My mother told me that when I was only three years old, shortly after my younger brother was born, I began to put on extra weight.  On the day I graduated from high school, a “normal” healthy weight for my height would have been about 150 pounds. I weighed 207.

As I accepted my high school diploma I vowed to stop gaining weight.

Alas, for most of my life I remained on a “seafood” diet.  I see food, I eat it.  Ultimately, I ballooned to a high of 278 pounds.  That was twelve years ago.

At that point one of my children gave me the name of a nutritionist and told me that a friend had lost 70 pounds working with her.  That sounded good to me, especially since she did not include exercise as part of her program.  Just eating sensibly.

She made one small, but effective, suggestion to help me modify my dietary habits. For example, at lunch I should use just one slice of bread for my sandwich instead of the customary two (and skip the French fries or potato chips entirely).  Also, I could eat half of the sandwich at noon, and the remaining half in the late afternoon.  A second tip was to immediately order tea at a restaurant, rather than devouring six slices of sour dough bread before any other food even arrived.

Working with her over the following year I lost 75 pounds, and basically stayed in that range until COVID-19 arrived in March, 2020.

I’ve read reports that during the past 17 months of the pandemic the average American has gained 20 pounds.

But since I haven’t been eating at restaurants, or had dinner at a friend’s house for a year and a half, I’ve continued to control the size of my meals.  Yesterday, for example, my lunch was a small helping of tuna salad, with a desert of blackberries and raspberries.  No bread to accompany the tuna salad, and no sour cream or honey on the berries.

This morning my scale displayed 188 pounds, which is my lowest weight since I was a teenager.  Almost one-third of me has disappeared in the past twelve years.  (Friends say they have found the weight I lost.)

For lunch today I think I’ll splurge.  Maybe I’ll have a little more tuna salad than yesterday.  After all, I don’t want to vanish entirely.

Alan

As I’ve mentioned before, when I was married to Susan she once told me that she was going to stay up late to complete an assignment for Sociology.

“Is it due in the morning?” I asked.

“No.  It’s not due for three weeks, but I like to finish my work as early as I can.”

I was less than happy because I always preferred that we go to bed at the same time.  And besides, who would want to finish an assignment as soon as they could?  I’ve always followed the work/deadline rule — no deadline, no work.

Though I regard my attitude towards deadlines as being highly efficient, others might consider it procrastination (with negative connotations).  So here is my rebuttal — the advantages of waiting.

1. You may not need to do the job at all, and that will leave time in your life for something you enjoy more. Shortly before the end of the term for one graduate seminar, the professor, for personal reasons, canceled class, including the assigned readings and the term paper. Instead, he asked us to come to his office and tell him what grade we deserved.  I received an excellent grade, and never had to study Sartre or Camus.
2. If you wait until the last hour, or minute, you might find a better solution. Or a quicker solution.
3. It’s exciting – will I or won’t I make the deadline? Some people use action sports to get their adrenaline stirring. I prefer the suspense of finishing a task with no time to spare. Whew!
4. Waiting encourages creativity. When our American Lit. professor collected term papers at the beginning of class, I didn’t turn mine in.  When he asked I said, “I thought the paper was due by the end of class, not the beginning.”  He gave me a weird look, but accepted the paper after I completed it during our fifteen-minute break.
5. Your spouse will be happier because you’ll have more time to spend with them. (This may personal to me).

These are five benefits.  I’m sure there are more, but I have to stop now – I’m up against the deadline for this blog, which still has to be edited, revised, and posted.  I also need a photo.

See you next week.  I’ve never missed the deadline for my blog.  Yet.

Alan

When I was learning to play chess, I read a book that suggested everyone should play against better players in order to improve their game. But to gain confidence, one should play against someone less experienced.

While that might be true for chess, this approach doesn’t always apply to Debate.

Speech and Debate were my primary extracurricular activities in both high school and college.  Like many male debaters at that time, I had an outsized ego that I brought with me into competition.  I still remember poking fun at one inexperienced team because, in my opinion, they were inept.  My partner and I lost that debate, almost certainly because we were incredibly obnoxious.

Though I was a good enough to attend USC on a debate scholarship, I was not quite good enough to win many national tournaments (even if I thought I should have won every single one).

I still remember a competition held in Lawrence, Kansas.  My partner and I performed well enough to advance into the quarter-final round where we debated the merits of national health insurance against a team from Harvard.

The other team quoted Nelson Rockefeller (governor of New York at that time). My partner responded by noting Mr. Rockefeller was not a medical authority.

One of our opponents, speaking almost faster than I could comprehend, answered.

“We did not cite Governor Rockefeller as a medical authority,” he said, “but rather as a (pause for effect) financial expert.”  The audience laughed.  Sixty years later I still remember the exact words. Not surprisingly, he Harvard team went on to win the tournament.

That debater from Harvard was Laurence Tribe. He was good.  Very good.  In fact, he was so good that I involuntarily admired him even while my debate partner and I were being verbally skewered. I also admitted, if only to myself, that we rightfully lost that round. It might be the only high school or college debate where I believed the other team was clearly better.

Larry went on to become a professor at Harvard Law School.  He recently retired, but is still well known as an outstanding constitutional law scholar.  You can look him up on Wikipedia.

Appropriately, Larry was an educator for many years.  He certainly gave me one of the more memorable lessons of my life.

Alan