Friday, December 13, 2024
5 SIMPLE LIFESTYLE CHANGES TO HELP LOWER CHOLESTEROL
BY DONOVAN BALDWIN
There are some things that cannot be changed, and your genetic inheritance is one of them. If you are at risk for high cholesterol due to the genetic makeup inherited from your ancestors, then that is a fact.
This is of concern because high cholesterol puts you at risk for heart disease and heart attacks. Often, cholesterol must be controlled with medications, However, at already at a high cholesterol level or not, on medication or not, you can usually lower your cholesterol levels by several points by making some simple lifestyle changes.
1. Get Regular Exercise: Participating in regular physical activity such as gardening, walking, or swimming, or in a formal exercise program, has several well-documented health benefits. Some of these benefits affect your cholesterol levels indirectly or from another angle, but exercise can reduce cholesterol levels itself. Even something as simple as squeezing in a few short exercise sessions daily can help produce results.
2. Lose Weight: It has been shown that losing as little as 10 lbs can help reduce cholesterol levels, and exercise is one of the more effective strategies for healthy weight loss. That's one of the indirect aspects of exercise mentioned earlier.
3. Eat Right: Hey! Here we go again. Healthy eating helps promote weight loss. Healthy weight loss can help encourage interest in exercise, as can getting the proper nutrition.
A general rule of thumb for healthy eating is that the closer to the source the food is, usually the better for you it is. Get rid of trans fats generally found in fried foods and bakery products. Select lean cuts of meat, low fat dairy products, and exercise portion control. Eat a wide range of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. By all means, read the labels! Pick foods with lower cholesterol levels. For example, I was buying one brand of a certain product I used daily until I read the label and found that it had a much higher cholesterol level than another brand which provided the same nutrients.
4. Keep Alcohol Consumption at Low Levels: It has been found that a low level of alcohol consumption, generally no more than one or two drinks a day, can be of some health benefit and can help increase "good" cholesterol. Red wine has an ingredient, resveratrol, which apparently helps protect cells against the effects of aging. However, high levels of alcohol consumption can lead to serious health problems, including high blood pressure, heart failure and stroke.
5. Don't Smoke: As an ex-smoker, I cannot beat on this drum enough! If you already smoke, stopping smoking can improve your HDL cholesterol level. The health benefits don't end there, either. Only 20 minutes after your last cigarette, your blood pressure decreases. Then within 24 hours, your risk of a heart attack begins to decrease. Within just one year, your risk of heart disease is already down to half that of a smoker. It gets even better. Within 15 years, your risk of heart disease is similar to someone who never smoked.
Generally, lifestyle changes don't cause huge decreases in cholesterol levels, but, given time, they will, in most cases, produce results. However, as mentioned earlier, some people may need medication to actually reduce cholesterol levels effectively. Even in those instances, it is still in the individual's best interest to include the lifestyle choices as a part of their plan for good health overall and cholesterol control in particular.
Labels: article, donovan baldwin, health, lower cholesterol
Friday, December 06, 2024
ARTICLE - HEALTH - FROM DOG SLEDS TO DIABETES
BY DONOVAN BALDWIN
Interesting interview on the radio yesterday. Unfortunately, I only caught a few minutes of it.
It was actually about a novel. The plot was about a doctor in Canada. I don't know much more than that about the book.
It was the author, and his comments, that caught, and held, my attention.
The author had been a Doctor in Canada and drew on his experiences for the novel. He had also been a doctor in Afghanistan, again, I don't know the circumstances, but his experiences in both areas provided him with an interesting point of view on modern health dilemmas.
In Afghanistan, he found that the local people "never" in his words, required insulin for diabetes or to stabilize blood sugar. Apparently, the use of insulin in other, more "modern" societies is quite common due to diet and lifestyle....which have contributed to high levels of body fat, particularly the insidious abdominal, or visceral, fat.
He also compared this to medical observations over just a few decades of the Inuit of Northern Canade.
