Fitness

Now I come to the “you-won’t-believe-it” problem which sometimes disappears, the problem of growing older. Actually I am convinced it need not be a problem at all. There, are people-not many, but a few-who seem to grow younger instead of older.

One day on a television program I may show you some of these people. For all of you doubting Thomases I could supply names and addresses, except in one case. This is a woman of eighty-two who enjoys tremendously the fact that most people think she is sixty; she works half-time as a secretary, Hitting about like a humming bird. There is Mr. G., now eighty-six, who talks about having fun on borrowed time; he loves to garden, and once when I was entertaining, he turned our house into a florist shop and in addition brought a camellia corsage for each guest. Mrs. S. must be nearly eighty by now. It is unbelievable that one person can do as much good as she does; I know how much she helps people because she sends many to me for nutritional advice. She was ill and old when I first saw her 15 years ago; now she is active and young and vibrantly alive.

Mrs. L. is one of the most amazing of this group. I would bet that in 12 years she has swallowed no morsel of food which does not build health. Her figure is that of a thirty year-old. I tell her I should pay her to visit me instead of vice versa. She is particularly amazing because she is a crack skier and is on the ski patrol, skiing down the slopes with stretchers, helping to carry youngsters who have broken bones. She does not worry about breaking bones nor does she need to.

Mrs. H. has been one of my favorites since 1936. She came to me because of pernicious anemia, exhausted, depressed, her mouth and tongue so sore she could hardly eat. Her life has been hard; money always scarce. Before child-labor laws were passed, she was taken out of school and forced to work in the New England woolen mills, leaving home when it was still dark in the morning and returning after dark at night. There was little love and few bright spots in her life until she was sixty-eight; then a childhood sweetheart found her, a wonderful physician whose record is in Whd s Who. A friend and I poured coffee at their wedding, a big occasion with the brightest bunch of oldsters I have ever seen assembled; we laughingly said we were the only persons present who could hold a coffee cup without shaking out its contents. This woman sent me a report of her physical examination from Johns Hopkins Hospital: “Although this patient claims to be seventy-four years old, she has the body of a fifty-year-old woman.” She and Dr. H. are now spending happily-ever-after summers in Vermont and winters in Florida. Dr. H. asked me to visit them in Vermont. I said I could not decide when to come; I wanted to be there for maple syrup making but also for autumn colors. His answer was graciousness at its height: “If you can come only once, come in the spring and stay till the fall.”

I wish you could all meet Mr. and Mrs. R., people whom it seems God must have made especially for each other. He is seventy-six; she, seventy-two. She had been crippled with arthritis for years, and he had the usual old-age symptoms: a tremor, fatigue, some shortness of breath, trouble with his eyes; years of hay fever and sinus infection, both still troublesome. The arthritis scarcely bothers her any more; his symptoms, too, have gradually cleared. Both are now amazingly active. She is busy with a grandchild who lives with them, with Spanish classes and social gatherings. Mr. R. holds down what could be considered three full-time jobs. He is president of a building and loan association which takes a great deal of his time; he operates three oil wells which require as much attention as spoiled children; and he has gardened their acre of land since their Mexican gardener, an old man of forty, became ill. Besides these activities he plays 18 holes of golf twice each week. I remarked that he probably played with men 20 years his junior, and he said they were sometimes SO years younger than he. If you want to taste really good homemade bread, you should drop in to see them, as I frequently do.

And lastly, there is Dr. P., who earned his Ph.D. at Columbia half a century ago. He and his family lived in Shanghai for years, then in Manila where he was caught at the outbreak of World War II. He spent the war years in the terrible Santo Tomas Prison. His health was broken then, and recovery was never complete; heart attacks followed and then polyneuritis, the American term for beriberi. His pain was too excruciating to be deadened by opiates. Although he was given B vitamins by many physicians, he became worse and was not expected to live. As a last resort, his wife and daughter came to see me. Tiger’s milk, liver, wheat germ, all three in small amounts at first, large quantities of pantothenic acid which had not been given before, calcium tablets to help deaden pain, vitamin pills of. every letter, tablets of enzymes and hydrochloric acid to digest the food combined to turn the tables; his recovery was spectacular. Since childhood, Dr. P. has had a wonderful voice, and singing had been his joy. He sang solos at churches, clubs, and weddings, including Chiang Kai-shek’s wedding, his wonderful wife playing his accompaniment. His voice failed with his illness, but now he believes it is stronger than ever; again he is singing for churches and clubs and weddings. Just before he left for Manila to be an executive of an insurance company, he sang to me a song he said he had especially selected. It was, “I’ll be loving you always.” And if I had a voice and could have held back the tears, I would have sung the same song to him.

These are young people, every one of them. The good health they enjoy, however, is no mere happenstance. Every person in this group takes his nutrition seriously, not just occasionally but every meal of every day and year after year. The rewards are pretty wonderful. With these people there is no gap between the generations. Each one of them is an inspiration, almost a vision of what could be for possibly every human being. They remind you again that aging may not be a “natural” process but the result of years and years of cumulative nutritional deficiencies. I tell them that they make me look forward to my nineties.