We’re in another presidential election season, and every four years at this time I recall the 1992 campaign and Ross Perot. If you’ll remember, Perot was the Texas billionaire who launched a third party campaign that helped defeat incumbent president George H.W. Bush.

That year, Perot picked a running mate — former Navy admiral James Stockdale — who had almost no name recognition in political circles.

Stockdale made light of his lack of notoriety during the vice-presidential debate that year when, during his opening statement, he asked “Who am I? Why am I here?”

Before you think this is going to be a boring political column, let me explain. It’s one word taken from Stockdale’s statement that pops up often every day in our home — “why.”

The boys recently turned four and, though I’ve not read those books detailing the stages toddlers go through, age four must be the stage where they want to know everything, where they want everything explained to them in detail.

I say it must be that stage because at least 20 times a day both Ben and Alex will ask “why?” about pretty much anything that is going on around the house. Take this exchange the other night at dinner while the boys were munching on some homegrown sweet corn:

Ben: “Why is this sweet corn?”

Dad: “Because it tastes good, it’s sweet.”

Ben: “But why?”

Dad: “Because it tastes good.”

Alex: “Why does it taste good?”

Dad: “Because it’s sweet.”

Ben: “But why?”

Not being a plant geneticist, I had to give Benjamin the final, most informative answer I had: “Because that’s way it is.”

And the boys are thorough, as well. Here’s the next time we had sweet corn for dinner: