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| Activity, attitude lend themselves to good health Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Carolea Hassard
Physical activity and a positive attitude may be key contributors to good health.
An unscientific survey of three Springtown men in their 60s and 70s seemed to show that a life of standing cheerfully on one’s feet can keep body and soul in good shape.
In fact, one of the men is prepared to get in even better shape so he can compete in the senior olympics. Eddy Swanzy A pole vaulter who could clear a bar 12 feet high in school, Eddy Swanzy, 68, figures he can clear at least 9 feet in the 2012 competition. He has a couple of advantages in addition to his health.
“We used to use stiff aluminum poles and would land in sand when I was in high school,” he said. “Now they use springy fiberglass poles and have foam cushions to land on.” Swanzy plays sports to this day, holding family football games with his sons and those of his wife Margaret’s. He also plays horseshoes, volleyball and golf. In school, he played baseball, football, basketball and ran track, and in college, continued to pole vault until he pulled a hamstring. After college, he coached track and worked as PE director at South Garland High School and played league baseball. He still works as a lighting consultant in the Dallas area, and has spent plenty of time carrying and climbing ladders and moving around large homes and yards to complete jobs. Today, Swanzy manicures his six-acre yard, planting, mowing, weedeating and watering, and helps Margaret tend the kitchen garden. He also walks the Great Pyrenees dog, “Madison,” at the park. The Swanzys eat out only about once a week, but he does routinely buy a 24-ounce chocolate mocha drink at a Lake Worth convenience store. “Breakfast is my favorite meal, eggs over easy, bacon, biscuits, gravy, grits – and hashbrowns are good,” Swanzy said. He also may just eat cereal, such as honey oats or raisin bran. Lunch is more of a snack consisting of peanuts and Gatorade, and supper includes lots of vegetables from the garden and cornbread. When dining out, he will choose shrimp, the occasional steak or perhaps Howell’s chicken fried steak. He drinks lots of water and two percent milk, will share a soda with Margaret or have tea at restaurants. Lately, he’s had to watch the intake. “Up until this last year I could eat as much as I wanted,” he said. Swanzy today weighs 180 pounds, In high school, he weighed 145, and during most of his adult life, 160 to 165, now his goal to be in olympian shape. He hasn’t fallen ill much, with exception to a herniated disc in 1999, and “slap foot,” caused by a nerve compressed by the surgery to correct the disc. Exercise – walking and stretching – and corrective shoes helped him recover. Swanzy gets a physical once a year, has had a colonoscopy and has normal cholesterol thanks to medicine. He also takes a multivitamin and a leg-cramp pill. His blood pressure is normal. Swanzy is ready to train for the elder olympic games. “The 70-year-old world record is 8 feet, 8½ inches,” he said. “I figure if I get in shape and start working from age 69 to 70, in 2012 I should be able to go over that height,” he said. Another healthy Springtown man has worked as a farmer all his life. Melton Harms Melton Harms, 66, helped his dad run a dairy during his growing up years and, after buying the place, eventually transformed it into a swine facility. His dad started him on dairy chores at the age of 12. “My job was to feed the baby calves from a bucket with a nipple,” he said, “and get the cows up in time to milk.” He had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to get those cows in. Then he’d carry the milk from each cow to the holding container, and carry feed to each cow. Around 1970, he and his wife, Mary, bought the dairy – which had grown from a few dozen head to 200 – and in 1987, turned to raising hogs and beef after selling the cows in a nationwide dairy buyout program. Today, Harms keeps about 10 sows and 60 mother cows (and a heeler dog named “Penny”). Since he doesn’t have to get up at 3:30 a.m. anymore, he rises about 6:30, and goes to bed about 9 or 9:30 p.m. He plants wheat and oats for grazing, and cuts and bales hay for himself and a few other farmers. Just two weeks ago, he was out in the field by 9:30 a.m. and didn’t return until 3:30 p.m. Harms learned about physical work from his dad, who “would sharpen an ax and cut up wood when he ran out of things to do. We made extra money that way,” he said. “People who work outside are naturally going to be more healthy than people who work inside,” Mary added. Sweating is nature’s way of cleansing the body. “My grandmother said you sweated impurities in summer that you built up in winter,” he said. Harms eats pretty much what he likes, but when “I feel the pants shrinking, I start eating salads,” he said. He likes a real salad, with greens, meat, egg, tomato, hominy, dressing or mayonnaise (everything but cucumbers, radishes and onions) – “the more the merrier. I can eat that for every meal and take four to five pounds off easy.” He seldom skips breakfast. “When