“The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America,” by Tommy Tomlinson I have tattoos. Don’t ask me why. I started getting them in my early 50s. Maybe I am a bit of a rebel. My son gave me my first two tattoos. He was learning to be…
It’s not easy to determine when a relationship with food or even with people is dysfunctional. Why is that? First, there are different kinds of relationships. You have friendships, and family relationships, and romantic partnerships, as well as business partnerships. If you use the amount of intimacy to determine whether they are dysfunctional, many of…
I am a cyclist. I don’t ride as much as I used to ride because my primary sport is backpacking and I’m usually preparing for backpacking trips to places like the Red River Gorge, the Smokies, the Grand Canyon, Colorado, or Utah. When I was 55, I rode my bicycle across the state of Indiana…
[Verse 1] Don’t take my food away from me! Don’t you leave my stomach in misery? If it goes then I’ll be blue! ‘Cuz breaking up (with food) is hard to do. [Verse 2] Remembering how it taste so good. I even dream of full plates of food. Think of all that we’ve been through….
It’s my birthday! I turn 67 today. And I’ve got lots to talk about. I want to talk about myself, of course, and about my upcoming season in my Healthy Aging blog, Season Nine. First about me. This past weekend I did my annual hike to the top of Mount LeConte in the Smoky Mountains….
This blog references “Triumphs of Experience”: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study,” Written by George E. Vaillan “Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance, bad, better pack up, go home. Understood?” Mr. Miyagi “First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule, Danielson, not mine.” Mr. Miyagi “Lesson not…
This blog features “It’s All About Me,” by Mel Brooks My father hated the fall. “Everything is dying,” he would tell me. He wasn’t a pessimistic person. He didn’t complain a lot about getting older, at least not to me. He was proud of his nine children. He loved his 25+ grandchildren. But fall, I’m guessing,…
Pat Morita, who played Mr. Miyagi was an alcoholic, and his alcoholism contributed to the loss of his health, the loss of a career, and eventually contributed to a shortened life. We looked at his life in a previous blog. I want to expand this topic of alcohol and aging and see what light the…
To understand the meaning of a word, sometimes it helps to know what it’s not. If you’re not resilient, it’s likely that you’re vulnerable. That’s a word we’ve heard a lot during the Covid Pandemic. The CDC prioritized vulnerable people as the first to get Covid vaccinations. These people included older adults (65+ years old),…
What did you call your grandparents? I called mine ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa,’ and then use their first names when talking about them: Grandpa Jim and Grandma Louise, my maternal grandparents, and Grandpa Pat and Grandma Lulu, my paternal grandparents. If I asked you to recall the most vivid memory of each of your grandparents, what…
