It's a fat world after all

Many things amazed me during my recent visit to Walt Disney World but none more so than the girth of many of the visitors. I saw more obese people at Disney than even in Las Vegas. Some had rented motorized scooters for $65 a day because they were too bloated even to walk much. And all of this seems to have occurred since I last visited Disney World, about two years ago.

Obesity has become a national epidemic. According to the National Institutes of Health, about two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight (I myself could lose a few pounds) but almost one-third are obese, having an abnormally high proportion of body fat. Overweight and obesity are known risk factors for diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood cholesterol, stroke, hypertension, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and some forms of cancer. I could go on, but you get the idea. All of us who need to do so should strive to lose weight. The lives we save may be our own, and a thinner America will be a better America.

That was the year that was

Surely I am misremembering and all these things couldn't have happened to me when I was 4 years old. But here's what I recall:

* While riding a bus, I slipped from my mother's sight and somehow lifted the back door's emergency bar, causing me to nearly fall out and the bus to screech to a halt.

* When crossing a street, I froze and a car tapped my knee. I received only a small bruise, but to this day my heart rate increases when I cross the street.

* I began to stutter. There were fewer child experts in those days, so my parents decided that my thoughts were coming out too fast for me to properly process them into words. Sounds like a baloney theory now, but after a few weeks my stuttering stopped, so maybe they had something there.

What a traumatic year ... assuming these three things really did happen within 12 months.

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Answer to Friday's puzzlement: Fred is 6 and Joe is 22.

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I'm going to Disney World! In October! With my grandson! Wheeee!

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I don't know if I'm happiest when I am traveling, but I am usually pretty happy.