. Not that you’ve asked me, but ask me or not, I’m more than willing to tell you. Television, I’m sure was never meant to be an instrument of torture. But oh yes, it is.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if I weren’t trying to listen to something interesting. At least interesting to me, which is probably one of the many new whodunits coming on the air recently.

First would appear a bottle of vegetable juice &045; no, come to think of it, the juice came after the picture of various vegetables. With the pictures a gloomy and slightly ominous voice says, “Uncle Sam wants you to eat at least five different vegetables a day.”

Well after the third such interruption I was beginning to feel a bit testy. And when another such broke in on my movie I lost it entirely. It shames me to admit, and I hope, remembering the strain I was under, you will deal with me gently. But I said it, and right out loud, too, “I don’t give a damn what Uncle Sam wants me to eat.&uot;

After all, do I tell Uncle Sam what to eat? I would think in his place I would worry about the people, especially the children, who never have enough food to satisfy their hunger.

My grandmother Cruikshank was a marvelous cook. She could make a wiener sandwich taste like a Thanksgiving dinner. There was always room for one more at her table. She never burdened her children with health laws concerning food.

When my father, before he was school age, decided he wanted nothing to eat but maple syrup, he drank glass after glass of maple syrup. He lived to be almost 93, was never an ounce overweight.

He swam, hiked, skated, played football and was granted a full scholarship at a local business college for playing football on their team. He had little taste for business, but he did enjoy playing football.

His maternal grandmother didn’t eat the way Uncle Sam would have demanded. Her taste ran to fat pork, ice-cream and whipped cream pies. She had great scorn for the overweight and never weighed more than 87 or 88 pounds herself.

On her deathbed, at the age of 84, she managed to raise herself to an elbow to examine with interest the glass of orange juice her nurse had brought her. Once satisfied as to the contents she leaned back against her pillow. “I don’t like orange juice,” she snarled. “Take it away and drink it yourself.”

My maternal grandmother, who had cooked for her family from the time she was 7 years old, became in adulthood, what would be called now a practical nurse.

Until my grandmother passed away when I was 6, I never ate tomatoes because she fed them to me prepared the southern way with sugar on them.

Mine was an era when children were tortured by being made to eat spinach.

My folks didn’t have much to say about food being good for me or not being good for me. I didn’t like peanut butter because it stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Now I enjoy nothing more than a properly prepared spinach salad, but back in my childhood, my mother swept up in the great spinach conflict, couldn’t get me to eat it.

For the most part, backed up by my father, she appealed to him to see that I ate it.

&uot;I’m sorry, Tonnie,&uot; said my father sadly, &uot;I can’t make her eat it. I wouldn’t eat the damned slimy stuff myself.&uot;

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column runs Thursday.)