Small towns are America's heart

The editor of the Shelton (Nebraska) Clipper once shared some of his amusing thoughts about life in small towns with television commentator Charles Kuralt. What he said about his town applies to some in our area, too.

He told Kuralt that a person knows they live in a small town when:

* You are born in mid-June and your family receives gifts from local merchants because you're the first baby of the year.

* You speak to each dog you pass by name, and he wags his tail in response.

* You can't walk for exercise because every driver that passes offers you a ride.

* You write a check on the wrong bank and it covers it for you.

* You miss church on Sunday and the preacher sends you a get well card.

* Someone asks how you feel and spends the time listening to what you have to say.

This editor concluded, "Now these observations say a lot about life in a small town. We care about each other. And when somebody asks you a question about how you feel, it's because they really care. They're not trying to make idle conversation. I thank the Lord for small towns and the people who live in them. It's a way of life. It's America as far as I'm concerned."

Stress diet

My problem with dieting over the years has been nothing if not stressful. For many years I'd go from one extreme to another and nothing seemed to work.

A friend, sympathetic with my efforts to shed some pounds, once sent me a book containing this "stress diet." and I'm reprinting it for all of you fellow big eaters out there.

Breakfast: 1/2 grapefruit, 1 slice of whole wheat toast, dry, and 8 oz. of skim milk.

Lunch: 4 oz. of lean broiled chicken breast, 1 cup steamed spinach, 1 cup herbal tea with artificial sweetener and 1 Oreo cookie.

Mid-afternoon snack: Rest of the Oreos in the package.

Dinner: 1/2 loaf of garlic bread with cheese, l large pepperoni pizza, 1 can diet cola and 3 candy bars.

Late evening news: 1/2 frozen cheesecake (eaten directly from freezer without thawing), or 1/2 bag of potato chips and 6 oz. of French Onion dip.

Rules and rationale of the Stress Diet:

1. If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. If you drink a diet cola with a candy bar, the calories in the candy are canceled out by the drink.

3. When you eat with someone else, the calories don't count if you eat more than they do.

4. Foods used for medicinal purposes never count (e.g. hot chocolate, brandy and Sara Lee Cheesecake).

5. If you fatten up everyone else around you, you look thinner.

6. Movie-related foods do not have additional calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel needs. Such items include Milk Duds, buttered popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots and Tootsie Rolls.

7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking them up causes the calories to leak out.

8. Coatings licked off spoons have no calories if you are in the process of cooking.

9. Foods of the same color contain the same number of calories. (E.g. spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate, et. Note: Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.)

The Stress Diet and Rules and Rationale of Stress Dieting were borrowed from the paperback edition of "A Laughing Place - The Art of Psychology of Positive Humor in Love and Adversity," written by Christian Hageseth III, M.D.