Man's Danger Period, Our Sons

Evening Round-Up
by William Crosbie Hunter

(Page 10 of 14)

Man's Danger Period

In the Midday of Your Life, Look Out

There is a time in the business man's life between the age of 48 and 52 when the man undergoes a pronounced change in his life.

More big men are cut off at 50 than at any other age between 45 and 60.

At 48 to 52 most men change vitally in their physical and mental make-up.

Many men, hitherto straight, moral men, go to the bad at this time, and per contra many men quit their immoral and health hurting habits and change to moral men.

This danger period is when the newly-rich find fault with their wives who have helped them to their success. They grow tired of their wives and seek the companionship of young women.

The divorce courts give most interesting figures on this point.

At this danger period men who have been high livers, voracious eaters and heavy drinkers find themselves victims of diabetes, Bright's disease or other forms of kidney troubles.

Most every man between 48 and 52 who works indoors, eats too much, exercises too little, sleeps insufficiently.

Here are a few things for the 50-year-old man to do:

Drink two glasses of warm, not hot, water immediately on arising.

Eat an apple before breakfast; positively you must eat the skins too. The skins have the phosphorus, phosphates, and brain food. The skins make roughage and keep the alimentary tract active.

Eat for breakfast a little bacon, cooked rare; crisp bacon has all the good fried out, and you simply have ashes left.

One cup of coffee, an egg or two, some cereal and toast, no red meat, no potatoes.

Walk to your office if it is less than three miles; if over three miles ride the extra distance, but walk three miles anyway.

Walk alone. This is most important; it relaxes your brain. Walking with company makes it a physical exertion and a mental pull as well, for a man will talk when he has company.

Eat a light lunch; be sure to eat an apple; with it drink two or three glasses of water, cool but not cold.

Let your hearty meal be supper, eat slowly and don't talk business. After supper play with the kids or joke with your wife; get a smile on your face.

Just before you retire read a chapter from a worth-while book. The last thoughts which you take in at night are the ones which stick.

Leave your business in your business clothes, and get in a good night's sleep.

Keep a sharp look-out for tendencies to change your habits and morals.

At 50 you are walking on thin ice; look out, danger is near.

After you are 55 your habits are pretty well established. If you have lived rightly till then you're safe thereafter and likely on your way to a good ripe old age if you take reasonable care of yourself.

Our Sons

They Pattern After Us; Be Worth Copying

We love our own the best; maybe that's why we indulge our own too much. Our duty to our boys: that's a subject old as the hills and it is as important as it is old.

Today I had the boy problem forcibly presented to me. Today in court twenty-four boys were brought before the Judge charged with petty crimes. Three were sent to the penitentiary, seven to reform school and fourteen let go temporarily on good behavior.

A friend of mine interested in criminology tells me the great bulk of hold-ups, thefts, burglaries and murders are committed by boys between 16 and 22 years of age.

These twenty-four boys I mention were just ordinary boys, capable of making good citizens if they had had the right kind of home treatment and surroundings. Most of them got in trouble through their association with "gangs" or "the bunch," or the "crowd," and this because daddy didn't have his hand on the rein.

That boy must have companionship; he must have a confidante to whom he can share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his ambitions. If he doesn't get this camaraderie at home he gets it "round the corner."

We know where the boy is when he is at school, but how few know the boy's doings between times.

Pool halls tempt the boys, and these places are breeding places where filthy stories, criminal slang and evil practices are hatched.

Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate the boy. He sees the lights. There is a keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted dude with cigarette in his mouth making fancy shots.

There is no one to nag him or bother him; it gets to be his "hang-out," and soon he drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to the red light district.

Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It takes money to go the pace. Crime is gilded over with slang words. Stealing is called "easy money." Robbery is "turning a trick," and so on.

A boy becomes what he lives on mentally and physically; that's the net of it.

If Dad is his chum, if sister shares with him his amusements, if the family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" plan, if the boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.

Neglect him and he will neglect you. Love him and he will love you. Meet him half way; he's impressionable.

Show him kindness, he will respond. Show him example, he will follow.

You have to be with him or know where he is every minute.

During his period of adolescence, say from twelve or thirteen to sixteen or seventeen, that boy is a mass of plaster of paris, easily shaped while plastic, but once set, impossible to recast.

That's the time, Dad, you must be on YOUR job with your boy.

Your counsel, example, love, interest and teaching will MAKE the boy.

Think of these things, Dad, and think hard, and think hard NOW. Tomorrow may be too late.

Published by Hunter Service Kansas City, Mo., USA
Copyright 1915 by WM. C. Hunter