I Will Try It Once

You most likely recognize the name "Jacob Marley" from the Dickens story that is played on television at Christmas. Though Scrooge saw the damned spirit of Mr. Marley in the story as a warning to himself, you can imagine that things might have been different. What if Marley, transported to the 21st century, had also had opportunities to improve his fate, just like Ebenezer Scrooge in the Dickens story? The following story tells how Marley - and you – might avoid the burden of chronic disease that hurries death, that weighs down the life we want. Everyone should have an equal chance to live the best, longest life.

Young Jacob "Jake" Marleigh didn't think much at the beginning of his life about how to stay healthy. His parents did much of the thinking and doing for him on this issue. He had gotten good nutrition, good sleep, and good activity. Young Jake was the middle kid of five, and he had things to do, after being programmed by the eons of growth and adaptation by his ancestry, and getting ready to tackle the tasks of an everyday kid. From his entry into the world, Jake had a need to hold, grasp and claim things, so before he could say the word "MINE", his strong fingers spoke "MINE" for him. Just as many strong-willed infants had done to lure his parents into being adored, Jake had gripped his father's index finger one day with pudgy little fingers. MINE. Then as a headstrong toddler, he was given a pack to carry on his back, to carry all things that he considered, his important stuff. All the things he had collected, craved, earned.

There were mementoes of his first McDonald's french fries from age 2 - a soiled paper fry basket; from his first bottle of soft drink, the cap; and from his initial box of Good and Plenty candy, a few sweet cartridges rattling within the container. Jake's parents did their best, exposing him to mass - produced industrial Western foods only sporadically, but of course what his parents offered tasted SO GOOD when he was given any of those treats, and so Jake would always want more. Meals at home were dark and heavy, in comparison. There was pot roast almost every Monday. Meatloaf with (ICK) onions and English peas. When Jake had his first plate of spaghetti with meat sauce placed before him and he got a mouthful of the sweet, beefy viscosity, he thought - yeah! Something nice here....and then his older sister had to tell him the pasta beneath was "worms"! AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Four years had passed before Jake once again put a forkful of spaghetti in his mouth.

Jake was a shy boy, though he was very assertive in the grade school classroom and on the playground at recess. He was so assertive that he got mixed up in a playground scrum, the weight of all those boys causing his wrist to snap beneath him as he crashed down on a sewer cover. But as soon as the cast was dry on Jake's forearm, he was blasting out of the classroom as soon as the recess bell rang. Back inside, he was soon labeled "teacher's pet". Our hero took to both battlegrounds with energy, especially since his cast alloweed him to stash some energy sources - Hydrox cookies, Jordan almonds he had stashed inside the plaster when at the movies, and even some bits of hamburger from last night's dinner. Boy, that cast really stank! But the stash kept him going, kept his neurons firing and kept that hand raised to answer EVERY QUESTION! Books and TV became Jake's life, even though he had plenty of encouragement from his parents and his few friends to play ball after school, or go to a Scouts meeting or to church. NO, was the boy's answer. Another potato chip from inside the backpack, before he went back to his books.

Jake was dusting himself off one day at the end of recess, and wanted to be on time because he had to read aloud to the class....but a tall, imposing adult beckoned him to come closer, at one corner of the school playground. The boy was certainly no dummy and looked around for support - no other adults were on the grounds, and he had to go! The adult prevailed though, and Jake was held tight to listen to the adult's entreaty: Young man, you work hard. I've been watching you. You play hard and I know you study hard.

The large man, who was dressed like a gym teacher but whom Jake had never seen IN HIS SHORT LIFE, went on: I have noticed that you don't have much energy as the day goes on, unless you have a little, er, pick-me-up? And then, the teacher guy leaned down and ACTUALLY PATTED DOWN the boy until he found in the shorts pockets: a pack of Clove gum, fresh from his granny's hand not two hours ago, and a peppermint wheel still within its plastic wrap....then as if he was hit by an electric shock, Jake glared angrily at the strange man, hissing in the scariest voice he could: STOP IT OR I'LL SCREAM. The man reared to upright himself, smiling as if to calm Jake's anxiety. Jake - you've got to stop this living to eat! Then, quickly lifting and blowing his gym teacher whistle - POOF!