A Childhood Influence

While I will write a lot about food and drugs issues here (a passionate focus of mine), I will probably often blather on about other matters of my heart, hoping they will be of some mild interest to you. Today, I choose to do so.

Recently, I found an old acquaintance on FaceBook whom I haven't seen in 47 years! I don't know why I typed his name in the search box - mostly, I think because I had some vague memory of a period of time in my childhood and suddenly remembered the wonderful family that once lived across the street from me. Actually, I was friends with his oldest sister. I knew she was married, but for the life of me, I couldn't remember her married name. So I typed in her older brother's name - James Lee Stanley.

The Stanleys moved into the split-level across the street the year after we had moved into ours, circa 1961. It was wonderful to see girls about my and my sister's age and it wasn't long before we found ourselves in their front yard, exchanging names and shyly getting to know each other. Sandra and I were both 12 years old, and Pam was the same age (nine) as my younger sister, Cathy. Sandra and I were together often (when we weren't fighting over boys); Pam and Cathy became playmates as well. I guess the difference between being 'friends' and 'playmates' is age. Sandra and I were pre-teens, so that definitely made us friends.

The Stanley household was something of a wonder to me. Mr. Stanley was a dark, handsome, mustachioed spice salesman who played the piano and sang. His beautiful, auburn-haired Italian wife, Mary, always had a welcoming smile that made you feel like you were being hugged somehow, even though she was across the room. The kitchen always sent the savory aromas of Italian cooking wafting throughout the house, and I can still smell and taste Mrs. Stanley's awesome lasagna!

Being in their home was always a treat for me. I don't think I understood at the time why I always wanted to be over there, whether or not the girls were in. Just being in a home where both mom and dad seemed to be so involved with their children made me feel warm and somehow safer. Even though Mr. Stanley often frightened me with his strict and seemingly (at the time) menacing discipline, I still liked that he was involved with his kids and their friends. Mrs. Stanley's gentleness always offset any gruffness from her husband, and because she seemed to know that he was more bark than bite, I could be at ease around him. I absolutely loved sitting close by when he started playing the piano, watching his fingers move fluidly over the keyboard. That's when he seemed to drop the rough exterior and would smile while he sang and played.

It was a very musical household. That was the second attraction for me. I loved music but had never given any thought about playing an instrument. I had never met anyone who played or sang, and they ALL did and did it well! The oldest at 14, James Lee played guitar like nothing I'd ever heard and when he, Sandra, and Pam sang together, it was a marvel to me to hear their voices move together in melody, harmonies and counter-melodies, and it all seemed so effortless!

That's when I discovered music was such a big part of who I was. I learned to play on a little plastic ukulele that my step-grandfather had left at the house. It was kind of deja vu for me when I read James Lee's bio that stated he, too, had learned how to play the uke as his first instrument.

I taught myself to play guitar at 15, trap (drums to you) at 20, aux percussion at about 42, and then barely 2 years ago, took up the bass. I played in several bands during my youth - traveled throughout Germany with a country band in the late '60s, became the drummer for "Flat Gap Mountain Railway" in Cincinnati in the early '70s where we opened for Seals & Crofts, The Carpenters, Grandpa Jones, Pure Prairie League, etc. Then I drummed briefly for "The Mark Four", backing up a Four Tops-like group before leaving Ohio and heading back to Virginia Beach.

In 1976, I became a Christ-follower, and played drums in a 20-plus piece orchestra in a 4,000-member church in Virginia Beach, VA, toured the states with a traveling ministry team, backed up the likes of The Archers, Dottie Rambo, Phil Driscoll, and Andre Crouch, and played guitar and sang at weddings, funerals, and parties. Although I had a very decent voice, I never really liked singing, my preference (at the time) being drums. I have always been on the worship team, no matter where we moved or attended church. Now, at 60, I love playing bass in my church's contemporary worship band, and wherever else I get the opportunity.

