The day comes when all the kids are gone. We sent our youngest kid off to NYU, the middle one back to the U of M to see what they can do with him, and our oldest to medical school this week. At times like this parents worry about many things to do with their kids leaving the nest, including the roommate situation — not the kids’, but their own.
During Elvis Week in Memphis we moved our oldest into her place for the next four years while she attends the University of Tennessee School for the Health Sciences. UT’s main campus is located in Knoxville, but the dental school is in Memphis because I’m pretty sure there are not enough teeth in Knoxville to support it.
It will be good to have a doctor in the immediate family. She should come out in four years in time for socialized medicine. Everything will be great, just as Obama promised. She might make as much as an SEIU government custodian in a Washington D.C. federal building but with longer hours, more stress and being sued all the time for the free health care she will be required to give those who will not pay for it. You know them as the key Obama demographic.
At least I can finally get some good medical advice from someone other than my drinking and golf buddy, Dr. Benny “Boom” Beaty. His only fancy book learning came from Washington and Lee University, which I think is a Civil War reenactment college. He became a doctor the old fashioned way— with spunk, courage, dexterity, and a whole lot of trial and error.
He recently shared with me his philosophy on health, which is not endorsed by the AMA. The only time the AMA endorses anything is when called to the White House and threatened.
“Doc” is not into all this healthy living stuff. He does not view his body as “a temple,” but more like an Elks Lodge. The heart has only so many heartbeats, he contended in a recent missive, and he feels they should not be wasted on the StairMaster.
His novel theory might be grounded in some logic. He says your heart only has so many beats, so do not waste them on jogging. Speeding up the heart does not make you live longer. It is like saying, “I am going to extend the life of my car by driving it 100 miles per hour each day.” Want to live longer? Take a nap.
His view is that life should not be a slow, self-denying march to the grave with the notion that you should arrive there safely in a well-preserved body. To the contrary, he thinks you should skid in sideways with a cocktail in one hand and a cigar in the other, your body thoroughly spent, yelling, “Yahoo, what a fun ride that was!”
When I asked about swimming for exercise, he scoffed. “If swimming is so healthy, explain the whale or the manatee. Both are about extinct and look woefully out of shape.”
Sitting in beach chairs sipping Margaritas on a recent trip, Dr. Boom Beaty suggested that I use an extra-long straw so as not to inadvertently do a sit up. The man is always thinking. And, judging by the size of the average American these days, folks are listening.
In his final bit of advice, he refers to medical facts obtained from a non-cited international study in Gross Generalizations, a supplement to his Gross Anatomy Illustrated monthly medical magazine. It offers some conclusions on all those nutritional studies that compare Americans to the rest of the world:
Fact: Hispanics eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than we do.
Fact: Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than we do.
Fact: Germans drink a lot of beer and eat sausages and have fewer heart attacks than Americans.
Conclusion: drink and eat whatever you want. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
I am proud of all of my kids and happy that my daughter will take on the noble calling of being a physician. She always wanted to be a doctor and even dressed up as one as a child. Her timing was good since under ObamaCare, kids who want to “play doctor” will have to wait four years to make an appointment to seek approval from a bureaucracy in D.C.—presumably chaired by Al Gore, Bill Clinton or John Edwards.
Ron Hart is a syndicated op-ed humorist, author and TV/radio commentator. Email Ron@RonaldHart.com or at visit RonaldHart.com