Fat, we are, reminded once again, is bad for us. Not surprisingly, a new study shows that Americans eat far too much fat and it's a major cause of the myriad medical maladies that people suffer these days, mostly heart disease and cancer.
Fat is now considered the universal enemy of the human body, although it's been pretty good for Dr. Dean Ornish, who has several best-sellers about the dangers of consuming the flesh of animals, and the attendant "bad" cholesterol.
In the old days, fat wasn't so bad. The table wasn't complete without a stick of butter. Bacon fat was saved and stored in the fridge for reuse.
When I was a kid, we used to give greasy food to the dog because "it was good for his coat." But even at an early age I knew it wasn't good for my coat. I learned that after being punished for hiding fried onion rings in the pocket of the new blazer that I got for Easter.
The only thing worse for your heart than fat is the stress generated by reading the relentless news reports about how just about everything we eat kills us. Chinese food, Mexican food, popcorn, hot dogs and margarine - all deemed deadly.
But let's face it. Is anyone really surprised? Not even the bravest knosher really thinks he is going to get away with eating hot dogs on a regular basis without a metabolic penalty.
People who buy loge seats at the movies and insist on having popcorn drenched in hollandaise sauce know they're risking myocardial infarction even before the feature begins.
Chinese food was simply too good to be true.
The dangers of margarine are only a cruel joke on those who believed there was a substitute for butter. It turns out they would have been better off smearing Crisco on pieces of bread.
"Everything your parents told you was good for you turned out to be bad for you," says Woody Allen. "Milk, red meat, college."
I'm still stunned to learn that bran muffins are suppose to be bad for you. Big muffins, all bulbous and browned - resembling a mushroom picked at Chernobyl - that taste like furniture stuffing, mixed with mucilage and covered with a sweetened lacquer are as treacherous as a king cobra. The muffins have as much fat, it seems, as five McDonald's hamburgers.
Cruel, isn't it? This alleged cholesterol-lowering ballast turns out to be artery-blocking sludge, pulmonary paraffin, concrete in the capillaries. Wham, bam, thank you, bran.
I confess I'm old enough to recall when sunlight was suppose to be good for you. Remember the advertising slogan, "Sunshine Vitamin D"? Now we know "D" stands for "deadly."
Exposure to sunshine now falls in a nefarious category with botched breast implants, flesh-eating bugs, Eboli, E-coli, pets with plague, lead laden emissions, seeping selenium and Reality TV.
Experts warn, cheerfully, that most of the damage from the sun already has been done -- all before we reach the age of 14.
Now I might be in some cardiovascular peril due to a childhood fueled by french fries and doughnuts, but I must say it isn't likely I will suffer the effects of ultraviolet exposure. And I owe it all to horror movies.
As summer draws to a close, I think back on wondrous dark days as a youngster at my grandmother's house.
With the shades drawn to keep out the garish sun, I'd watch sci-fi and horror films on TV all afternoon. It was my education in classic creep show -- "Dracula," "The Wolf Man," and "The Mummy."
My brothers played ball in the sandlot by the river. But I was fat and pale and only enthusiastic about wrapping my face in my grandfather's Ace bandages that smelled like Absorbine Jr.
With hat and sunglasses, I could look pretty much like Claude Rains in "The Invisible Man."
"You're going to have nightmares," my grandmother would warn me. But I never did--not until I saw "On the Beach" -- the parable of worldwide nuclear annihilation. That movie was too real, too believable, and I had bad dreams for weeks. (To this day, I get the chills when I see a nuclear submarine come into the Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge--just like in the film.)
One day, my brothers discovered a new activity, to ride their bicycles behind a converted fire engine that sprayed mosquitoes with DDT. It belched great white clouds of pesticide, and they said it was great fun to fall behind on bikes and get lost in the weird smoke.
That got me out of the house like a shot. When the red roadster rolled around each day at dusk, I was there with a mob of neighborhood kids, breathing it all in, eyes running with copious tears of chemical irritation. Now, that's what I call fun.
Over the years, I've wondered what this may have done to my brothers and me. Perhaps I should donate my body to Union Carbide.
*****
When I think of summer days at the Jersey shore, I think of Midnight. Every lad and lassie should have a rabbit.
Mine was Midnight, jet black--not a trace of white or brown. All black. That was unusual, I heard my parents say. But I knew Midnight was special anyway.
He (or she) would go with me to school--I was in first grade-- and Midnight was a big hit. Pictures were displayed on the walls and a biography was prepared by the children. The bunny made me a bit of a celebrity, too, and I liked that.
"You and me, Smid," I'd say to the famous-in-the-classroom black rabbit, "we're going places."
Like most performing artists, Midnight had some bad habits.
He (let's just settle on "he") would like to nosh on my mother's new green carpet and leave little holes in it. Perhaps it resembled a lawn. Ruining the new carpet is about the worst thing you can do to a suburban housewife.
For this, Midnight was remanded to the downstairs recreation room during the nights--and kept out of the house during the days.
Heating can cost a fortune on the East Coast so the door to the rec room remained closed and the heat was turned off in the basement, where Midnight was kept. One night, one of those famous frosts came early. I dashed downstairs to find Midnight on the cold floor, stiff as a board. I mean stiff. You could have picked up the poor rigid beast and used him for a cricket mallet. If you dropped him, I fear he'd shatter.
I was hysterical. I accused my mother of lepus-ide. But wise woman she was, she got a heating pad. Within an hour, the rabbit was completely restored to life, with no apparent damage incurred by his cryonic experience.
But, ironically, it wasn't the cold that was Midnight's downfall--it was the heat.
Midnight loved my mother. He'd follow her all over the back yard as she'd hang up the wash. If she took a step, he'd take a step, just a few paces behind her. It was remarkable to watch.
The New Jersey summers can be as brutal as the winters. On a particularly sweltering afternoon, my mom was out in the yard with Midnight. One moment he was keeping up with her. In the next, old Smid was stretched out peacefully in the grass--for good.
With his black fur, the poor thing was exceptionally vulnerable to heat stroke.
My mother sobbed to my father on the phone while he was at work. She couldn't get the words out.
"What is it?" he asked, alarmed, of course. "Is it one of the kids?"
"No, no," mom wailed. "It's the rabbit! Midnight is dead."
"Oh," my father replied grimly. "I guess we'll have to tell Bruce."
And so, still at the Jersey Shore with my brothers, I was informed of the passing of Midnight, the famed black rabbitt, who gave me my first brush with show business, my first encounter with animal resuscitation, and my first experience with things that die.
We buried Midnight under the sycamore tree. That way he got plenty of shade.
Years later, when my older brother, Jack, returned from college on the summer break, he brought a rabbit with him. He called him Nigel.
I only mention this because Nigel, too, ended up having an out-of-body, near-death, experience. But this wasn't caused by the cold.
Nigel--like all rabbits--was fascinated by green things. He managed to get into my brother's suitcase, and eat all of his high-octane marijuana that Jack had brought back from Oklahoma. Yes, Nigel gobbled up the entire ounce or two of the Shawnee Wowee or whatever it was.
The rabbit remained unconscious for a few days. He finally awoke and, boy -- was he hungry.
It was all we could do to keep him away from my mother's green carpet.
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