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“Fooling Around”
I have lots of friends who call things to my attention that they think might amuse or inspire me as I crank out this cantankerous column each week. One of my best sources wrote to tell me about the death of the oldest person in the world. She died on September 11, 2009 in Los Angeles, CA. Her name was Gertrude Baines and she was 115 years old. I did a little research and found that she was born on April 6, 1894 in Shellman, GA. Her grandparents had been slaves. I found a picture of her which shows her to be a handsome woman who looks younger than me. Guinness World Records released the announcement of her death.
She had received a letter from President Obama. She had voted for him in 2008 and said she planned to vote for him again in 2012. How's that for optimism? She lived alone until she was 105. She enjoyed bacon and eggs and had few complaints except when her bacon was not crispy enough.
Her doctor reported that she attributed her longevity to the Lord and to the fact that she “never did drink, never did smoke, and never did fool around.”
I wish I could have known Gertrude Baines. She sounds like a person I'd enjoy knowing. I've known lots of persons who lived to a great age. I've asked the longevity question of most of them. What has enabled you to live so long? More often than not they replied with some version of, “I don't smoke, and I don't drink, and I don't fool around.” Which begs the question: why the common idea that “fooling around” is a threat to long life?
I decided to conduct an unscientific survey to get to the bottom of this idea that “fooling around” will shorten your life. I asked my old buddy Cicero Fudd about it. He has always had an old, worn-out car or two jacked up on blocks in his front yard. I said, “Cis, you've been fooling around with old cars most of your life. Some really old folk say one reason they've lived a long time is that they didn't fool around. You've lived a long time. What do you make of what they're saying?” He wiped his oily hands on his tee shirt, spat a stream of tobacco juice into an old upturned hubcap and said, ”Preacher, they ain't talking about fixin' broke down cars.” So I pressed him, “Well what are they talking about?” He mumbled something about it being “too personal a thing to discuss with a preacher.”
About then, his wife Delilah walked out on the porch and got a dish of butter out of the refrigerator. So I asked her, “Why would folk who fool around tend to live shorter lives than those who don't?” As she turned to go back inside the house, she said, “I reckon a lot of them would get shot by their jealous wives or husbands.”
I am figuring out that “fooling around” has a larger and more serious meaning than tinkering with old cars. I think a good policy for living a long life would at least include the simple principle: don't do anything that might provoke your mate to jealousy--especially if he or she has a license to own a firearm. Also, folk should be careful about boozing and smoking. And while Gertrude Baines preferred a diet of bacon and eggs, I suppose the rest of us who want to live longer need to go easy on that too. Ms. Baines cited the Lord for her longevity. I'm pretty sure we can be safe in saying that the Lord is the main cause of our good lives whether long or short. That's what I'm counting on anyway.
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