The Predictor Who Got It Right (Mostly)

There must be good money in making predictions because no one would go into the business for job satisfaction.

If you correctly foresee events a century before they occur, none of your contemporaries will still be alive to remember your predictions. Furthermore, the marvels you forecast—manned flight, say, or the internet—will seem inevitable and obvious after the fact, robbing you of any credit for foresight. And if you’re wrong, you’ll probably sound ridiculous.

Yet each new year, a new batch of predictors offer us their forecasts for the future. Most are promptly forgotten. One who deserves to be remembered, though, is John Elfreth Watkins, Jr., a Post writer in the early 20th Century.  Back in December 1900, he wrote his ideas about “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years” for the Post’s sister publication, the Ladies’ Home Journal.

Where he was wrong, he was very, very wrong:

A cynical view of the future from 1898, entitled "A Sunny Day in 1910."

Nicaragua (i.e. Panama) will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.

There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary.

Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated… There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct.

A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

A university education will be free to every man and woman.

Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes… The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed… These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles.

But this selection is hardly fair to Watkins. Some of his predictions were only partly wrong.

Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour.

High-speed trains are traveling over 300 mph. Just not in the United States.

Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today.

This is just barely true. In 1900, work horses sold for $225 to $250. Adjusting for inflation, that price is approximately $6400, which will buy a new, low-end, import, budget car.

[The future American] will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present.

In fact, the overall life expectancy in 1900 was 47.8 years. And in 2000, it was 77.

There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century.

The figure is high, but at least Watkins was guessing in the right direction. America’s population had grown 14000% between 1800 and 1900. If that rate had continued, the total would have exceeded 1 billion in 2000. Instead, it grew just 360%, reaching 280 million at the start of the new century.

Where Watkins was correct, however, he was unusually far-sighted.

Americans will be taller by from one to two inches.

The average American male in 1900 was 66-67” tall. By 2000, the average was 69”.

Photographs will reproduce all of nature’s colors… [They will be transmitted] from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.

Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn.

Man will see around the world. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span.

Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.

Refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.

Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America… whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods which cannot be grown here.

There is one last peculiarity to Watkins’ article.

Every one of his predictions involved an improvement in the lives of Americans. He saw only positive change in the new century. Today’s predictors don’t see the future so optimistically, but will they see it as clearly as Watkins?

Classic Covers: Constantin Alajálov

Let’s begin the New Year with the charming art of Constantin Alajálov.
Giant Clock on New Year’s Eve — January 1, 1949

"Giant Clock on New Year’s Eve" From January 1, 1949

Giant Clock on New Year’s Eve
From January 1, 1949

 

Not everyone has a fancy party to attend on New Year’s Eve. Some of us have to work, like this less-than-enthused office cleaner. The artist was visiting Gardone, Italy when he found a local to model as his scrubwoman and “invented a skyscraper to go around her neck,” according to Post editors.

Constantin Alajálov was born in 1900 to well-off Russian parents. They were able to give him the advantage of schooling, but his professional training did not last long; he had barely started at the University of Petrograd when the Russian Revolution broke out. He traveled around the country with a group of artists, painting posters and murals of Communist propaganda in order to survive.

No Desserts — March 12, 1949

"No Desserts" From March 12, 1949

No Desserts
From March 12, 1949

 

Ah, so begins the New Year for many of us. It would not do to spoof a “stout” lady these days, but it worked in 1949.

Alajálov became the court painter for a khan in Persia. The khan was hanged by his successor, so there went that position. He moved on to Constantinople and painted murals and posters before landing in New York in 1923. Within three years, he sold his first cover to The New Yorker.

Sunday Paper — February 21, 1948

"<i

This late-sleeping Sunday slacker is one of my favorite Alajálov covers. The poor sinner really wants that Sunday paper and the milk for his coffee, but who is having a confab outside his door? None other than the minister, of course.

Alajálov eventually became the only person to do covers for both The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post, despite the fact that both magazines required exclusivity in their cover artists. He was naturalized in the United States and spent the rest of his life traveling and painting in and out of the country.

Fall Gab Session — November 7, 1953

"<i

This wonderful autumn cover from 1953 shows a gossip session in full force. It looks like the Smith boy is seeing the Jones girl and the ladies of the town will only be too happy to spread the rumor that they are in love—confidentially, of course.

Trying on the Old Uniform — May 31, 1958

"<i

What a difference 10 or 15 years makes! It is now 1958, and slipping into her old WWII WAVE uniform for a Memorial Day parade is not as easy as the charming young matron thought. (WAVES was an acronym for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, began in 1942. It was technically US Naval Reserves, but the term “WAVES” caught on.) What did the 1958 crop of WAVES think of Post cover? They loved it! The WAVES director asked for the painting to be hung permanently in Washington and a WAVE at the Anacostia Naval Air Station asked for 50 autographed reprints for her crew. The artist happily granted both requests.

