When she gets here, will she still like me?

Jim Fall

The activity around my house has changed quite a bit in the past several months.

More specifically, it has picked up rather dramatically in the past several days.

First, let me be quite clear that all the changes have been voluntary.

Well most all of them have been.

To be very honest, some of them are the result of a couple — actually, quite a few — visits with any number of area physicians since Thanksgiving.

Others, I am not so sure how to explain.

And those are the ones that are the more dramatic of the bunch.

As I think back over what has transpired and try to pinpoint exactly when this conversion process began to set in, I have to admit it could well date back to my leaving Maryville and moving to Helena, Montana, in 1995.

The first hint of an impending new me was when I gave up smoking a pipe. It was not cold turkey, mind you, but took a few months of adjustment.

It was, however, to everyone’s satisfaction, except maybe mine.

Another clue came from our older daughter when she found out about an almost equally significant change in my eating habits.

There was a popular restaurant near my office that was the “in” place for breakfast, especially on Saturday mornings.

The No Sweat Cafe.

You gotta love it.

And I did.

One of its more popular breakfast items included sprouts in the scrambled eggs, with other unknowns.

The Stumbo Los Wages, they called it.

When Daughter 1 heard I was eating sprouts, her first inquiry of her mother was, “Do you still like him?”

I guess she did, ’cause she stuck with me.

But the changes seem to be continuing, perhaps becoming more and more severe.

For unknown reasons, I have always liked jazz music, to the exclusion of hard rock, heavy metal, rap, etc. (You know that sound that is deafening younger generations.)

Elvis and I grew up around Memphis at the same time, so, needless to say, I have always been a fan of his — so much so that I now listen almost exclusively to the Elvis station on my car radio.

Not a big change, but a definite shift from the sports talk that used to have my ear.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I also favor playing favorites from the 50s to compliment the King’s renditions.

In that genre, I also tend to favor the Mar-Keys, whose featured trumpet player, Wayne Jackson, was a boyhood neighbor from West Memphis.

And now, here comes a real biggie.

After last summer’s visit to the Albany music extravaganza, I have become something of a country music fan.

At least the particular brand of country music performed by Alabama and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the related tunes that come with their “stations” via Pandora.

Don’t ask me why there are all these reversals in my personality. They have simply seemed to evolve.

The greatest change, however, is really related to the earlier significant difference I confessed to.

My diet.

Or, more precisely, my choices of food.

Some have not been by choice, admittedly, but others have, and it is those that give me cause for concern.

No longer do I rely on a menu of Ali’s donuts and a Diet Coke for breakfast. Being honest, I never really “relied” on that, but given any opportunity, I would take it.

Mixed with Instant Breakfast with some regularity. And Cheerios, Wheat Chex or Grape Nuts. Supplemented quite often by the breakfast fare at Grey’s.

Now, in this new life, I eat my Grape Nuts mixed with the fresh fruit that matches the flavor of my — yogurt, for breakfast. The straight cereals still provide some variety.

For snacks, I still rely fairly heavily of my Diet Coke and peanut butter crackers, but almonds and other combinations of mixed, raw, unsalted nuts have become quite commonplace too. Even an apple now and then.

So, the question of the day is, when Daughter 2 arrives from Fort Worth this week to spend a couple of days with her dad, “Will she still like him?”

He’s a tad bit heavier, a little bit shorter, too. And with maybe not quite as much hair.

But he’s a lot better off than he was the last time she was here, even if he does have some different habits, including regular visits to the gym.

I’m hoping she’ll stick with me —just like her mom did.