Still kicking

Most people eat fish fillets. I generally eat fish by the pill.

That’s why it was so refreshing Saturday evening to partake in an Alaskan salmon fillet baked to near perfection.

Nothing’s perfect. The fillet was close.

But more on perfect later.

The fishy business of staying healthy consumes me these days. Fish-oil pills are a way to get fat in the diet. Fat has got a bad name of late. It’s as popular as Rush Limbaugh lighting up a cigar at an Obama victory party.

But if my crack science staff led by Mattie the calico cat is on target, fat needs to make up about 30 percent of the human diet.

While other people in La Grande and environs obsess about censorship, family values and Steve Martin’s odd taste in humor, I obsess about health. It’s funny how when health issues raise their heads, making a sucker fish look attractive by comparison, all other issues seem to pale.

It’s like outdoor columnist Patrick McManus wrote about the worry box. It’s always full of worries. But when a bear takes a swipe at your tent in the middle of the night, that worry kicks all other worries out of the box.

The same is true of health. When another operation looks possible, the big health worry kicks all other worries out of the box.

The worry over taxes goes away.

The worry about the federal government digging a debt hole all the way to China, where money apparently comes from, goes away.

The worry about the old dog and his kidney disease, and the one about an already puny 401K doing a rapid disappearing act goes away.

Like many anxiously aging baby boomers, I worry about what the future and my health will bring. Then I remind myself I can only control the present, and only my part of that. I can eat more salmon fillets. Tonight.

Of course, other people have it worse. I can’t imagine going through life with constant dizzy spells, painful boils or having the multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow), which over two years of torture killed my dad.

I can’t imagine having constant wrenching spasms, battling leukemia or going to Portland or Walla Walla for cancer treatments.

I can’t imagine suffering from dementia.

The human body is not a perfect creation. Nothing is perfect.

The human species, though, is amazingly resilient.

As the guy sharing the sidewalk with me said as I inquired about his health, “I’m still kicking.”

Life may trip us up from time to time. The important thing is we stay positive, eat our fish and make sure no matter what obstacles rear their heads we keep on kicking.

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