GOOD ADVICE?

Went to the doctor the other day and he said if I didn't lose some weight I was gonna die. I told him he caught me once, maybe twice, but that line wouldn't work any longer. He was confused. I explained that he told me years ago if I didn't quit smoking I was gonna die. So not wanting to die, I quit.

Then, a couple years later, he said if I didn't get my cholesterol down I was gonna die. I told him I though quitting cigarettes would insure I wouldn't die. Nope, he says, cholesterol would whack you, too. So started working on that.

Now, he says I'm too fat, gonna die again. Thinking back, I'm beginning to suspect his advice. And honesty.

We once had a neighbor who looked like Gandhi. Had a towel wrapped around his head looked like a turban, emaciated body, baggy drawers. Went running in the neighborhood every afternoon. One day I was picking up the mail and he stopped at the mailbox, held on, gasping for air. I asked if he was okay and he said yeah but the running was miserable, made him feel like he was dying. So I asked why the hell he was doing it. He said he'd had a mild heart attack and the doctor said if he didn't start running he'd die. Sound familiar?

I told him he should get a second opinion and he said he had; exercise was where it was at if you didn't want to die. So away he goes, huffing and puffing, his face twisted in agony like when Denzil caught his cahones in the churn. But, he ran for about two more weeks. Then they found him beside the road, flies buzzing around his mouth, dead as his plan for eternal life.

And there was another guy, older, small in stature but well built. Used to run by the station every morning on his way to the beach. There, he'd swim outta sight, then swim back.

Had a conversation with him one day about sharks. How they were catching hammerheads and all types of baddies off the pier. (At the time you could fish for sharks off the pier and all the baiting caused them to migrate there for a meal)

Our athlete just laughed, said his doctor said swimming was the best exercise he could do and he was gonna keep it up. A few weeks later he turned up missing, after swimming out of sight.

Every time I see Jaws I think of him. Or maybe his old heart just exploded like Gandhi's. Then I ponder on living seventy-some wonderful years or ninety-some miserable ones.