“Son, if you ain’t never sick, you won’t never know how good feeling good feels” — words that offered little comfort to a miserable twelve-year-old boy
Until Jaybird joined his Heavenly Father just shy of his ninetieth birthday, my boyhood best friend and mentor enjoyed good health, although the beloved old black man’s lifestyle was not entirely healthful: After a long day’s work, he would often relax by smoking a cigarette or two, along with a few cold beers, but never beyond moderation, for as he pointed out, “Overdoing pleasures makes a man slave to pleasures.”
Jaybird would have agreed with two of Mark Twain’s observations: “The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not,” and “Some people deprive themselves of every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health, and health is all they get.”
