My great-grandfather, Jonah Fossey, emigrated from England with his family in the 1880s. He landed in Halifax and died at the age of 96 in Nickerson, Kansas.
Jonah's son, William James Fossey, moved to Oklahoma Territory as a young man. He established a grocery store in Buffalo, Oklahoma, and a cattle-hauling business and died at 92.
James Fossey, my father, grew up in northern Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl years. He joined the Army Air Corps before Pearl Harbor, was captured by the Japanese, and survived the Bataan Death March. Dad died in a VA hospital in 1999 at the age of 81.
I'm 76 years old, have two stents in my arteries, and suffered a debilitating stroke in 2022. A cyst covers the entire right lobe of my thyroid gland, so the ol' thyroid's got to go. I will be fortunate to live as long as my father and have no chance of living into my 90s as my grandfather and great-grandfather did.
Americans aren't living as long as they did just a few years ago; my family is just one example. The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other developed country, yet we don't live as long as the Europeans.
Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr. is fiercely critical of our nation's healthcare system and food industry. Trump haters claim Kennedy is "unhinged." Froma Harrop, a reliable shill for progressive Democrats, recently published an op-ed calling him a weirdo, an idiot, and a fruitcake.
I say let's give RFK Jr. a chance. We are not a healthy nation. One in three American adults is prediabetic, and 40 percent are obese. We gotta do better; we gotta live better.
Speaking of fruitcakes. I ate a lot of fruitcakes as a kid during my family's bleak Christmas celebrations. Is that why a cyst is taking over my thyroid gland?
 |
| RFK Jr. Photo credit: Politico. |