Not too long ago, many of their "major" health problems were what you would expect from such a civilization...broken bones, cuts, etc. These days, they can have Kentucky Fried Chicken from a fast food emporium, rather than whale blubber from a beast they chased for hours, or even days and expended huge amounts of calories to kill, butcher, and prepare.
The difference in lifestyle is reflected in medical problems. They have fewer broken bones, cuts, and gashes, but have diabetes (once nearly unheard of), heart disease, and strokes...all conditions related to high accumulations of visceral fat.
Sure, they used to have subcutaneous body fat which helped protect against the cold and provided energy stores...which they drew upon regularly. Now, they, like so many of us in the U.S. and other "Western" nations, have accumulations of abdominal fat which surrounds the internal organs and keeps the body in a state of chronic inflammation, contributing to heart disease, as well as diabetes.
Not a whole lot of conclusions here, but I think I will go exercise now.
Labels: article, diabetes, donovan baldwin, health, opinion
Sunday, April 10, 2022
COMMENT: STUPID THINGS
A teenager recently died as the result of injuries sustained when he and his buddies took turns being the target while wearing a bulletproof vest.
Tragic, but points up a fact I've seen time and again in 3/4's of a century masquerading as a human.People will do stupid things. (Some) people (although I believe ALL of us sooner or later) will do (some) stupid things. Substitute "inane", "idiotic", "pointless", "poorly thought out", "what the HELL were you thinking?"... whatever fits your narrative and/or thought/belief patterns.
Witness me, who's done a few myself... and, in one or two instances, lucky to still be here... or at least lucky to have all the original equipment... except for... well, that's another story.
Anyway, I am sure that when cavemen Ohg, and Oog first learned to sharpen sticks and make them into weapons, there were a few self inflicted, or mutually inflicted, "test" wounds... some of which may have been fatal... either at the moment, or later, due to infections, etc.
In fact, I've never been sure whether Cain intended to kill Abel, or if two brothers were having a game of "who can hit the other hardest with the rock"... an early version of "rock, paper, scissors".
Point, or blunt instrument, is, we humans often try things without full knowledge of possibilities, or the consideration of consequences.
This is sometimes the result of immaturity, lack of experience, failures (intentional or otherwise) in education, or simply due to the very human, "err now, repent at leisure" ethos... also known as "let's try it and see what happens"... a popular ploy with politicians.
No sense blaming those who manufactured the tools used in the perpetration of the stupidity of the moment. We don't need to work on more effective bulletproof vests, rocks, papers, scissors, or less effective guns.
We need to work on preparing our humans to function in a world that's been full of danger since temptation first appeared in the Garden of Eden... and, to me, that might be Eve, rather than the serpent.
#people #experience
Labels: article, donovan baldwin, essay, stupidity
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
ESSAY: ART HUMANIZES THE MIND... PERHAPS
Thinking Out Loud... Revisited (From Dec 29, 2018)
In "Seven Discourses On Art" (1769), Sir Joshua Reynolds uses the phrase, "...art worthy of his notice that tends to soften and humanise the mind."
This has long been what I have understood about "art", ever since the genteel nuns of my youth tried so hard to beat the concept into my rather unmalleable brain.
I guess that's the point, at least mine.
The goal of "education" was to learn to earn. You were supposed to become someone who could contribute realistically to the common good, and make a living doing it. You also learned how everybody else thought and followed in their footsteps.
Rather a harsh reality to my mind.
Yet, concurrently, it was somehow assumed that there would be, should be, a strange group of admirable, if weird, individuals who would stray from this straight and narrow path, and produce... "art".
It was further assumed that art WOULD "soften and humanize" us humans.
Yet again, over the decades, I have come to notice that sometimes, it seemed to me, we artistes (so to speak), see and comment on the real, the painful, the difficult to deal with and/or understand.
I think maybe, in that way, we contribute to the "humanizing" of the human hordes.
Softening?
Toughening?
