ONE DAY IT’S GOOD FOR YOU: THE NEXT DAY IT’S POISON

ONE DAY IT’S GOOD FOR YOU: THE NEXT DAY IT’S POISON?

When I first started boxing in 1962, I was 17 and in the Marine Corps. I was a member of the Cherry Point Boxing Team, where I would learn many things about the sport, not the least of which concerned my health and training regimen. One of the first things that you are taught is that milk is a no-no and to replace it with orange juice because milk puts on too much weight, while orange juice provides more energy and adds less weight. All boxers soon become embroiled in a ‘fight’ with themselves when it comes to “making weight.”

We all wanted an advantage over our opponent and this usually included a size advantage, by weighting in the upper end of the weight-class you fought in. And so, I fought in the 156-division but there were two of us in this division and the other guy had more experience than I did (neighborhood boxing matches, of which I had had many, didn’t count.) I had had my first official boxing match in boot camp, at P.I., several months before. And so, I boxed mostly bigger guys, at 165 pounds. I saw all the other fighters avoiding milk, even while I drank it down, because I actually needed to gain weight, not lose it. But, then in a golden gloves match in Raleigh, North Carolina, I fought in the 156-pound division and won easily, which then began, unknowingly to me then, my weight-making diet, which all boxers, except heavyweights, engaged in and the orange juice came back into my diet. It replaced milk and ice cream and when I later turned pro, in Las Vegas, I was ‘instructed’ by other professional boxers to drink a glass of OJ every morning with an egg beat into it. It was even given to me freely by one of the boxers, Ferd Hernandez, who was a bartender in the bar owned by Bill Miller, who was the boxing promoter, and who also owned a motel and restaurant. Ferd put a glass of OJ into a mixer and then broke an egg into it and, walla, a sweet confection most of us boxers drank; it was very tasty with the egg blending into a foamy delicious drink: forget about the Rocky character drinking a raw egg in a glass; that’s bullshit that only an idiot actor like Sylvester Stallone could fall for and imitate.

Another boxer, a friend of mine from the Washington, D.C. area, where there was little if any bouts to be had, was already in Vegas and I joined him when he informed me of the situation he was in: we were provided with “free” room and board. The way it worked was that the meals, provided by the promoter’s restaurant, were served to us three times a day and we signed the bill, which he would then subtract from the money he paid us when we boxed for him later. I was an amateur but he nevertheless, let me eat these meals and sleep in a room he provided me, virtually, for free. He was the promoter and, of course, expected us to “box for him,” which we did.

Anyway, to the crux of this story, the OJ, as you can see was, sort of, a mandatory thing and accompanied by a raw egg blended up a nice morning drink. I got into the habit of drinking one every morning and for 50+ years I have done it: until now, as it appears that the miracle OJ and egg I have been drinking, although at one time healthy: ie: https://www.floridacitrus.org/oj/health-nutrition/orange-juice-health-benefits/ is, now, apparently poison.

But, then, things have, apparently changed, as some professional, medical as well as scientists have discovered that ornage juice is not only not healthy nowadays, it is, actually, poison: ie: https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/all_top_5_orange_juice_brands_positive_for_weedkiller

Aw, well, so what do I do now: “well, at my age, sooner or later, I, we, all, just die: right? Yeah, well, I still got a little life left in me, yet but I’m finding it very hard to believe, though, that I, we, orange juice drinkers have been drinking weed killer in our orange juice? I have stopped drinking O.J, but, after 50 years I doubt it’ll do any good and so, maybe in my eulogy they will also say: it was, in the end, the weedkiller that got him. No, no, the truth never shows up like that: no matter what the cause it will be the usual H.A.