ASTHMA AND EXERCISE

  A much loved aunt passed away with Asthma at the age of 52.  I had not yet been born when this aunt had crossed the Atlantic Ocean by ship 90 years ago to visit her brother, my father, and meet his wife, my mother.  We prized and admired the only picture taken of her during that 1921trip.  Seated on a horse, she seemed to enjoy the time she spent on our Alberta farm, 10 miles south of Orion, and a 65 mile trip to Medicine Hat.  This aunt and her husband had no children and at Christmas a parcel from them would arrive with gifts mostly of clothing that my mother’s sewing machine reworked each year as we three sisters stretched up to nearly 5 feet 8 inches in height and our eldest brothers reached, 6 feet 4 and 3 more brothers a few inches over six feet.  My mother’s fast little feet were kept very busy with her sewing machine as her fast little size 6 shoes kept the treadle humming.             

   

    I arrived on the scene when many countries were recovering from World War I, and no one is sure why it had to start.  A couple of cousins, one was the ruler in Germany and the other was the queen of England.  They had a quarrel about which country had the most powerful ships throughout the world.  Until we got our farm truck in the late l920s our grain was hauled with teams of horse and wagons to the Orion elevators.  Hot rocks were kept in our coal heated oven to keep the feet warm on the round trip of 20 miles.  We spent Christmases with neighbours, Les and Alice Bennett or the Frank and Ida Weeks family.  To protect us from the minus 40 degree weather, Mother kept our faces covered with scarves to keep from freezing our noses.  I recall trying to rip it off saying I could not breathe and she would briefly slip it aside.  Later I learned our aunt had died during an Asthma attack.

    Yesterday a friend spoke about her mother who had been a smoker, and had suffered from Asthma her whole life and had watched her mother suffer all through life with it.  The family doctor warned about the dangers of smoking and advised “start running.”  My friend took his advice and never started smoking tobacco and is now a beautiful healthy lady with a kind heart and no more asthma symptoms.  Preliminary studies have shown that the more fast food with soda drinks young people use, the more frequent and severe are the asthma attacks.  With eating plenty of fruit and vegetables and exercising, health can be restored.  The best advice seems to be, “Run to the store for fruits and vegetables and keep fit.  On February 8, the Morning Star editor announced its newest columnist, Jocelyne Sewell, who will write “A Gardener’s Diary” every other Wednesday.  We’ll be watching for it.