Perhaps both... concurrently.
Introduction of the concept of intentional malleability, at least.
Open our mind to the "other"... another way of thinking or viewing reality. Just thinking out loud... as often happens.
Come to think of it, isn't "art" sort of just "thinking out loud"?
Labels: art, article, donovan baldwin, essay, humanize, Seven Discourses on Art, Sir Joshua Reynolds
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
We All Make Mistakes
By Donovan Baldwin
We all make mistakes.
You, me, the smartest people on Earth. Nobody's perfect.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is expecting anyone, myself, yourself, your best loved human, or the idiot across the street, to be perfect. Sometimes we err out of stupidity, sometimes out of kindness, sometimes out of desire, fear, sadness, whatever.
Anything can make us do dumb things. Even really wanting to do the RIGHT thing can make us do the wrong thing. The RIGHT thing, of course, is NOT to do the wrong thing. But then, we wouldn't be human would we? Forgive others when they make mistakes. I don't mean when they really try to hurt you, or someone else, but, when they simply screw up.
We all do it, and we all want, need, to be forgiven. I do. I bet you do. You don't have to give them the keys to your heart, just forgive them for being human.
So, let's just do that.
Forgive the mistake.
We all make mistakes.
You, me, the smartest people on Earth. Nobody's perfect.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is expecting anyone, myself, yourself, your best loved human, or the idiot across the street, to be perfect. Sometimes we err out of stupidity, sometimes out of kindness, sometimes out of desire, fear, sadness, whatever.
Anything can make us do dumb things. Even really wanting to do the RIGHT thing can make us do the wrong thing. The RIGHT thing, of course, is NOT to do the wrong thing. But then, we wouldn't be human would we? Forgive others when they make mistakes. I don't mean when they really try to hurt you, or someone else, but, when they simply screw up.
We all do it, and we all want, need, to be forgiven. I do. I bet you do. You don't have to give them the keys to your heart, just forgive them for being human.
So, let's just do that.
Forgive the mistake.
Labels: article, article about mistakes, article by Donovan Baldwin, donovan baldwin, mistakes
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Them Yankee School Teachers Shore Talked Funny
By Donovan Baldwin
A relative of my wife learned that we were moving to Atlanta, Georgia, to help my mom out a few years back.
She is a sweet lady, as are all the family I inherited. In fact, one of the things I treasure about being married to my Arizona wife is the family of Arizona Sicilians I acquired in the process. However, certain members of the family, like the dear lady I am talking about, have never traveled much to the east of Arizona.
A few days after she learned of our decision, she sent my wife an email in which she seemed to indicate that she was under the impression that folks were poor and not very well educated in the South.
I had thought that we had put that idea out to pasture (that's what we do with things in the South), back in the days of the Yankee school teachers.
You see, I grew up in Pensacola, Florida, attending Catholic schools from first grade through my graduation from Pensacola Catholic High in 1963. Along the way, in addition to the bevy of nuns who tried, with varying degrees of success, to drum knowledge into my thick skull, there was a small cadre of earnest young ladies from up North who filled in when enough nuns were not available.
Now, they were sweet young ladies from exotic places such as New Jersey and Massachusetts, and they did a good job. However, they sure talked funny!
It seems they had some strange ideas, too.
My mother taught third grade at St. Thomas More parish in Warrington for thirty years and many of these young ladies wound up there. Mom got to know many of them very well. One day, one of these young teachers confided a secret to her about the recruiting process.
When the recruiters were searching up above the Mason-Dixon line for suitable young ladies to teach "down South", they painted a picture of poverty and destitution. After all, we HAD lost the war, and, at least to hear them tell it, had never recovered.
Many of the young teaching school graduates already had some sort of mental picture of life down South, and the recruiters' descriptions simply served to accent what they thought they already knew from the history they had learned up North.