Thinking about all the above, I suddenly realized that none of this might have happened if I hadn't lived across the street from the Stanleys. As I look back over my life, I know that I learned two very important things from this inspirational clan. Firstly, an awareness that there really was something better to be had in what one calls 'family', that it meant being involved and concerned about one another, recognizing each other as important individuals, and knowing you weren't alone, no matter what. Secondly, I discovered a transforming vehicle to be, to express, to share a part of myself with others — music. Thank you, Stanley family.

Side Note: James Lee Stanley has been a singer-songwriter, producer, actor and what he likes to call himself, a "freelance human being", since the time we lived across the street from each other. Cass Elliot of The Mamas & Papas fame, paid for his first recording sessions and he has performed with the likes of Steven Wright, Bonnie Raitt, Robin Williams, Nicolette Larson and even Bill Cosby. He owns his own production company and still does some 300+ performances a year. http://www.jamesleestanley.com/.

Pamala Stanley is also a singer-songwriter and like James Lee, owns her own entertainment company and tours worldwide extensively. Visit her site, http://www.pamalastanley.com/.

Sandra and I are enjoying getting reacquainted via email. We are truly sisters now as we are both Christ-followers and I'm hoping that a life-long, long-distance friendship will follow. She still sings like a songbird and of late has added her voice to Jame's latest recording project.

It MUST be true - it's on TV!!!

I don't watch a lot of tv - most of the time, it's on just for background noise. My husband, Bobby, watches at night (mostly through his eyelids), but unless we're watching Huckabee, Glenn Beck, a UFC match (my fav), or a good movie with friends, I find it boring to just sit zoned out in front of the boob tube. Instead, I choose the computer . . . there I can chat with friends, play games to keep my mind sharp (ri-i-i-i-ght), read, study, do research, etc. If I have an addiction, the computer is definitely it.

One of the reasons I don't like a lot of tv is the commercials. I call them an expensive form of brainwashing, although I think that term is misleading. It should be "braintrashing". Some are amusing and even make me laugh out loud. But most of them make me angry.

How's that, you ask? How could most commercials make me angry? The answer is easy because most commercials these days are about drugs. Since big pharma's yearly take is upwards of 800 billion dollars, they're just about the only ones who can really afford to advertise as they do. Think about it . . . how many ads do you see in a day for everything from nasal spray to cholesterol inhitors, baldness prevention & repair to weight loss, sleep aids to male enhancement capsules. And the list goes on, ad infinitum. It seems there's a pill for everything these days. And just when I think there couldn't possibly be anything else, they make one up! "Hey Mister! Don't have the energy to walk the dog or play basketball with the kids anymore? Then you probably have Low-T!" Now, wasn't that original? The big pharma marketers know just how to get to us, don't they?

In all these tv ads, they spend half their alloted time telling you why you really need it, using everything from the promise of the "best sex yet" to scare tactics that make you drop the tv remote and run right down to the nearest physician's office to get that "miracle preventive" in whatever form it comes. The rest of their commercial slot is used by some man or woman with a teflon tongue who can spew out the mile-long disclaimer - with nary a twisted dipthong - so fast that you figure it's not worth listening to, even if you could wrap your ears around it. What you are able to catch makes you roll your eyes in unfathomable disbelief at the convoluted logic they use to justify popping their wares.

And tv is not the end of it. Magazines, newspapers, on-line ads - they are everywhere! Even my beloved Reader's Digest, which I started reading in the 1950's whenever I visited my grandmother, is slam full of them. I counted the drug-related ads in this month's issue (June 2009), and there are eighteen, all but two within the first 89 of 204 pages. There were nine single-page pharma ads (two of which were for dog meds), three 2-pagers, five 3-pagers, and one 4-pager. There were only thirty articles to read (one for each day of the month), making the ratio of stories to ads better than 2:1.

We are inundated with big pharma. We have more drugs in this country than Carter's has little liver pills (dating myself now!) and yet, we remain one of the sickest with epidemic proportions of diabetes, cancers, obesity, Crohn's disease & Colitis, heart disease, and Parkinsons & Alzheimers. What's wrong with this picture?

