Free All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum Page B

and the time of an American West that’s gone forever. Sometimes he smiles when he sees it. Sometimes it brings tears to his eyes.
    Once I participated in a christening ceremony that used baptismal water that had been collected from the rain dripping off the fly of a tent during the camping weekend when the couple conceived their first child.
    And I attended a first anniversary dinner celebration of an April wedding that had been turned into a magical occasion by an unexpected snowfall. The bride’s father had collected the melting snow and now brought the bottle of water as an anniversary gift. Priceless.
    There’s no commercial value in water of this kind. There are two secret ingredients, which can’t be manufactured or bottled: imagination and memory. Such vintage refreshment is always a product of home brewing. The liquid is flavored by experience and given character by the creative effort it takes to fill the wine cellar of the heart.
    Let the glasses be filled and lifted—Cheers!

 
     
     

    T HIRD A ID
    M Y WIFE HAS TRIED for some time to get me to read news stories about people who live long and healthy lives. She’s a doctor. And a semi-vegetarian. She’s excited about studies of isolated groups of people who dwell twelve thousand feet up in the Andes or way out in the Russian boondocks. They eat chickpeas and gravel, and walk six miles a day to get water. Shriveled up old prunish people whose life secret seems to be that they never change clothes or take baths. Not my idea of a long and happy life. They look ugly and unhappy and bored. I don’t want to be one of them. Or married to anybody like them, either.
    I think long life is as overrated as natural childbirth. I’ll pass on both of them. Most of the really old people I’ve known are a royal pain in the butt. Oh, sure, tell me about your sainted mother or your wonderful great-grandfather and how they lived to be 150 years old. I said, “most.”
    My personal plan is called Third Aid.
    Not First Aid. That’s what you do in immediate crises. If you cut yourself, you spend a half hour looking all over the house for a Band-Aid and settle for Scotch tape.
    Second Aid is calling the doctor because you’ve got the flu. By the time you actually get in for a checkup, the flu is gone. While you’ve been waiting, you’ve got some extra sleep, been patted on the head, taken some aspirin, and eaten some chicken soup. You’re cured.
    Third Aid is my version of preventive medicine—so you don’t need as much First and Second Aid. I read through my wife’s medical-school textbooks. And I noticed that in just about every crisis the drill was the same: have the patient lie down in a comfortable place, make sure the patient can breathe, make sure the patient isn’t bleeding, and is kept warm and dry. I think this is called the ABC checkup—for Airway, Blood, and Comfort or something like that.
    In addition to this ABC business, I read about the Placebo Effect. That’s where no matter what you do, anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of what gets wrong with you heals itself if you just give it time and think good thoughts. It’s kind of like staying amused while your body does its thing. See, doctors can really do something with only about 15 percent of what ails you. Your body does the rest. Or else you die.
    If you want to practice Third Aid, what do you do?
    First, realize
your body makes house calls
—
so does your brain
. This is crucial.
    Every once in awhile, when you’re not sick, lie down and examine yourself.
    Ask yourself three questions: Am I breathing? Am I bleeding? And am I comfy? If your answers are Yes, No, and Yes, you’re going to live a while longer. Then ask: Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Is there anything in the house to eat?
    If yes, eat and drink. If not, don’t.
    This is important: If you know something isn’t necessary or isn’t good for you, don’t get up and do it. If you do it anyhow, don’t complain about it, just lie down and