My mother's young friend confided that she had been genuinely surprised to learn that she could actually take an airplane into a real airport in Pensacola, after changing planes in Atlanta, of course! She had arrived expecting to live in a hovel, live on corn pone, and share an outdoor privy. She was quite amazed that, except for the accent, and the slower pace, and the fact that everything was fried, and the southern hospitality, living in Pensacola was pretty much like living in whatever Northern state they had left behind!
Of all the minor differences, however, the accent was probably the most major obstacle the young Yankee girls had to surmount. After all, they didn't know how to speak English very well.
I remember one day at Catholic High, in Algebra class, when a lovely young lady from New Jersey introduced herself as our new teacher.
Johnny, one of our classmates, a died-in-the-wool down-home southern boy, stood up and asked a question about homework, if I remember correctly.
The young lady, stared at him for a second, and then cheerfully and politely asked him to repeat his question, which he cheerfully and politely did.
Even at that tender age, the look that began to appear on her face tipped me to what was going through her mind.
The cheerful smile became a bit more brittle and the eyes just a little wider, kind of like a frightened animal, as she faced one of her first real challenges as a teacher in the South.
Again, and with a slight nervousness in her voice, she asked Johnny to repeat his question.
His face began to turn red, and this time, there was little politeness, and even less cheerfulness in his voice.
By now, there was no mistaking the look of bewilderment and consternation on the teacher's face. Desperately, she searched the faces of the other students, some of whom were beginning to snicker, and exchange knowing glances, and then asked, with an uncertain and bemused smile, "Is he speaking English?"
Johnny was just about ready to restart the War Between the States, but Tommy, his good friend, whose accent was almost as thick as Johnny's, stood up, grabbed him by the shoulders, and said plainly enough for the teacher to grasp, "Naw, Ma'am! He's jist tryin' to ask about homework. You jist ain't understandin' the way we talk down here yet."
Now, until that moment, I had never really realized that my friends and I talked with a Southern accent! We had been bathed in its sounds and syllables since birth. There were minor differences among us, but for all my life that soft Southern drawl had been to me, at least, the way people talked.
Everybody else talked funny!
Even my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Atlanta talked different, but we, the lucky few who lived along the Gulf Coast spoke proper English.
Eventually, the young teacher, and many others like her, learned to understand our...ahem...language, and perhaps even our lives. Maybe they even returned up North and took back some true facts about the South. However, my story happened in the 1960's and my wife's relative made her comments in 2009. I guess not everyone got the word...with or without a Southern drawl.
Donovan Baldwin is a freelance SEO copywriter currently living in Central Texas but due to move to Georgia soon. A University Of West Florida alumnus (1973) with a BA in accounting, he is a member of Mensa and has held several managerial positions. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, he became interested in internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing poetry, articles, and essays for over 40 years, and now frequently publishes articles on his own websites and for use by other webmasters. He has a poetry website at http://ravensong.4t.com, where he publishes many of his poems and articles.
Article Source: Those Yankee School Teachers Sure Talked Funny
She is a sweet lady, as are all the family I inherited. In fact, one of the things I treasure about being married to my Arizona wife is the family of Arizona Sicilians I acquired in the process. However, certain members of the family, like the dear lady I am talking about, have never traveled much to the east of Arizona.
A few days after she learned of our decision, she sent my wife an email in which she seemed to indicate that she was under the impression that folks were poor and not very well educated in the South.
I had thought that we had put that idea out to pasture (that's what we do with things in the South), back in the days of the Yankee school teachers.
You see, I grew up in Pensacola, Florida, attending Catholic schools from first grade through my graduation from Pensacola Catholic High in 1963. Along the way, in addition to the bevy of nuns who tried, with varying degrees of success, to drum knowledge into my thick skull, there was a small cadre of earnest young ladies from up North who filled in when enough nuns were not available.
Now, they were sweet young ladies from exotic places such as New Jersey and Massachusetts, and they did a good job. However, they sure talked funny!
It seems they had some strange ideas, too.
