Just so . . .

Fall is here. You go out the front door to pick up the paper, and the flavor of the morning air tells you that as much as the fallen leaves. Northern California this time of year offers some surprises in its weather. A thunderstorm may blow in one day, then comes a hot, dry day twenty-four hours later, followed by a cool, overcast day.

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Friends are important. Old friends especially, some of whom we have known since our youth. There are times when friends can and do care more than one’s relatives. As they have demonstrated.

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We are surrounded nowadays by electronic gadgets in great variety, most with their always-on green or blue lights. Wonder how much energy would be saved if these gadgets were not always lit up. Gas prices are rising ever higher.

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The future of film photography is uncertain, what with the advent of digital imaging. I still have a big collection of color slides that have to be scanned and transferred to my computer. Also reels and reels of old movie film, and boxes of video tape in different formats. Memories in every bit of them; enough to keep me busy for several winters.

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I was thinking about those popular ‘food supplements,’ those ‘natural’ pills, capsules, or tablets, and sometimes powders, purporting to contain health-giving or -restoring properties. On their labels are statements containing vague claims (in which the word ‘may’ appears with commendable regularity to defend against the threat of litigation) about their powers to maintain or improve health: “may help mental clarity and memory retention by maintaining healthy blood flow to the brain”; “may lead to a feeling of mood elevation”; “regular use may help maintain a healthy prostate”; “may be suitable for supplying bulk in the treatment of constipation.”

How can a person possibly know whether such food supplements will do any good, given the hesitancy and vagueness of the words on their printed labels? References to ‘clinical tests’ in the literature might suggest some obscure result or other, yet there is seldom any medical authority provided to support their claims. Not only that, but there are so many of these products clamoring for our attention and our dollars—how can we possibly decide which ones to pick?

What on earth do we do? The answer is really quite simple. We rely on advertising and on word-of-mouth recommendations. We are quite prepared to ingest these food supplements by the bottle because someone we trust or admire has been telling us that they worked. (It helps if an ad features a celebrity – usually one past his or her prime but flashing a nice smile and a sincere manner.) Heaven only knows if the food supplement will work for us, but, by Jove, we’re willing to take that chance because so-and-so said this or that about it. Just as we may be ready to try the latest fad restaurant that a friend or a critic suggests, so we will now try the latest fad food supplement. And so we go out and buy the stuff, increasing our collection of bottles of echinacea, ginkgo biloba, saw palmetto, St John’s wort, shark cartilage, and others whose names we can’t begin to pronounce, and by so doing we propel the food supplement industry to ever greater profits.