What's really so sad is the fact that most of these diseases could have been easily prevented by eating real, whole foods. The modern American diet is filled with processed foods that we irradiate in microwaves. Nutritionless white bread that clogs the intestines, foods cooked in grease that does not liquify until well over 120°F (so what do you think it does once it's in your 98.6°F body?), artificially bulked-up beef, pork, and chicken that has been fed pesticide-laced grains, sawdust and other dead animals, soft drinks full of kidney/pancreas/mind-destroying lab-produced sweeteners and preservatives, and so many other so-called "foods" are the staples at our dinner tables . . . uh, should I say, the fast food tables. But surely they couldn't have anything to do with the diseases this country suffers from in alarming numbers . . . could they?

But that's another blog.

All Organic is NOT Equal!

Going organic seems to be the way things are going these days. Everywhere you shop, you see "All Natural", "Organic", and other trendy words of the green movement in the food industry. But to be a careful buyer, you will still read the labels thoroughly before purchasing anything.

What? Can't pronounce all those long, scientific-sounding names on that label? That only means one thing - TROUBLE! The number one rule to remember when buying organic is:

"If you can't read it, don't eat it!"

Okay, sure . . . some of those long, hard-to-pronounce terms are just things we call "iron" or "Vitamin E" in normal, everyday English. But if those so-called naturally-occurring ingredients are supposed to be a part of the real food in the package, then why did they have to be "added"? The real question here is, "Did these additives come from nature or someone's laboratory?" More likely than not, they came from a lab, meaning that they have been manufactured and are probably Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's). So what's organic about that?

We must remember that anything that is not naturally grown is an ingredient that our bodies just do not process. Our liver and other cleansing organs/processes of the body become confused, go into overdrive trying to decide what to do with the foreign substances they have encountered, and finally just store in our organs, bones, and tissues because they don't know what to do with them. Just as a water "filter" removes and holds the impurities of your water until it it becomes more toxic than the water and has to be changed, so do your liver, kidneys, gall bladder and pancreas. But you can't change them. There's no such thing as a real "body shop". It requires major surgery to repair/replace your body's vital organs, and even then you will never be the same.

Okay, enough of the graphic stuff, true as it is. I think you get the picture. Even the smallest amount of "fake" food is stored in your body, which has an accumulative effect. Over the years, the results become chronic, painful conditions that we consider to be part of "getting older". At worst, diagnoses pronounce cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases and conditions.

So, what's a body to do? Firstly, read those labels! Don't be fooled by terms like "spices" or "flavorings", which can are legally used (thanks, FDA) to disguise over 1,000 different chemical additives! Do some personal research about the laws of labeling - you'll be surprised and disgusted at how the food industry is allowed to feed you poison as long as you don't know about it.

Of course, I will be blogging about a lot of other information that I hope you find interesting and useful as you walk out a healthier lifestyle. And please remember...I'm no scientist, but I have and still am studying to enable myself to make the very best choices when it comes to what I eat. I don't always make the most intelligent ones, but I keep trying.

As a fairly healthy 60-year old, I want to live as vitally as I can, for as long as I can. I don't want to be doddling around on a cane at 70, unable to wipe the dribble from my mouth when I'm fed. I am a firm believer that "you are what you eat", so I must keep working toward that goal. My maternal grandmother was 97 when she went to be with the Lord peacefully in her sleep. She and my grandfather farmed their entire lives, so I had a healthy start. But that was 50 years and many agricultural so-called "advances" in fertilizers, chemically-induced growth hormones, and pesticides ago. We were a much healthier culture back then. But that's another blog.

You can also get information from the website www.essentiallyorganiconline.com. There, we have information, recipes, and an organic buying club.

You are invited to respond and/or comment, as long as it is respectiful and void of profanity or any derrogatory statements concerning those who may share these views.