And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that those who write about old age as the Golden Years either have been very lucky health-wise or have not reached old age.

As if I needed one, I encountered another health problem in which age and life style might be involved.

After a fruitless three day effort to secure medical help from my customary source, I was forced to look elsewhere, and a new physician prescribed a med that took care of the problem in a day!

The problem was serious because it denied this right-handed person the use of his right hand! I could not even open a pill bottle or lift a coffee cup without pain, and trying to shave with the left hand resulted in several scrapes that bled. There were a couple other more embarrassing chores which were difficult, but I shan’t go into those!

But even with that new health problem solved, the instructions about how to deal with it raised more questions. About diet.

For example, I have long dealt with the conflict over what is good for everybody else, i.e., salads, kale, spinach, any dark green vegetable. And beets in particular. Prescribed as healthy. Unless you have to avoid foods which might aid blood clotting.

Most diets prescribe seafood and chicken as good replacements for red meat, but the new problem’s diet doesn’t like seafood.

And it doesn’t like beans, while other diets recommend beans as replacements for potatoes and rice.

One diet says red wine in modest amounts is good. Another says absolutely no beer. All suggest total abstinence from alcohol is desirable, but my Canadian whiskey and tap water before the evening meal has been a custom for more than 40 years, and is not negotiable.

Ah, well, there are always, or almost always, sporting events to occupy the elderly mind.

It was nice to be able to watch the Iowa girls play basketball on Iowa Public Television. Crestwood is really, really good!

IPTV used to do the boys, too, but a commercial channel, the same one that claimed the Cubs away from WGN, out bid them.

I am surprised the “Me Too” folks are not complaining, because that’s a clear indication that the male sport is of more commercial value than the female sport.

Ironic, too, because the University of Iowa women are the only team of the six male-female teams at the major universities who will see NCAA basketball tournament action in this down season for everybody at that level.