In 1974, I had been into macrobiotics 4 years, eating well, and was selling correspondence courses which brought me to many people’s homes. One day, when I got to an appointment, there was a sign on the door “Quarantine: Scarlet Fever”.

I thought, “hm-m-m-m, very contagious”, and so I knocked on the door. A pretty, but obviously sick young woman answered but told me she couldn’t let me in because of the scarlet fever quarantine. I assured her that I was immune to scarlet fever and managed to talk my way in .. like a good salesman. She lay on the couch in her bathrobe covered with a blanket and sort of dozed while I explained the programs offered, but it soon became apparent that this was not the best time to be selling educational courses, so I began to pack up. Before I left, I told her really not to worry, that I am immune to scarlet fever and went to her kitchen sink to wash my hands.

Then I asked her to open her mouth, I ran my index finger over the roof of her mouth, under her tongue, then stuck the finger in my mouth and licked it off. She stared, agast, with large eyes. A few minutes after leaving, I wondered if I had committed an indiscretion and that upon reaching the ears of her husband I might be in deep doo-doo, so I never called back. However, two days later, after a 12 mile hike with a group of friends, I was getting back into my car, when I started to cough.

I coughed up two big plugs of mucous (mucous was not a part of my life, hadn’t known mucous for years)… and that was it .. no more coughing, … no more symptoms. Because of the scarlet fever, the hike, and the timing, I can conclude nothing else except that my immune system encapsulated and removed the pathogens from my body. Hooray for brown rice!

A couple of years later, I met a young woman, Cynthia, who had chronic psoriasis. She was 25 and for 9 years had crusts form on her scalp which required special ointments, medicated shampoos and combs to remove. The doctors, including a Specialist, told her it was incurable and she could only mitigate the symptoms. She had several bald spots as a consequence which she tried to cover with her remaining hair, but she seemed interested in the dream of living in the mountains and a better life. Realizing I had to leave for the west coast in 3 days, I gave her a crash course in macrobiotics.

I told her to grab her checkbook, “we’re taking your car” and we drove the 40 miles into Boston to shop at Erewhon (macrobiotic store). She bought the grains, beans, seaweed and vegetables I picked out, plus the miso and tamari, we went back to her Framingham, Mass. apartment, proceeded to gather up all her medicated shampoos, ointments, and psoriasis accessories and burned them in the trash burner in the back yard.

Then we gathered up the food from her cupboards and refrigerator and gave it to a neighbor, who gave us the ‘hairy eyeball’, but nevertheless was gracious enough to accept it. I bought for her two very thin paper booklets explaining the basics of food selection and preparation, and I was gone. I had known her for three days.

I got a letter on the west coast less than two weeks later from her: “Psoriasis is gone!” She was quite elated and talked enthusiastically of following “our” dream. Well, as you suspected, we were married the following spring and over 10 years of marriage, she went on 4 or 5 serious binges .. usually dairy and sugar . and the psoriasis came back – each time lower on her body. But I would encourage her to get back to her basics and it went away each time .. but each time it took a little longer.

In 1977, we drove to British Columbia and stayed for a while at Duncan Sim’s farm up in the woods near Fernie. Cynthia had never even been camping before in her life. She was very unhappy for two weeks .. no hot water, no heating, no comfortable potty, no bathing facilities, and on and on. But she survived…in fact, we survived together for 5 months that time .. whereupon winter was setting in, the camp was closing, there was no provisions for the winter, and we were forced to drive back to “civilization”. On the way, I glanced over and saw Cynthia was crying. Alarmed, I asked what was wrong. She said she didn’t want to leave.

It had been a nice macrobiotic group there that summer, she had met a number of people and become friends, and had begun to internalize much of the macrobiotic dream. We moved from there into an area where there was no macrobiotic community and found no macrobiotics friends for sharing and for a support group. Some 5 years later things kind of fell apart. She went completely not just off the diet but became opposed to it, and the rest would be grist for the mills for the horror novelists.

We had four lovely children from this marriage, who were carefully raised from conception according to the best macrobiotic principles. I remember them sitting at their little tables in the kitchen, waiting for the sautéed kale.

They would bang their forks on the table, and asked, “Daddy, when will the kale be ready?” They loved brown rice and for drink, they wouldn’t think of anything but bancha tea. I made sure they played outside every day for at least several hours, unless it was storming. I remember their meticulous, deliberate little hands carefully mulching the tiny seedlings in the garden… how they always wanted to help around the house, how they cared for and loved one another.

They never had any childhood immunization shots … didn’t need them… they never had any of the childhood diseases either –never had a cold, never the flu. When I bought them roller skates, my oldest daughter, at age 7 could literally skate circles around the 10 year old neighbor girl, who had had skates for years. I caught her once carrying a 50 lb. bag of rice up the stairs. Concerned, I called up to her, “Corrina, what are you doing?” She just turned and smiled and finished carrying it up. She won a trophy in her Aikido class at age 4.

We had to fib about her age, because the age minimum for the class was 5. Her instructor said she was so flexible, it was almost like she didn’t have a spine. All of the children in the neighborhood wanted to play with them because they had such sweet spirits, cheerful, agreeable, vivacious, but then we had no TV either and I homeschooled.

By Paul Kern
http://www.wolfroad.com