My mother taught third grade at St. Thomas More parish in Warrington for thirty years and many of these young ladies wound up there. Mom got to know many of them very well. One day, one of these young teachers confided a secret to her about the recruiting process.
When the recruiters were searching up above the Mason-Dixon line for suitable young ladies to teach "down South", they painted a picture of poverty and destitution. After all, we HAD lost the war, and, at least to hear them tell it, had never recovered.
Many of the young teaching school graduates already had some sort of mental picture of life down South, and the recruiters' descriptions simply served to accent what they thought they already knew from the history they had learned up North.
My mother's young friend confided that she had been genuinely surprised to learn that she could actually take an airplane into a real airport in Pensacola, after changing planes in Atlanta, of course! She had arrived expecting to live in a hovel, live on corn pone, and share an outdoor privy. She was quite amazed that, except for the accent, and the slower pace, and the fact that everything was fried, and the southern hospitality, living in Pensacola was pretty much like living in whatever Northern state they had left behind!
Of all the minor differences, however, the accent was probably the most major obstacle the young Yankee girls had to surmount. After all, they didn't know how to speak English very well.
I remember one day at Catholic High, in Algebra class, when a lovely young lady from New Jersey introduced herself as our new teacher.
Johnny, one of our classmates, a died-in-the-wool down-home southern boy, stood up and asked a question about homework, if I remember correctly.
The young lady, stared at him for a second, and then cheerfully and politely asked him to repeat his question, which he cheerfully and politely did.
Even at that tender age, the look that began to appear on her face tipped me to what was going through her mind.
The cheerful smile became a bit more brittle and the eyes just a little wider, kind of like a frightened animal, as she faced one of her first real challenges as a teacher in the South.
Again, and with a slight nervousness in her voice, she asked Johnny to repeat his question.
His face began to turn red, and this time, there was little politeness, and even less cheerfulness in his voice.
By now, there was no mistaking the look of bewilderment and consternation on the teacher's face. Desperately, she searched the faces of the other students, some of whom were beginning to snicker, and exchange knowing glances, and then asked, with an uncertain and bemused smile, "Is he speaking English?"
Johnny was just about ready to restart the War Between the States, but Tommy, his good friend, whose accent was almost as thick as Johnny's, stood up, grabbed him by the shoulders, and said plainly enough for the teacher to grasp, "Naw, Ma'am! He's jist tryin' to ask about homework. You jist ain't understandin' the way we talk down here yet."
Now, until that moment, I had never really realized that my friends and I talked with a Southern accent! We had been bathed in its sounds and syllables since birth. There were minor differences among us, but for all my life that soft Southern drawl had been to me, at least, the way people talked.
Everybody else talked funny!
Even my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Atlanta talked different, but we, the lucky few who lived along the Gulf Coast spoke proper English.
Eventually, the young teacher, and many others like her, learned to understand our...ahem...language, and perhaps even our lives. Maybe they even returned up North and took back some true facts about the South. However, my story happened in the 1960's and my wife's relative made her comments in 2009. I guess not everyone got the word...with or without a Southern drawl.
Donovan Baldwin is a freelance SEO copywriter currently living in Central Texas but due to move to Georgia soon. A University Of West Florida alumnus (1973) with a BA in accounting, he is a member of Mensa and has held several managerial positions. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, he became interested in internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing poetry, articles, and essays for over 40 years, and now frequently publishes articles on his own websites and for use by other webmasters. He has a poetry website at http://ravensong.4t.com, where he publishes many of his poems and articles.
Article Source: Those Yankee School Teachers Sure Talked Funny
Labels: article, catholic school, donovan baldwin, northern teachers, southern accent, story, story about a catholic school, story about a southern accent, teachers from up north
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
My Little Rock of Ages Past
Copyright 2007 by Donovan Baldwin
In 55 BC, Julius Caesar beheld the cliffs of Dover from the deck of a Roman ship in the English Channel. In 1982, I beheld the same sight from the deck of a ferry that held my car within its bowels.