I get up I’m ready to eat,” he said. The morning meal might consist of eggs, toast, bacon or sausage, tomato, orange juice and milk. Harms has always been a big milk drinker. In the “dairy days,” he and Mary and their two children would polish off a pitcher of fresh raw milk at breakfast. Harms is not a coffee drinker, but does like tea, Gatorade and Dr. Pepper (his weakness – although he’s down to less than one a day). And drinking plenty of water, of course, is critical. “I’ve always been a pretty big eater,” he said. “I used to eat just about anything that was available, and I can still eat (almost anything) if I use a little sense. “The biggest change is not eating so heavy so late,” he said, adding that he can handle chili, hot dogs and pizza if he eats them early enough in the day. For supper, Mary will prepare salad and potatoes while he grills pork chops, and in winter, they may split a Dr. Pepper and a bag of microwave popcorn. In high school, Harms weighed 135 pounds, and as an adult, ranged between 176 and 185. Today, he weighs 176. His smoking career lasted about “five minutes” until his dad caught him, and Harms may drink three beers a year if someone hands him one. With exception to a bad back, Harms hasn’t been ill often in his life. In 1978, he had surgery for a ruptured disc. In the last three years, he’s been good about going for an annual physical. He takes half a blood pressure pill, but that’s only because his doctor is puzzled that his pressure is up. “He couldn’t tell me to do anything to change,” Harms said. He takes Relive, a nutritional supplement, every morning, which he said has helped him with stamina and energy. A third Springtown man has also spent much of his life on his feet. Charley Brown “It’s mental attitude,” said 74-year-old Charley Brown. “Don’t dwell on it. Just handle the situation as it comes along and solve the problem.” One problem Brown solved was difficulty climbing the metal stairs at work after having his knee scoped in the late 1990s. “I took a week of vacation, came back and (it was) terrible. But after two or three weeks I made myself go up those steel stairs,” he said. Brown worked much of his adult life for Brazos Electric Power, in plants both at Belton and Lake Weatherford, between 1961 and 2002. “I leaned toward mechanical things,” he said, starting as a helper and then moving up to plant foreman, and when they made him, plant superintendent. He also worked some years as a maintenance man for an amusement park in Salado. Growing up, Brown was quite the basketballer, playing from seventh grade through college. It’s more an endurance-type sport than football, he said. “You have to be in good condition to play basketball. It strengthened my lung capacity.” After college, he joined the National Guard, going to Arkansas for boot camp in 1958, followed by training as a sheet metal mechanic in California and then on to the swamps of Louisiana with the 49th Armored Division as a tank mechanic. Brown was in the service for six years and was discharged as an E5. Today, Brown estimates that he spends 70 to 75 percent of his day outdoors. “I’ve always got a project going on,” he said. “With the heat, the older I get, it bothers me a little more, but I spent so much time in the power plant I’m used to it.” He keeps cattle and has built quite a bit of fencing on his and wife Nancy’s 108-acre property, and helps her with the extensive landscaping around the house and at the gate that faces FM 51. He and Nancy also do quite a bit of volunteer work, never failing to participate in a parade or other community function, or even doing custom work on the high school’s Sound of Springtown band trailer (Brown located the trailer for SHS in 2002). He also volunteers for Legends Museum, Relay for Life and has “been an Eagle Scout for 60 years,” he said. Brown eats what he needs to eat to survive, no more. He doesn’t cook, but stays away from greasy foods. “I used to eat beef quite a bit,” he said, but now focuses on chicken, shrimp and pork, with baked potato. “My cholesterol got out of hand at one time, but I can’t take medicine for it. It keys something in my body that causes muscle degeneration.” He generally eats a breakfast of a burrito and two pigs in a blanket from Kay’s, and one good meal a day around lunch or early afternoon – and that includes two or three burgers a week. “I try not to go to bed on a full stomach,” Brown said, “because I get reflux.” He’s down to two Dr. Peppers a day, but drinks mostly tea and Gatorade. In high school, Brown weighed 165 pounds, and for the last 30 years has weighed between 195 and 205. He smoked for about five years in the late 1970s, and has never been much of a drinker. Brown goes for a physical once a year and every two months for a cholesterol check (it runs high, but within two points). He takes niacin, a memory booster and omega-3 fish oil. Brown is a candidate for mesothelioma due to asbestos in the lungs, “but it’s inactive,” he said. He attributes his continuing health to having good circulatory and respiratory systems from working out so much as a basketball player. “The workouts in college were horrendous,” he recalled. |
