Historical June 1985 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
First of all, congratulations to those of you who successfully cracked the ink code in last month’s column.
The key was to use lemon juice and mild rubbing for a period of five minutes or so.
Thanks to those of you who told me that you enjoyed my comments about White Castle hamburgers and the energy shortage.
My apologies for getting a bit out of line about Cal Stuart’s clothing.
Now to this month’s thoughts, with no code other than that of my arcane perspectives on the world. Summer is coming and you know what that means—months without The Times to keep you up on neighborhood events, mosquitoes, late inning Cardinal baseball losses, no cable television, humidity, more mosquitoes, and lots of thin sun-bronzed bodies cavorting here and there (unfortunately, mostly there). Thin is so “in” that it’s disgusting! Have you noticed all of the commercials?
From Mary Lou Rettin to Cher to John Madden, everyone on the tube can stand sideways and disappear. (I threw John Madden in there to see if you’re reading carefully.) Our obsession with thinness has gotten totally out of hand, so to speak.
We started with Lite Beer and now we have lite fruit salad, lite yogurt, lite pizza, and lighter fluid. I don’t know which is worse, lite pizza or lite yogurt.
The former is oxymoronic, like military intelligence; the latter is redundant . . . How could something that sounds as healthy as yogurt not be lite? Anyway, all of our advertising, our fashion, our menus seem designed to convince us that when it comes to body weight, like acne, less is better.
Now mind you, I write of this whole topic as an outsider. I’ve always been fortunate with my weight.
If you’ve not seen me, suffice it to say that I’m often told that I look like Tom Sellick.
I have no problem casting a thin shadow, it’s just that I am familiar with the problem because I have lots of—to use the scientific term—”porky” friends.
One of my neighborhood buddies is so hefty that the folks from Operation Brightside asked him to move to the county. Given this compulsion for lean and lanky, In Your Ear—as still another public service—offers tips for getting into shape so that you, too, can be a Diana Ross clone.
The rules aren’t all that complicated, they just require what it takes to get ahead in every arena: setting goals; hard work; and an ability to disassociate oneself from reality. 1.
If it tastes good, don’t eat it.
This is a bigee and if you can follow it, you’ll resemble Slim Pickens or your favorite streetlamp in no time. Unfortunately, the corollary to this rule doesn’t work.
My wife’s cooking (when she cooks—about as often as Halley’s Comet comes by) is terribly fattening, for example.
For years she earned clothing money by fattening up stray cattle in the kitchen before slaughter.
Her mother believed that pork was the essential ingredient for life and, consequently, my wife puts pork in everything she cooks (whenever the Comet appears).
She cooks pork in omlets, pizza, and salads, to be sure, but also in cake, cookies, and orange juice. 2. Green foods are OK. Stringbeans, peas, broccoli, asparagus, and lime jello are low in calories and, in fact, contain all (yep, all!) of the basic nutrients necessary for life. There’s only one problem with this all-green diet: a friend of mine lived on nothing but green food for almost a year, and while his health was fine, he grew terribly envious. 3. Foreign foods are bad unless the countries they come from also makes lots of television sets for export to the U.S. I don’t understand this one at all, but I suspect there’s a link between the electrons in the television tube and protoplasm. 4. Calories don’t count if they’re consumed underwater. I mean, have you ever seen a fat fish? I didn’t believe this when I first heard it, but after a number of experiments in my backyard pool with quarterponders, fries, and pepperoni pizza, I know it’s true. (For what it’s worth, if you do this, put your ketchup on the fries before you enter the water, otherwise it will attract sharks.) 5. Non-hirsute food is good.
This is a very easy rule.
If the food had hair while it was alive, don’t eat it.
This means that it’s OK to eat fish, bananas, apples, chicken, grapes, and Telly Sallavas. Beef, lamb, peaches, and rabbit are not good. (Rabbits are especially fattening because they count as a double-hair . . .
When this fact was made known it was especially damaging for a friend of mine who had started a rabbit farm and consequently lost a great deal of money.
When I asked him whatever possessed him to start a rabbit farm in the first place, he replied that he was really into hare-raising experiences.) 6. Anything produced by a company whose name rhymes with BanheuserFusch or Med Trewes is fattening. Especially beware of Med Trewes’ Boncretes! 7. Frozen T.V. dinners are fine, regardless of the calorie content, if you eat them before they thaw. Just put on your mittens, take an ice pick, and hack away. Any calories you consume will be more than offset by the effort required to eat the food. (I don’t understand how there can be fat eskimos, but then I don’t understand why people live in LaDue either. I really don’t understand why fat eskimos live in LaDue.) 8. Any food eaten while listening to Richard Evans’ “Thought for the Day” on KMOX at 6:55 a.m. doesn’t count in your daily calorie total.
After hearing the broadcast, you’ll undoubtedly throw up everything you’ve taken in.
Finally, if all else fails and you simply can’t adhere to these rules, just wear bulky, loose-fitting clothing. Plaid sports coats, pink carnations, and red polyester go a long way toward covering those few extra pounds.
As a last resort, you can always turn to the onion diet. You can eat whatever you want and as much of it as you want, but you have to eat a raw onion before and after each meal. You won’t lose any weight, but no one will get close enough to you to notice.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June 1985.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1985_06.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
