Be advised younger readers, when you get to be a senior citizen all the bad things that you put in your body along the way start to catch up with you, and what doesn’t get you will get your spouse. All the bacon cheeseburgers, chili dogs, French fries, potato chips, ice cream, beer, cigarettes, and pizza you ingested with such gusto will start showing up on the labs and ‘echowhateverograms’ the doctor orders during your annual “wellness visit.” Or - you may end up in the emergency room with some misery or another.
Then, the diet restrictions start. No salt, no sugar, no alcohol, no fat, no carbohydrates, no spicy, and no fun. In short, what you are left with to eat are skinned chicken breast, fish, and vegetables. All the stuff you like will be off the table … for good. So, then you ask yourself, “Why did I take care of my teeth, since I’m not allowed to use them?”
When you are seventy-something, if you want to live a while longer, you will pay attention. If you don’t listen-up … you will pay for it. A few days in the hospital with something like acute pancreatitis will get you back on the wagon.
Now, I am doing my best to eat healthy, and I don’t want to lead anyone astray by sharing this bit of doggerel. However, as a ‘last, great act of defiance’ I am posting the following for your enjoyment:
Methuselah
(Anonymous)
Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,
And never as people do now,
Did he note the amount of the calorie count:
He ate it because it was chow.
He wasn’t disturbed as at dinner he sat,
Devouring a roast or a pie,
To think it was lacking in granular fat
Or a couple of vitamins shy.
He cheerfully chewed on each species of food,
Unmindful of troubles or fears
Lest his health might be hurt
By some fancy dessert;
And he lived over nine hundred years.[1]
[1] Richard Charlton MacKenzie, editor. The New Home Book of Best Loved Poems. Garden City Books, 1949.
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