I often wrote to my sons when they were tiny. I had created their Gmail accounts before they were born and would post them letters whenever I came across something interesting, inspiring or worth sharing. Nowadays WhatsApp has taken the load though, in my opinion, an email is always a better way to share memories. At times I record my thoughts using a voice recorder on my cell phone and upload the file to their emails. Parents voice and words are and will always be the comforting go to emails when children feel lonely, sad, angry, depressed or dejected. I will one day post all those letters too with their permission.
I am going to share the jewel called The Boron Letters that I stumbled upon on Amazon. It’s a book of letters written by a father to his son. Buy the book to cut the wait of the next letter that I will post.
I am writing the whole letter here for you parents to write inspiring letters to your own children.
This letter has two messages. The first one is that one should fast once a week forever to clean their system and secondly should eat fruits each day.
Chapter 2
Wednesday, 6:57 p.m.
June 13, 1984
Dear Bond,
Today I crossed some sort of invisible mental line. It happened when I went for my initial meeting with the people who run the camp here and found out that they are total jerks. What happened as a result of that is that instead of being down and depressed I just got tougher. Perhaps I’ll write more about my new “get tough” attitude in a later letter but for now I want to get right back to this road work business.
You know Bond, I can’t stress how strong I feel that doing an hour’s worth of road work is perhaps the number one most valuable habit you can cultivate. You see, if you start your day this way, it will get you off to a great start and vastly improve the rest of your day since it will drain off a lot of tension and anxiety and, in general, it will clear out your mind so you can think better all day long!
Plus, after you get into it, it will make you feel great!
So anyway, here are some other good health habits that I think you should get into right away.
FASTING – You are, in my opinion, too young to go on any extended fasts but I really think it would be good for you to fast one (1) full day each week.
Currently, I am fasting every Saturday. And, I intend to keep fasting one day a week (at least) for the rest of my life. When you fast, you begin to normalize your body functions and also, you develop a certain self-discipline that will help you in most other areas of your life. I intend to write a lot more about fasting later on but, for right now, I just want to encourage you to begin immediately to fast one day every week.
Here are some tips. First of all, I suggest you do not tell other people what you are doing. Most people don’t understand fasting and all you will get from them on this subject is a lot of ignorant babble. Secondly, I feel that you should do very little (or no) athletic exercise on the days that you fast. You see, your “Fast Day” is the day you set aside to give your mind and body a rest. You don’t have to stay in bed all day or anything like that but you really should take it easy both physically AND mentally.
What I do on my fast days is sort of kick back and read and putter around and, also, I have found it a good time to take care of those nagging little chores and errands that seem to accumulate during the rest of the week.
In other words, I think you should do road work every morning to more or less “order your day” and fast every week in order to “order your week”.
You know what, Son? I am 46 years and one day old and the two things Ihave written to you about so far are the most important things I have ever learned.
And just think. You can start right now before you are even 16 years old. God, what a head start you will have!
Now, let’s go on. The next thing I want to talk to you about is your diet. First of all, I believe that everybody who says breakfast is the most important meal of the day is dead wrong. In my opinion all you should eat before lunch is a couple pieces of fruit. Do you remember what I said to you in yesterday’s letter? I said you should eat a piece of fruit (preferably a banana) before you start your road work.
Well, after your road work, in my judgement, what you should do is take a shower, clean up, and get dressed and get your day started. And then, some time after that, before lunch, you should eat another piece of fruit. Actually, you should eat three pieces of fruit every day (except when you fast) and I think you can’t miss with a banana, an apple or an orange. This way, you will get your potassium, your vitamin (and something called pectin, all of which is very good for you!).
Incidentally, I have read, and I believe it to be true, that fruit is the prize food of man. Also, I believe that fruit is perhaps the number one food category that Americans need to eat more of.
Watch your Mom. Watch other people. How much fruit do they eat? Very little I’ll bet, and they are missing out on something very, very important.
One reason, of course, is that fruit contains a lot of stuff that is good for you and, another reason is fruit, along with certain other foods, acts sort of like “nature’s broom” and helps keep you cleaned out and mobilating.
Anyway, as I said yesterday, I’m just warming up right now and I intend to write more on all this at a later date. But for now, it would be an excellent idea if you would start eating three pieces of fruit everyday and start right after you get this letter.
You know Bond, in addition to everything else, you are the best student I have ever had and it is a real joy to teach all these things to you. Boy I sure wish my Dad had been able to do this for me but that’s water over the dam.
But maybe we can start a tradition here. A new “Halbert Tradition” whereupon the father’s make it a point to pass down what they have learned to teach a new generation.
It would be nice.
Okay, here’s more info on the subject of diet. What else should you eat? Well, one thing is sure: You should definitely eat a big bowl of some “bran type” cereal. Grapenuts is probably the best you can find in an ordinary grocery store and some health food stores have cereals that are even better.
By the way, remember yesterday when I asked you to get a copy of “The Joy Of Running”? Well, here are two other books you should look for: “The Miracle of Fasting” by Paul Bragg and “Are You Confused?” by Paulo Airola. Many health food stores will probably carry both of these books.
By the way, I don’t want you to feel like you have to write to me as much as I am writing to you. I do want to hear from you (and often) but you are not writing a book like I am so no guilt trips are necessary.
Let’s take a break and talk about something else. There’s an old tomcat around here at the camp named Crackers. Crackers is an arrogant cat. There is a lot of small game around here and Crackers like to catch these little critters and plays with them.
For example, a week or so ago, I was doing my morning road work and I spotted Crackers as I was coming down the backside of “The Hill”. Crackers had a little critter in his mouth that looks just like a baby chipmunk. These little guys are cute as hell and I have since (I’m getting tired) found out that they are, in reality, Antelope Ground Squirrels.
Anyway, Crackers had this cute little creature in his mouth and he brought it over to me and then dropped it. The critter just laid there. Then, after a little while, Crackers would bat it around a little with his front paws. After a while, the critter began to stir and then it tried to run away. Crackers caught it again in short order and began to repeat the whole process. What I mean is that he would carry it in his mouth and then drop it and then torment it until finally the poor thing had no fight left.
In other words, Crackers just messed with this little squirrel until he tormented the life out of it. And then, after all this, do you know what else he would do? What he would do is pick up the squirrel again in his mouth and toss his head back and throw it up in the air and then bat it back and forth while it was in the air like he was playing handball with it.
Whatever. In any case, when I told some other inmate about this he said, “Yeah, but that stupid Crackers is nothing but a stupid punk. He always takes trash from the other cats around here. There’s a black cat from over at the housing area that whips him all the time!”
What’s the point of all this? Probably, there isn’t one but it reminds me of something I read once in an article in “The Herald Examiner” in which someone was quoted as saying:
“There is no justice. There is only power.”
That’s it for now.
I Love You and Good Luck!
Dad
| Sincerely, | |
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| Gary C. Halbert |
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