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Dear Henry
Nice day However, every morning I get a bad start
by getting up early and reading the paper.
I have a poor opinion of reporters. Are they villians
or are they prisoners of the push-cart peddlers. That is
about the moral level of the big advertizers.
Today there is an article about 4 men who were HIV
positive but had not developed AIDS. They were studied for
three years. Three developed AIDS and 2 of them died.
The fourth man continued HIV positive but did not develop
AID symptoms. Of the three men with AIDS symptoms, the
virus increased greatly in virulence. Their blood
appearerd to become a culture medium.
I am old enough to remember the some of the great
epidemics. Most people were fearful about it. Death was easy
to come by. My parents felt that their main defence was to
follow as healthy a life style as possible including avoiding
infectious people and trying to maintain reasonable levels
of sanitation.
That was not easy. There was continued discussion about
it. Those were the HORSE AND BUGGY DAYS. Plent y of
flies. People used flat fly papers and another type which
came, coiled in a short tube. It pulled out as coil about 2
feet long. Screen doors and window screens weere fictures.
Also fly swatters. A common command to children was."close
the screen door or dont bang the screen door." No DDT in
those days. Just as well.
My mother's main defence against sickness was lots of
good food. She encouraged us to eat all we could.
We were fortunate. No junk food was available. Almost
everyone has a garden. The vegetables were wonderful.
Plenty of wild berries such as chokecberries, pin cherries,
saskatoons, cranberries. There were large patches of
wonderful raspberries. They came up after a local forest
fire. Hazel nuts were common . A great delight.
Kitchen sanitation was not easy. No refrigerators.
One answer was to put the milk in a small porcelain pail
with a lid and hang it down the well, close to the water.
My mother was a great sniffer and taster. If it did
smell good or taste good. Throw it out. Plenty of homemade
soup and beef stew with suet dumplings.
In a harch climate like the prairies there were few
sickly people. There were few neglected children.
Children who were not breast fed had a poor future. .
Today. I see plenty of sickly people walking around.
And sickly children. When I study what people buy in the
supermarket I am not surprised. I avoid junk food but how
can I buy realy good food?
Our country is a victem of the green revolution.
Farmers began using chemical fertilizers. This dramically
increased the yield. But if the humus was depleted the soil
might lose vigor.. The plants might need pesticides to ward
off desease.
Hybrid corn was developed which had greater yields but
less protein. Besides ingesting pesticides we are eating
food with less food value not to speak of the decreased joy
of eating.
A few years ago, Indonesia,embraced the green revolut
ion. They planted short stemmed rice that grew quickly.
They poured on the fertilizers. Their rice output increased
about three times. It was considered a miracle. Now their
le eling off and decreasing. Their population increasing.
The government is very concerned. The same tragedy has
happened in other parts of the Orient including China
