Over The Hill Health Matters

« Posted by Pat Franczyk on March 1, 2009 »

Hello!  My name is Pat, and I want to live forever.  I want everyone who wishes to, to live forever also. I have been having a mid-life crisis about this since I was eleven.

Some people are of the mind that knowing death is around one of these corners somehow makes the present oh so much sweeter. Not me. Dangling the sword of Damocles over my head only makes me sweat, then shiver.

I only want to sweat because I am on vacation in Hawaii or some other tropical paradise without poisonous snakes or animals that kill tourists. That makes it Hawaii.

I only want to shiver because I am on vacation in a northern clime without poisonous snakes or animals that kill tourists. That makes it Ireland, where my family is originally from.

Who needs snakes or wild animals when you have the Irish people themselves to worry about?

I’ll stick to Hawaii. (Just kidding. It’s my heritage; I’m allowed.)

O’Mordha is my Gaelic family name. ( I know; it sounds like “death” in oh, so many languages.) Changed to O’Moore (all O’Moore’s and Moore’s were O’Mordha), changed to Moore, married and changed to Franczyk.

No-one ever asks me if I am not Polish. I look Polish, they say, if they are not Polish. I can pick out Polish people a mile off. Whether fair-haired or dark, my Polish radar is honed to perfection.  And vice versa. I do not look Polish to them and they most certainly do look Polish to me.

But I can cook like a Pole, and they love it. In fact everyone loves it, and that is why I am a chef slash driver for a living.  I work in the film industry in Toronto as a craft service provider. Craft service is simply the food services category of the movie trade. We are the mobile kitchen unit of the civilian world.

If the “Good day, eh” isn’t a  “dead” giveaway, (heh heh), I am from Canada. I live just north of Toronto in the little yuppy hamlet of Sharon, Ontario. I was born in Manchester, England in 1956, and arrived with my mother and my grandmother in a ship in 1957. My father, who just passed away last March, had come over six months earlier to find a home for his family.

While my father’s trans-Atlantic crossing was “fraught” with good weather, excellent company, a lot of shuffleboard and all ’round merriment and excitement about what lay ahead for everyone in Canada, my mother,  my nanna and myself were treated to the tail end of a hurricane.

I swear that such mixed luck was meant to keep us all in the New World. The men emigrating in ‘57 were all starting their working lives from scratch, as the world was still digging itself out of the economic damage and literal refuse of World War II. Their wonderful ocean voyage to Canada began their new adventure with the energy and sparkle that they would need to maintain inside themselves during the trials ahead.

My mother and the other women coming from large cities to backwater towns of 7500 people or less would need the memory of the horrendous journey over the pond to prevent them from jumping on the next boat home, if things became too sticky, or the winters too long.  Just like the early history of New York, and Quebec, and Ottawa and…

Yes. The entire New World was built upon the combination of excitement of what lay ahead, and the trepidation of what would be facing any of them should they try to return from whence they had come.

In that spirit, I am willing to do anything and everything to not return from whence I have come any time soon. I am aiming at never. And I don’t mean England. I mean the non-physical realms.

I’ll take the physical over the ethereal any day of the week. Of course there is room for improvement, and since everything manifests from the ethereal, I am certain there is a lot of room for improvement over there too.

That is, if we do return to somewhere holy, and are not simply snuffed out like matchsticks.

That is why I am taking a look at any and all methods of improving our various health issues, and inviting you to join me. I will be reviewing different, affordable products and free recipes that are standing the test of time, or newly emerging remedies or courses of action that will be helpful to we aging wanna-be eternals.

Wanna-be eternals that also want to enjoy life, not stand stock still and be fearful of living, eating, drinking, dancing, thinking, speaking, or stepping on other people’s toes because we  might get hurt. If we get hurt, then let us heal. As long as we all step lightly, no-one’s toes will get broken. And if they do, let’s find a way to fix ‘em.

If only all the gods would be so gracious!

You are invited to share your own stories, in a humorous vein if possible, with everyone here. Feel comfortable to vent, and please share feedback about any products or treatments, or foods and fitness programs you have tried, in our on-going attempts to stay healthy and fit. Or return to healthy and fit. Or finally be healthy and fit.

Let’s try to keep our pocketbooks healthy also. If we weed out the bad and expensive and highlight the good and the reasonable, we will all be better off! I am willing to give it a go. I hope you will join me.

Sincerely, Pat Franczyk.

« Filed under Health, health »