I had problems with the subject of history all through school. It was so dry, so boring, so lifeless. It wasn't until I "grew up" and got to go wandering around the world that I began to see history in an entirely different light.
To me, "history" is not just treaties, or battles, or the names of famous men. For me, understanding, or at least feeling a kinship with history, means standing on the spot where those men have stood, seeing the sights that they saw, looking at the instruments they touched, the cup they drank from, the clothes they wore.
In the 1960's I was stationed at a U. S. military base in Bavaria at Bad Aibling, Germany. Almost every day, I walked over several insignificant flagstones set in the ground in a pathway beside one of the barracks. One day, one of my friends showed me some photos he had just printed at the post photography shop.
The post had been a Luftwaffe air base during World War II. When the allies had taken over the post in the 1940's at the end of the war, they had found several hundred negatives. Many of the negatives were still there, and the gentleman who ran the photo shop would help people print up photos. Several of the photos my friend showed me depicted Hitler reviewing the troops at the air base...standing on those insignificant flagstones in the dirt pathway!
To me, that was history.
Years later, a friend took me to the place in Nuremberg where Hitler held his huge rallies. I stood at the exact spot where he had stood, and took photos of my children playing there.
Whether it is Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the White House, the White Cliffs of Dover, the labyrinth of corridors within the bowels of the aircraft carrier Lexington, or driving over Boulder Dam, history comes alive for me when I see what others have seen or the marks they left of their lives.
My love of history taken in this way does not end with the famous and the grandiose, however. In fact, when I recently went to see an exhibition on Queen Hatshepsut, I spent more time gazing at a wooden chair and wondering about the workman who had made it, than I spent on the wonders of the Queen. I spend several minutes looking at simple pots and tools while others ooh and aah over jewels and statues. Lost in reverie, I wonder more about the craftsmen who carved the statue than I do about the ruler it portrays. That's the man I would want to talk to!
Maybe I will get to touch history even a little more intimately. I just bought a little over seven acres of land in central Texas, near where the Comanche used to roam. It is undeveloped and includes a small hill with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. I hope to learn a little more about rocks and artifacts, and scout through some of the overgrown cliff face that forms a portion of the land.
I'm still clearing trails through the brush on my land at the moment, but the other day, I picked up a rock of interesting appearance and stuck it in my pocket. That evening, safe and warm in my easy chair as a small storm blustered outside, I picked up the rock and began to examine it. As I turned it in my hand, it suddenly slipped into a comfortable position. There was a smooth spot for my thumb and each of my fingers found a perfect place to rest. As I looked at it in my hand, it reminded me of crude stone knives I had seen on the Discovery and History channels and in innumerable museums.
As I looked carefully at it, I realized that it more closely resembled stone scrapers that had been used to work the hides of animals. It looks as if spots have been chipped away, by man or by nature, to make the comfortable grooves that fit my fingers so well and to form the sharp edge that could have scraped a deer hide many years ago.
It is worn with time...perhaps with use as well?
I will probably never know, but I will have to learn a little more about rocks and artifacts, and roam around my little hill on the edge of Comanche country some more. In the meantime, my link to history...my rock of ages...sits on my desk beside my computer reminding me not only of the passage of history, but of the fact that I am only here within a pool of that huge river and that someday perhaps someone will wonder about something that I have touched or seen.
I am sure that my little rock of ages past is just an accident of nature, but wouldn't it be nice if...
About the Author:
Donovan Baldwin is a freelance writer living in Copperas Cove, Texas. He is a University of West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, health, and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, yoga, weight loss, the environment, global warming, happiness, self improvement, and life. He has a collection of articles on health, fitness, diet, and weight loss at http://nodiet4me.com/articledirectory/ .
---------------------------------------------
NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)
---
In 55 BC, Julius Caesar beheld the cliffs of Dover from the deck of a Roman ship in the English Channel. In 1982, I beheld the same sight from the deck of a ferry that held my car within its bowels.
