By Steve Stricker

 

Ladies, I heard that when pregnant you can have weird food cravings – did you?

For as long as I can remember for Lent I’ve given up alcohol and all kinds of food that I really like.  Then on Ash Wednesday as the priest says, “Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return” as he places a cross of ashes on my forehead from the palms of Palm Sunday, little voices almost immediately begin making food replacement suggestions to me. 

This Lent I’ve found myself in Kroger for hours perusing aisles and food stuff that I’ve never been or looked at.  This year seafood has my attention – shrimp, salmon, crabmeat, and different fruit; blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, are always in my fridge, but last week oranges, an apple, white grapes, Clementines, a peach, nectarine, plantain chips, green and red pear found their way into my cart.   

The last time I ate a pear, peach – well I don’t remember and have never eaten a red pear, nectarine or plantain chips! And, suddenly had a craving for sweet slaw, mustard potato salad, pimento cheese, exotic sliced cheese, meatballs, Rigatoni and Meatballs, Caesar Pasta Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Caesar Salad with Cheese, Bacon and Broccoli, bacon wrapped jalapenos, garlic-stuffed olives, deviled eggs (that no one has so had to make my own), tuna salad, carrots, fried dill pickles, fried green tomatoes, and alligator – which is considered fish and I can eat on Friday….

Then there are unsalted pecans, cashews, roasted peanuts in the hull, trail mix, raisins, garlic bagel chips, cereal, and my Lenten drink – apple cider vinegar and grapefruit juice.

Along with this food paradigm shift, I find myself with more energy.  Some might be from not sipping my beloved bourbon. My cardiologists after replacing the battery-depleted old pacemaker and connecting that wayward third lead to the new one, requiring two separate procedures and docs, said I should feel more energy and have a life span of another 20  years! All this new heart stuff is bringing my EF (Ejection Fraction), up from the heart only pumping 25% of the blood my body needs (major heart failure) to 30-35%, considered acceptable.

After walking pneumonia from shoveling my mile-long driveway last January, lingering chest congestion, plethora of medical procedures, I had not worked on my 1964 Land Rover Series IIA, started or driven my bought new 1971 MGB-GT since last July – nine months. All that cleared up this November, then those PM surgeries, back-to-back.

Then there was also my beloved 1996 850 Volvo station wagon with rare 5-speed manual transmission that had one problem after another all summer demanding my attention…and $$.  With cold weather, I pulled the plugs of the IIA, squirted Marvel Mystery Oil into the cylinders for lubrication, and buttoned it up; MG was snug in my garage next to the 2nd new car I’ve ever owned – 2012 KIA Soul+.

With this new energy, spring, warming temps, coming out of my whatever “coma,” last Tuesday, sunny,77 degrees, decided to try and start my MG. Took the tarp off, checked all fluids, and fully expecting the battery to be dead, pulled the manual choke, inserted key, held my breath turned to on, and whew – heard that wonderful clicking of my petrol sending unit.   Full turn of key, and with a few cranks, started right up!!  My Facebook friends were right there with me as I videoed this awesome moment. 

Then took a wonderful, healing, familiar, drive around Oxford in my forever “time machine” which I’ve had since buying it new a year after returning from Vietnam – unreal memories. 

Things have a way of eventually returning to “normal” like our wonderful Ole Miss students back from Spring Break this Monday the 17th refreshed, and our lives are whole again – yay!

GO OLE MISS BASEBALL!! Go Ole Miss students, Oxford, y’all, Jag and Steve.

Steve lives in Oxford and has his Ph.D., in Educational Psychology, “Counseling” from Ole Miss.