Carol’s Column
Health freaks of the world unite
"UGLY, very ugly," said the doctor as he gazed at my chest in professional abandon.
My cleavage drooped to kidney level and I clutched my abdomen in horror.
"Will I live?" I asked.
"Live?" he answered. "Of course you'll live. Other than a distinct rumbling in the nether regions, a slight twitch on the right and a wheeze from the bronchi, you're the healthiest specimen I've seen for a long time.
"It's not living that's important — but the quality of your living that concerns me." He paused, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and blew smoke up my non-smokers nostrils.
He prodded my extremities, took my blood pressure and then my pulse.
"Yes," he confirmed his diagnosis.
"You're as healthy as a horse — all that's needed is a little bit of gentle exercise to get you back into shape. You'll soon lose that feeling of tiredness."
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text cut off in photograph
two woolly-costumed, nobbly kneed, octogenarians who pulled me from the deep end when I threatened to sink from exhaustion.
"You're carrying this too far," said my spouse, when I abandoned my car and saddled my eldest son's bicycle.
While riding up the Zoo Lake hill, my left toe became entangled with the front wheel spokes, which somewhat restricted movement.
It was only after following this rigorous programme for a week, that I discovered the whole of Johannesburg is into the keep-fit-kick in a big way.
Zoo Lake has been taken over by hordes of flat-footed, deep-breathing, athletic-looking joggers.
Wherever you trot, there are cyclists by the dozens, skippers by the metre and push-uppers by the muscleful.
Throughout the city, lifts have been deserted as health-hungry thousands stoically pant their way up flights of never-ending heart-pumping stairs.
Squash, tennis, gym and yoga — everyone's doing it.
Dripping duck in succulent sauce has given way to fat-free cream cheese and grapefruit.
Everyone is body, soul and diet conscious.
Why only last night, at a dinner party, the hostess served the most exotic, colourful hors douvres. Nutritious yet exotic.
They were simply superb.
"Good heavens," she exclaimed a little later. "Someone's eaten my floral centrepiece."
Ah well, you can't win them all.
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Editorial note
Masthead reads "16 Sunday Express BETTER LIVING, July 6, 1980"; 6 July 1980 was a Sunday. Standing head "That's life!". A second clipping has been pasted over the foot of this one, upside down, and the compiler has written "stuck together" beside it on the page with an arrow. The first column runs on past "You'll soon lose that feeling of tiredness", through a section break, and into text that the overlying clipping covers. That gap is marked below and the words under the second clipping cannot be read without lifting it, which has not been done. The clipping stuck on top is another piece of Carol's, signed at its foot, but only a few upside-down words of it show: a headline ending "NE SHOT DEAL" and the phrases "tracking down the killer" and "District Attorney". It has not been transcribed. "Hors douvres" is set thus on the page and stands, as her French does elsewhere.
Transcribed as printed. Doubtful readings:
- "gentle exercise to get you back into shape": the word after "get" falls in the shadow of the page curl and is read from the sense.