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Maxed out? Fried? Frumpy? Grumpy? Depleted? Depressed? Gone Bonkers? |
This is no quack remedy. The good doctor has helped millions of people. He's cured flabbiness, boredom and feelings of worthlessness. He's added tang to the listless, shored up the shaken and eased the burden of the laden.
Modern life takes its toll on the human machine. Our new gadgets make living easier, if not luxurious. When so much is done for us, we pay the price with battered psyches, bloated bodies and dampened enthusiasm. We eat too much and watch too much TV.
Kindly Ol' Dr. Thunder can fix you right up. He promised to streamline your frame, elasticize your lungs and give you the digestion of a horse. At the same time, he can put you in touch with your inner being, help you understand your place in the cosmos and move you closer to your God/dess. No dance exercise video can make the same claims.
The prescriptions are simple and inexpensive and have no ill side-effects, although many of them are habit forming. You don't have to take pills, give yourself injections or wear patches. The good doctor only requires you taste the bracing air and drink in a fine broth of natural sights, scents and sounds.
Kindly Ol' Dr. Thunder has a prescription for nearly every malady, modern or ancient, mental or physical.
Note: substitute ingredients freely to accommodate regional requirements.
LONELINESS: Visit a nature center. Sign up for nature walks. Join a conservation group. Go see the eagles below the dams.
HARRIED: Recline on a grassy field or stream bank, far from honking horns, yammering advertisements and boomboxes with too much bass. Let your negative energies dissolve into the ground. Treatment is effective only if continued for minimum of 10 minutes.
INSOMNIA: Spend a day paddling a canoe downriver, walking it over riffles. When you close your eyes at night, you'll see the flowing water and the canvas of green along the river banks and then you'll see nothing 'till morning.
OVERWEIGHT: Follow a deer trail up and down ridges. When you are tired, pause a while, then walk some more. Repeat three times a week.
DEPRESSED: Throw a baited hook into a pond and catch a bluegill. Continue treatment until you have enough for a meal. For severe depression, strew half a can of corn into a shallow area, bait a hook with a few extra kernels, then throw your line out and wait. Yell "Yee-Ha" during your long battle with a carp.
ADDICTED TO TV (OR COMPUTER): Get a birdfeeder. Identify and log all visiting birds. Listen to and learn their calls. Challenge yourself to keep out squirrels.
LOW SELF-ESTEEM: Go hunting with an unloaded weapon. Count the number of animals you could legally bag, but let live.
BORED: Take a leisurely hike with someone. Keep the conversation to a minimum. Observe and listen. Stop for coffee on the way home. Then discuss the trip.
April is a great time to start your outdoors treatment. Everything more alive than a rock is stirring; seeds are shaking off their dormancy and birds are winging their way to nesting areas. The outdoors is arustly, abuzz, amurmer and atwitter.
Treatment is cheap, usually free, although some activities require an inexpensive permit, and no appointment is necessary. To begin your therapy, simply stop by one of the dozens of nature or conservation centers across your state.
And please, if you don't get help from Kindly Ol' Dr. Thunder, get help somewhere else.
Kindly contributed by Thunderchilde
The website hostesses do not guarantee Kindly Ol' Doc Thunder's qualifications to practice medicine, but they do endorse his suggestions for mild ailments. If treatment is unsuccessful after a resonable time, please consult your own doctor.