Due to difficulties, there were often meals where we ate the microwaveable dinners or the easy-to-make hot dogs, macaroni-n-cheese, pasta ronis, rice-a-ronis, chicken cordon bleu, etc. that could be made by my mother quickly. I cannot say that I am upset that American lifestyle called for quick meals. I often enjoyed when we didn’t have time to cook because it sometimes meant we would be getting Chinese food from the local Chinese restaurant nearby. But, there is a certain value to home cooking and purity to it that corporatized food can never replace.
My life in college is a life that consists of cooking packaged foods from the freezer, fridge, or cupboard in the microwave. Anything heated has been microwaved. As the effects of microwaves show more side effects in human life, I shudder at what might happen and in my shuddering, I promise to make the next few years about finding those foods I can make on my own without using a microwave.
III. The Tradition of Health
I cannot pinpoint what my family taught me about health. Unfortunately, I may have taught myself based upon the things I have read in the past few years just how to remain healthy. And luckily, I had some quirks in my childhood that contributed (I believe) to being in the healthy state I am today.
While Ralph speaks about his parents not rushing to the doctor, my parents never hesitated to go to the doctor. Thankfully though, our family has always had a family physician that we could trust to talk to us about our medical history. While we may not have ever had a 2 hour conversation patients have in Cuba, the medical care my family has grown accustomed to has never been too shabby.
Personally, as a child, I was unable to swallow pills. For some reason, I could not put a pill in my mouth and wash it down like normal people do. I took liquid medicine and chewable tablets until I was in my teens. Slowly, I found a way to actually take a pill, but by the time I found out how to take one, I no longer wanted to after becoming aware of the side effects of American prescription drugs.
I got the chicken pox in fourth grade and missed one week of school---the last week of school. I returned healthy for the last day. Knowing that I missed out on days I would never get back, I made a pledge to myself to never miss school again until I graduated high school. I did it because I hated staying home and always enjoyed being with friends and my teachers at school.
Many times I went to class sick or “under the weather.” I always found a way to make it through the day though. And in my high school years, I refused medicine preferring to let the small colds or fevers run their course.
I made it from fourth grade to graduation without missing a day of school.
Today, I rarely get sick and if I do go to the doctor, it normally is not due to flu or colds. Despite my intense medical history (I had several surgeries before I was one), I am a healthy man and one who is ready to take on the world.
IV. The Tradition of History
Nader’s father is described as viewing the events in history in cause-and-effect terms. “To him, wars, tragedies, and elections were the result of preexisting social and historical conditions, and their consequences were all too often ignored by greedy powerful interests in favor of their immediate lust for domination and profits.” I wish my father had shared that sentiment with me when I was growing up.
My family did not help me get to the point where I now question our nation’s history and constantly desire ways of teaching it in a way that will promote less war, more peace and sustainability, and civic responsibility. However, I am unwilling out of unconditional love to be angry that they did not impress the importance of history on me.
Not talking about history was probably one reason why curiosity led me to the great minds of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, William Blum, and countless other pieces on national and international history. Without being forced to talk history at any age, I never was put in a situation where I thought history was boring and unimportant.
Now, I think understanding history and the history of one’s own culture is necessary for progressive advancement to occur in America. Without the American people valuing history and more importantly questioning America’s history of exceptionalism, this nation will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of a Bush II administration again in the future. We will come face to face with a new W (and probably one whose daddy we have not seen govern America before).
V. The Tradition of Scarcity
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