A few days after Christmas I went to see my grandkids in Shawnee. When I went into the front room they had sheets over chairs and the divan and made a fort. It brought back a lot of memories. They were not on a telephone or computer but using their imagination and having a great time.

Watching them play reminded me of an article I had recently read by Mike Kerrigan.

A Young Imagination Beats Videogames

My two youngest sons, Finn and Jack, love the online game Fortnite. The 10- and 8-year-old brothers would play it long enough to grow roots through the floor if my wife and I let them. The pull of the game is that strong.

I feel sorry for them, but not because Fortnite doesn’t seem fun. It just can’t be as entertaining as the real thing.

By real thing I don’t mean the combat featured in the game. I mean a memorable activity from the summer of 1980, when I was 9. I mean, quite literally, “fort night.”

Friday evenings that summer often found me sleeping over at my friend John’s house. Our routine didn’t vary, for why mess with perfection? First, we rode our bikes to 7-Eleven for Slurpees. I preferred straight Coca-Cola, while John blended all fl avors together into a vile concoction we called a “suicide.”

Our thirsts slaked, we mounted our two-wheeled steeds and raced home for dinner. There weren’t many rules at John’s house—hence its popularity for sleepovers—but never being late to dinner was one of them

The road to John’s abode was bicycle-unfriendly, but we saddled up and witlessly rode home. As the saying has it, God has a special providence for fools. We survived.

After dinner, the real fun began. John and I would push the couches in his family room together, spreading a bed sheet over the top as a makeshift roof. For the piece de resistance, John would wedge a broom behind the seat cushions, with the wooden handle extending heavenward from the prow of our beige-upholstered redoubt.

From this mast John would hang his favorite T-shirt, for as every boy knew then, a fort is not a fort until it has a flag. Then we’d let our imaginations run. No longer were we footsteps away from a well-stocked refrigerator, or one floor below John’s slumbering parents. We weren’t even John and Mike anymore. We were Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, brothers in arms, bloodied, outgunned and outnumbered, making our last stand at the Alamo. It was more vivid than any video game, more memorable than any television show.

With nothing but a couch, a bed sheet, a broom and a T-shirt, we reveled in the wonder of boyhood. Our joy was pure because it flowed directly from the indispensable and most precious thing a child possesses: imagination.

It’s a simple reminiscence, but one that delights me more the older I get. We adults, in a failure of imagination, have forgotten how to build forts.

I hope my boys never lose sight of life’s simple joys. I hope someday they have their own stories to tell and look back as fondly on their childhood as I do on mine. But for that to happen they’ll need to play less Fortnite this summer, and more fort night.

by Mike Kerrigan

Mr. Kerrigan is an

attorney in Charlotte,

N.C.

—CC—

Quote of the week . . . “I go through the refrigerator so many times at night my neighbors think we have a strobe light in the kitchen.”

—CC—Cartoon

—CC—

Mary Hollingsworth

shares some “Fat

Logic” . . .

*About cottage cheese:

“Why don’t you try cottage cheese?” asked Jane to her overweight friend.

“Oh, I never eat cottage cheese!” said Beth.

“Why’s that? Asked Jane.

“Because it’s fattening,” said Beth. “You never see anybody eating it except fat people.”

*About proportions:

Fact: I am 5’3” tall and weigh 200 pounds.

Fact: Scientifi c charts say a person 6’2” tall should weight 200 pounds.

Conclusion: I am not overweight; I am just undertall.

*About Exercise:

Fact: Exercise burns off calories from foods you eat.

Fact: When a person burns up the food he has eaten, he becomes hungry.

Fact: Hunger causes a person to eat more food.

Fact: Food is what makes a person fat.

Conclusion: Exercise is fattening.

—CC—

The good news is that we are not underfed. According to the Washington Examiner . . .

Americans are

getting richer, older,

and fatter.

Obesity is at an all-time high in at least nine states, according to a new report by Trust for America’s Health using data from the Centers for Disease Control. For the first time, obesity rates in Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and West Virginia rose above 35% in 2018. Just six years ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 35%.

McDonald’s and infinite on-screen entertainment seem to be the culprits.

A person considered medically obese has a body mass index of more than 30 kg/m2. A healthy BMI is typically between 18.5 and 24.9, though the BMI standard is famously imperfect.

Obesity is now an epidemic, the National Institute of Health reports. More than 60% of adults in the United States are obese or overweight, and the obesity rate among children has risen from 6% to 19% in the last 25 years.

As America’s waistline balloons, so do the consequences. Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer all have become much more common in the U.S. thanks to obesity, placing the estimated healthcare burden for obesity at nearly $150 million pr year.

Junk food and lounging around are two major causes. Genetics plays a role. However, we’ve had junk food and couches and television for decades. What has changed recently to make us fatter than our parents were?

The cheapening of food turns out to be a significant cause. There’s cheaper processed stuff than before, while fresh produce keeps getting more expensive. Obesity, accordingly, is far higher in America’s more impoverished places.

Modern technology and capitalism have made it easier than ever before for us all to get the calories we need. That’s excellent news that happens to have a pretty chubby downside.

---By Kaylee

McGhee

—CC—

And Last of all my favorite story of the week . . .

Senator Elizabeth Warren recently addressed a gathering of the Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa. She opened with an apology for her false claim to tribal heritage and then spoke for almost an hour about her plans for increasing the standard of living for all of their citizens by totally free government grants for free college educations, free Medicare for all, etc. Although Warren was vague about the details for the funding of her plans, she spoke eloquently about her ideas if she wins the White House in 2020.

At the conclusion of her speech, the chiefs presented her with a beautiful plaque inscribed with her new Indian name, “Walking Eagle.”

The proud Warren accepted the plaque and then returned to Washington.

A news reporter asked the Chiefs how they came to select the new name they had given to Warren. They explained that “Walking Eagle” is the name given to a bird so full of it, it can no longer fl y.