Obesity And Other Comments

Obese kids is what they now call fat kids. Now growing up we had fat kids. My friend Eddie was fat and I called him Eddie while others called him “Porky.” I called him Eddie because we lived close to each other and he could beat the snot out of me if he wanted to. Why chance it?

Now you looked at Eddie’s dad you could understand the fact genetics played part of it. But Eddie was no lay about. Eddie was quite active as we’d ride our bikes everywhere and he was top notch at baseball. Eddie was proof that you can have a few pounds on you and still be in good shape.

So what is the point of all this? I look at playgrounds today and they seem deserted. Growing up we’d get up real early in the AM to try to capture a baseball field and would play all day. No video games to occupy our time as technology was a state of the art pool cue or going bowling at a place that no longer used pin boys. To get places we’d ride our bikes. There were friends of mine I loved to ride with not because of any great bonding allegiance but the fact they could fix a bike. That was their gateway into becoming full fledged motor heads when we got old enough to have a car. I had zero mechanical ability and still have zero so I was always amazed by the ability to see the problem, diagnosis the problem and fix the problem. Now it seems like the bikes are either disposable or you go to a bike shop for repairs.

Now today it seems car pool has become a term that we had no use for “Back in the day.” You think mom or dad would give you a ride of a mile or so? We walked. In fact many of us walked to school. My JHS was a mile and a half so I walked. Occasionally we’d get a ride but it was not a given nor was it expected. Especially with parents who had grown up in a depression and WW II. They were use to doing without and it would take awhile to erase that mind set.

TV was starting to become a big deal in the 50s but it was not the conglomerate of channels you have today. Nor did you have multiple sets. If mom or dad commandeered the set it was tough cookies so you and your buddies would have to occupy your time developing your own mischief. Most of that including running about the neighborhood.

I could go on and on about how technology has impacted our lives especially those under twenty but the whole idea is not a “Good old days” versus today but just to isolate the one thing that seems to divide my generation from those of my grandkids and that is level of activity. I just don’t see the expenditure of energy thanks to the options technology provides. How much of that obesity level would be reduced with an increase in physical activity?

Kevin Reddington is the lawyer whose job it is to defend his client one Catherine Greig the best he can. So he is using the Robin Hood defense to make her sixteen year companion Whitey Bulger seem like some type of hero in the Boston area and, naturally, his moll, Greig, was just a companion who admired this salt of the earth character. And that is another chapter in why I diss lawyers.

Scott Brown is in for smooth sailing for another term as Democrats seemed to have gone to the second tier for candidates.

“Mumbles” doesn’t want WalMart in Boston. I’m sure a good portion of the populace feels perfectly comfortable at Copley Place as a destination to spend their payroll checks for low three figures.

Once again the government needs money to cover their own incompetence and it is done with dire threats of financial collapse. Why just think of Greece and magnify it say a thousand times. On the loony front we have the President pandering for support of his own irrational fiscal and leadership failures by using the typical scare tactics of no SS checks nor entitlement checks. I’m all for the stop feeding program and placing the government on a fiscal diet. Maybe a good cleansing is needed and this is the opportunity to do it?

The lineup to replace Canessa is just about set and it looks like Middleboro could quite possibly end up with a “Home Boy” hustling into Boston each day. Will Allin take the “T” like Dukakis did? Allin will win.

The proposed increases in the water and sewer rates are confiscatory. Time for a well and a two holer.

I have a son who lives in Brockton yet “farms” on our property. A woodchuck has decided to use his garden as a personal buffet and he has responded. So far this is right out of “Caddyshack” with the gopher and Bill Murray.

“I was brought here to do something and do it now” was the quote I heard from one of the obstinate obstructionist regarding the debt crisis. A politician actually doing what he was elected to do. How novel.

It is also not a debt problem but a spending problem.