My Life [7]

In healthy retirement

By Jim Rix

I now reside in South Lake Tahoe, where I manage my 5-unit apartment building (formally SoftRix’s offices) and my house in Tahoe Keys as a seasonal vacation rental.
    My older son, Leland, and daughter, Vanita, live just 30 minutes away, over the hill in Carson Valley, south of Carson City, Nevada. Both are teachers. My youngest child, son Marlon, is an accomplished woodworker/cabinet-maker in Clovis, California. From them I have one grandson and five granddaughters.
    I’m in very good health for a 77-year-old. I credit this to the fact that in the mid-1990s I learned, contrary to conventional wisdom, the health benefits of a diet high in starch (carbohydrates) and low in fat and protein, and I have been (mostly) eating that way (plant-based) ever since. Consequently – except for a once-weekly single, small vitamin B-12 pill, I take no other pills (no medications, no vitamins, no supplements, nothing else) whatsoever, and I rarely see doctors and then only as needed, as for a physical injury or a possible infection. In fact, over the years I have developed a skepticism of all varieties (dental, medical, PhD) of “doctor.” After all, it was the “opinion” of a doctor of the dental variety that cost my cousin Ray 10 years of his life! (If you would like to read my columns on diet, you can call most of them up with this link.)

Back to Ray again. How often he comes up still! Mo wanted me to add this: Since my birthday I have drafted five chapters of Snaggletooth, of which I think there will be twenty altogether. During that time (or even before my birthday), Mo conceived the idea that I could do another round of Costco (and bookstore) signings, not only with copies of Snaggletooth, but also with some of those thousands of hardback copies I have of Jingle Jangle. “You might sell them all, after all, Jim,” Mo told me.
    And he pointed out that I didn’t need to print thousands of copies of Snaggletooth, since I could self-publish it through Amazon or some other provider and order as many paperback copies, at cost (in the neighborhood of $3, Mo thinks), as I need for the signings. It’s an appealing idea, one that might even motivate me to procrastinate less, as much as I love to procrastinate.

Future chapters of “My Life” had been planned to apprise you of my work on Snaggletooth. But wouldn’t such chapters just be a distraction, for you as well as for me? How about we all just settle down, you to waiting patiently, and me to working on Snaggletooth without distraction or excuse to procrastinate. As Mo might attest (if he weren’t so discreet), I’ve procrastinated over this task for years already, as it is. I need to get on with it.

Copyright © 2020 by Jim Rix