COLUMN: Just another way to say ‘olive’ you

When you are a 16-year-old boy, and the calendar says it’s sometime around Valentine’s Day in 1965, you are convinced you have the world by the ducktail.

After all, you play rhythm guitar in a garage band. That’s pretty cool. You hold the keys to the car and have a full tank of gas

There’s only one thing missing to make your life complete.

A girlfriend.

In his hometown of Fort Valley, Dennis Herbert later became known as “Rock.’’ And it wasn’t just because of the music the Velvetones played at sock hops and frat parties. He took over the family jewelry store on Main Street.

Rock certainly was ready to roll one day when a friend asked if he wanted to ride from the peach orchards of Fort Valley to the strawberry patches of Taylor County.

His buddy was seeing a girl in Reynolds, and Dennis was invited to tag along and meet her sister. Although the younger sister was sweet and pretty, Dennis could not take his eyes off Peggy Childree.

Turns out, Peggy had the eye for him, too, Cupid’s arrows were flying around like it was an archery range. A month later, when his friend began dating another girl, Dennis picked up the rotary phone and dialed Peggy’s number.

They had their first date on March 13, 1965. They went to a movie in Macon, then headed to Shoney’s for strawberry pie.

Even though it would be five years before they got married, Peggy already was checking all the boxes on the prenuptial test.

But would she eat an olive sandwich?

One afternoon, his mother, Mary Herbert, asked if they wanted a snack.

A sandwich would be nice, Dennis told her. But no thanks to the standard baloney or peanut butter and jelly.

“You’re going to have what?” Peggy asked.

You won’t find olive sandwiches on the menus of many restaurants. Although some folks have been known to arrange olives on their fancy charcuterie boards or plop them in their martinis, they are not in the habit of strategically placing them on their sandwich bread.

When he was growing up, olive sandwiches practically were one of the major food groups for Dennis. His mother would take two pieces of white bread, slather on the mayonnaise and line up the green olives – stuffed with pimentos, of course – in single file line. His grandmother also would assemble them in linear fashion and make them extra special by cutting off the bread crusts.

“I thought everybody ate them,’’ Dennis said.

Not Peggy. Her family would serve pickles and green olives on a plate whenever they cooked hamburgers, but she never could have imagined olives planted like row crops across a slice of Sunbeam.

“I was wondering why they were messing them up with mayonnaise and bread,’’ Peggy said. “Why not just eat them?”

At her future mother-in-law’s table that day, she took a bite. And another. And another.

Said Dennis: “That’s when I definitely fell in love with her.’’

For Peggy, perhaps it was her way to say “olive” you, too.

In July, the Herberts will celebrate their 52nd wedding anniversary. While olive sandwiches never became an ongoing tradition, they at least make for a good story.

No, they didn’t force feed them to their daughters, Jana and Lauren. An acquired taste did not become a required taste.

“I tried but they couldn’t wrap themselves around the idea,’’ Dennis said. “I told Jana she couldn’t leave for college unless she tried one.

Then he laughed. “She did. But I don’t think she’s had one since.’’

Even Peggy slowed down on her olive sandwich intake.

“Now she is just as happy not to eat them,’’ Dennis said.

Said Peggy: “I don’t eat them every time he has one. But maybe I will … for Valentine’s Day.’’

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.