{"id":49325,"date":"2008-11-24T08:05:15","date_gmt":"2008-11-24T12:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/v3\/?p=49325"},"modified":"2008-11-29T08:09:29","modified_gmt":"2008-11-29T12:09:29","slug":"life%e2%80%99s-coloring-book-a-column-by-suzi-walls-for-the-daily-herald-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/?p=49325","title":{"rendered":"Life\u2019s Coloring Book A column by Suzi Walls for The Daily Herald"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>To contact Suzi, email her at suziwalzie@aol.com or
\nvisit her website at www.myspace.com\/suziqzi1948
\nI don\u2019t know about you, but I love to savor a good meal. Doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s at home or in a restaurant or even at Burger King, for that matter. I read somewhere that it\u2019s better for a person to eat slowly and allow time for your stomach to signal your brain that it\u2019s full. Supposedly, you\u2019ll eat less that way. (Can\u2019t prove it by me, though.)
\nWalzie yells at me all the time for eating too slowly. In fact, just last week as we enjoyed breakfast at the Chill N Grill, he sat with his arms folded, watching me play with my scrapple. Okay, so I draw pictures in the butter with my knife and smear syrup around like Picasso. I\u2019m letting my brain and stomach get it together.
\nFinally, he couldn\u2019t stand it any longer, \u201cSusan, if you ate like that in \u2018Nam, you\u2019d still be there!\u201d
\nWell, doggone it, we aren\u2019t in \u2018Nam \u2013 get over it!
\nJust because he inhales his food like a vacuum sweeper, he thinks everybody else should do likewise. Sometimes I think he\u2019s mentally still in \u2018Nam gulping down cold sea rations or sucking it in under the watchful eye of the drill instructor at boot camp.
\nHe learned all that stuff at Parris Island, South Carolina, way back in 1967. He was a smart-aleck kid just turned eighteen when Aunt Lovie made him join the Marines. (Bet she was tired of him inhaling all of her food!) It was either enlist or suffer the wrath of Drill Instructor Bigmouth as a draftee. He later found out that either way, the D.I. would make him suffer.
\nIt was 100 degrees and the middle of the night when the Greyhound pulled through the gates at Parris Island. When the door opened, the D.I. shouted, \u201cYou girls have three seconds to clear this bus!\u201d
\nQuicker than soup through a goose, Gomer Pyle was standing on the yellow footprints. Sweat matted his slicked-back Elvis hair and stains as big as Chevy hubcaps wet his armpits. His heart was thumping. Sgt. Reed got in his face right away, \u201cThink you\u2019re tough, Elvis? What\u2019s that I hear? Is that your stomach growling?\u201d
\n\u201cUh, no\u2026well, maybe\u2026uh, yeah,\u201d Walzie stammered.
\n\u201cWell, which is it, Sally,\u201d he continued. \u201cNo? Maybe? Yes? And what title follows?\u201d
\nUh oh, a trick question. I know Walzie\u2019s mind raced trying to remember what the heck a proper title for a ranging banshee should be.
\n\u201cYeah, uh\u2026Mr. Drill Sergeant.\u201d
\nA quick slap up-side the head taught him the word, \u201cSir\u201d.
\nBefore the sun came up, his hair turned to Velcro, his jeans and t-shirt transformed magically into fatigues, his cowboy boots became combat boots, and his poor empty tummy growled louder. What he wouldn\u2019t give for a slab of bacon and a dozen eggs right now.
\n\u201cBreakfast at o-five hundred hours,\u201d the D.I. barked.
\nFinally, Walzie, carrying his tray, joined the other recruits in the mess hall. He sighed. Two seconds later, the banshee screamed that breakfast was over. Fall in formation. Walzie gulped a quart of chocolate milk and snapped to attention.
\nOutside in the southern morning heat, that milk churned and burbled. Just as the D.I. came face to face with Walzie, he let out a deep chocolaty belch.
\n\u201cWho\u2019s the uncouth clown?\u201d he questioned. \u201cPrivate Walls, was that you?\u201d
\nThe D.I. took his pointer stick and rammed it into poor Walzie\u2019s gut. Chocolate milk shot out of him like pea soup from Linda Blair. Drill Sergeant\u2019s don\u2019t wear chocolate very well, you know. Now who\u2019s the one that needs a Tide stick?
\nSo after all that, Walzie learned to turn on the vacuum (and hold it down well). He\u2019s never stopped. He\u2019s told me that eating this way saved his life many times over. Well, yeah, when eating in the jungle, not the Chill N Grill for heaven\u2019s sake. He says there\u2019s just too much stuff to do to waste time eating. Shucks, Walzie, Walmart is open 24 hours \u2013 slow down!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To contact Suzi, email her at suziwalzie@aol.com or visit her website at www.myspace.com\/suziqzi1948 I don\u2019t know about you, but I love to savor a good meal. Doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s at home or in a restaurant or even at Burger King, for that matter. I read somewhere that it\u2019s better for a person to eat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-interest-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area","category-excerpts-from-the-tyrone-daily-herald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}