You Are What You Eat

Being a country boy born and raised in central Kentucky I never gave much thought about what I ate until I was thrust into middle age . Now it seems that every means of mass communication screams at what you're eating isWRONG WRONG WRONG. I get so tired of hearing about this diet or that new study showing how bad pickle bologna is for you to consume. What ever happened to the basic food groups we were supposed to follow for good health when we of my generation studied them in school?For years I thought that "Twinkies,Ho Hos, and Dingdongs" were basic necessities for a healthy lifestyle.Now we have armies of little old skinny-assed people telling us they are not good for your body. They want you not to drink Milk unless it has a blue tint and a percentage of something in on the label. There was nothing closer to heaven than going to Mrs. Young's grocery store and having her serve you a baloney sandwich on Butternut White bread. I did say White Bread to all you health fanatics. She would slice it with a big old butcher knife and wrap it in waxed paper. You could add mustard or mayonaisse, anything else would take away from the baloney. It was only after I married that I realized that eating white bread was anathema to some people.My mother-in-law would tell guests at her dinner table that"Steve is a good bread-eater." Only after years of observation did I realize that being a "good breadeater" was not a compliment.If my inlaws ate bread at all it was whole wheat or rye. Yuck! In all fairness they were cityfolk and I was country. They called pie filling pudding. Go figure! I fell in love with Andi Mcdowell in the movie "Michael" with John Travolta. Why? She sang that song about Pie and sang it in her North Carolina Accent. I don't know of any country boy who wouldn't feel the same way, you know like we all felt about Dolly Partin when she and her attributes first appeared on the Porter Waggoner show. While I'm confessing I have to admit that I miss Vienna Sausage and Potted meat at lunch. And what would I give for a little can of VanCamps beanie-wiennies?Do you think Spell Check is going to handle Wiennies like I spelled it? People would have you to believe that vienna sausage is lethal right out of the can. People even take the skin off of fried chicken. Elvis deepfried all of his food , and if it's good enough for the King then I guess it'll be ok for me. Somehow I feel all of this food business is aCommunist plot. Does noone remember Nikita Khruschev pounding his shoe in rage and threatening to bury us in Communism? Well I do,as I was laid up in bed eating fruit cocktail to purge my body of the chickenpox the day I watched him in marvelous snowy, black and white television. I thought even then with my fifth grade mind that old Nikita needs to eat a little chocolate pie fillin and ease up on the world. Little did I know then that 45 years later we would have this legion of Bony-assed do gooders telling us what to eat. Maybe old Nikita won after all. I think I'll defer to another American Icon who said it best with,"I like mine with lettuce and tomatoes ....Heinz 57 with French fried potatoes." If it's good enough for Jimmy then I'm ok.