I had problems with the subject of history all through school. It was so dry, so boring, so lifeless. It wasn't until I "grew up" and got to go wandering around the world that I began to see history in an entirely different light.
To me, "history" is not just treaties, or battles, or the names of famous men. For me, understanding, or at least feeling a kinship with history, means standing on the spot where those men have stood, seeing the sights that they saw, looking at the instruments they touched, the cup they drank from, the clothes they wore.
In the 1960's I was stationed at a U. S. military base in Bavaria at Bad Aibling, Germany. Almost every day, I walked over several insignificant flagstones set in the ground in a pathway beside one of the barracks. One day, one of my friends showed me some photos he had just printed at the post photography shop.
The post had been a Luftwaffe air base during World War II. When the allies had taken over the post in the 1940's at the end of the war, they had found several hundred negatives. Many of the negatives were still there, and the gentleman who ran the photo shop would help people print up photos. Several of the photos my friend showed me depicted Hitler reviewing the troops at the air base...standing on those insignificant flagstones in the dirt pathway!
To me, that was history.
Years later, a friend took me to the place in Nuremberg where Hitler held his huge rallies. I stood at the exact spot where he had stood, and took photos of my children playing there.
Whether it is Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the White House, the White Cliffs of Dover, the labyrinth of corridors within the bowels of the aircraft carrier Lexington, or driving over Boulder Dam, history comes alive for me when I see what others have seen or the marks they left of their lives.
My love of history taken in this way does not end with the famous and the grandiose, however. In fact, when I recently went to see an exhibition on Queen Hatshepsut, I spent more time gazing at a wooden chair and wondering about the workman who had made it, than I spent on the wonders of the Queen. I spend several minutes looking at simple pots and tools while others ooh and aah over jewels and statues. Lost in reverie, I wonder more about the craftsmen who carved the statue than I do about the ruler it portrays. That's the man I would want to talk to!
Maybe I will get to touch history even a little more intimately. I just bought a little over seven acres of land in central Texas, near where the Comanche used to roam. It is undeveloped and includes a small hill with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. I hope to learn a little more about rocks and artifacts, and scout through some of the overgrown cliff face that forms a portion of the land.
I'm still clearing trails through the brush on my land at the moment, but the other day, I picked up a rock of interesting appearance and stuck it in my pocket. That evening, safe and warm in my easy chair as a small storm blustered outside, I picked up the rock and began to examine it. As I turned it in my hand, it suddenly slipped into a comfortable position. There was a smooth spot for my thumb and each of my fingers found a perfect place to rest. As I looked at it in my hand, it reminded me of crude stone knives I had seen on the Discovery and History channels and in innumerable museums.
As I looked carefully at it, I realized that it more closely resembled stone scrapers that had been used to work the hides of animals. It looks as if spots have been chipped away, by man or by nature, to make the comfortable grooves that fit my fingers so well and to form the sharp edge that could have scraped a deer hide many years ago.
It is worn with time...perhaps with use as well?
I will probably never know, but I will have to learn a little more about rocks and artifacts, and roam around my little hill on the edge of Comanche country some more. In the meantime, my link to history...my rock of ages...sits on my desk beside my computer reminding me not only of the passage of history, but of the fact that I am only here within a pool of that huge river and that someday perhaps someone will wonder about something that I have touched or seen.
I am sure that my little rock of ages past is just an accident of nature, but wouldn't it be nice if...
About the Author:
Donovan Baldwin is a freelance writer living in Copperas Cove, Texas. He is a University of West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, health, and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, yoga, weight loss, the environment, global warming, happiness, self improvement, and life. He has a collection of articles on health, fitness, diet, and weight loss at http://nodiet4me.com/articledirectory/ .
---------------------------------------------
NOTE: You have full permission to reprint this
article within your website or newsletter as long
as you leave the article fully intact and include
the "About The Author" resource box. Thanks! :-)
---
Labels: article, article by Donovan Baldwin, donovan baldwin
