The ghost of diets past

My earliest memories of diets and calorie restrictions revolve around Ayds diet candies and Roman Meal bread.

Ayds (pronounced "aids") was an individually wrapped candy that was either an appetite suppressant or a placebo. It had a very strong presence in my childhood home in the early 70s. I clearly remember the chocolate and caramel flavors nibbled before meals by my mother and older sister, usually with a nice hot cup of coffee. I was a kid - somewhere in the 5 to 7 year old range - and I'd sneak in and chow down on those candies by the handful. They were tasty and, I'm sure, oh so chemical. Probably accounts for the tics and recurrent blackouts today. Ayds candies would surely have fallen out of market favor by now even if the PR disaster of having a product name pronounced the same as a dread disease hadn't driven the product off the shelves.

This is me!

I'd forgotten my sister wrote this: Correspondence From My Sister.

Is this a smarmy way to get out of writing a new article - pointing to words I've already written that are floating around the ancient interwebs? Yeah, probably. Come to think of it, my sister was probably trying to get out of writing a new column when she used my emails in the first place. Must run in the family.

But I did write the words, even though the words are old words written in old emails and not originally intended to be shared with the world (all two of you who seem to have stumbled upon this almost-blog).

I'll admit to laughing when I re-read the old words. I was also transported back to the place I was then when I wrote the old words. That's the power of words for those who write them. Is it the same for the people who read them?