Photo of Constantin Alajálov — October 6, 1945

Photo of Constantin Alajálov From October 6, 1945

Photo of Constantin Alajálov
From October 6, 1945

 

The October 6, 1945, issue of the Post not only boasted Alajálov’s first cover for that magazine, but a playful photo in the “Keeping Posted” column. The artist is sitting in his comfy chair next to a charming piano. The piano, however, as with most of the room’s “furnishings,” is not real. “If a room seems to need a door,” Post editors noted, “Alajálov paints himself a door. If it needs a window and a view, he paints both window and view, and can thereby look out on anything he wants.”

Of course, the room has limitations as well as advantages. “Guests cannot sit down and stay,” editors noted, “which is a good thing, and Alajálov has furniture of any period…he fancies. He can have the throne Catherine of Russia sat in, if he likes—in fact, he can have Catherine of Russia, gazing at him in admiration and ardor.”

Bridge Hand Disturbs Sleep — December 1, 1962

"<i

At the age of sixty-two, a retiring Alajálov submitted his final Saturday Evening Post cover. The December 1, 1962, issue depicted a bridge player distressed over a game where she should have bid this or played that or should not have withheld the ace of diamonds.

Roger T. Reed of Illustration House once said of Alajálov, “When I met him in 1984, the artist was a refined and patrician figure, with reason to be proud of a rich body of work in fine illustrative art.” The artist passed away in New York at the age of 87.

Famous Contributors: Langston Hughes

This edition of Famous Contributors to The Saturday Evening Post focuses on the renowned Poet Laureate of Harlem, Langston Hughes.

Hughes’ life crisscrossed with other famous African-Americans—he went to Lincoln University along with famed civil rights attorney and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; his uncle was John Mercer Langston, the first African-American elected to the US Congress; and he worked alongside important figures such as W.E.B. DuBois during the Harlem Renaissance to foster creativity and expression in the black community. Hughes won the Harman Gold Medal for Literature, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and received the NAACP’s yearly Spingam Medal for outstanding achievement.

His work focused on the exploitation and oppression of fellow African-Americans and, during the 1920s and 30s, much of it showed a nod to Marxism. In 1932 he visited the Soviet Union, an experience that moved the young writer deeply.

However, his controversial viewpoints would come back to haunt him later in life.  He was called in front of Joseph McCarthy’s Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953, and, although he was not charged as a “card-carrying” Communist, he was unable to make a decent living afterward. Even so, he is remembered as one of the greatest poets—of any color—in American history.

Hughes’ relationship with the Post could be described as “love-hate.” In his younger years, he described the publication as a “magazine whose columns, like the doors of many of our churches, has been until recently entirely closed to Negroes,” and criticized the magazine in his poetry. However, the relationship became more amicable as Hughes got older and he eventually submitted poetry to the magazine. Below are two poems from Hughes as they originally appeared in the Post.

Refugee In America

By Langston Hughes

There are words like “Freedom,”

Sweet and wonderful to say.

On my heartstrings freedom sings

All day everyday.

There are words like “Democracy”

That almost make me cry.

If you had known what I knew

You would know why.

Wisdom

By Langston Hughes

I stand most humbly before man’s

wisdom,

Knowing we are not really wise.

If we were, we’d open up the

kingdom

And make earth happy as the

dreamed-of skies.

Norman Rockwell’s Oatmeal Cookies

Shortly before Norman Rockwell passed away in the late 1970s, he sent the editors of the Post a letter containing his all-time-favorite recipe—oatmeal cookies. Much like Rockwell’s paintings, the recipe is simple, straightforward, and classic. Make a batch today for a taste of true Americana!


Norman-Rockwell's-Favorite-Recipe
Scan of original cookie recipe from Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell’s Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Mix in order and drop on baking sheet. Bake 400° 7 to 8 minutes. Then run under broiler to brown.

Ringworm Myth-Busters

Maybe you have heard of ringworm, but beyond an idea that it’s contagious, it’s gross, and you hope you never get it, you may have a poor grasp of the actual facts. Dr. Karen Campbell, a board-certified veterinary dermatologist at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Urbana, dispels six common myths about ringworm.

1. Ringworm is caused by a worm.

This disease got its name because of the way it looks, not because it is caused by worms under the skin. Ringworm is caused by one of several common dermatophytes; fungi that grow on skin. The “ring” look comes when the skin heals in the center as the fungus spreads outwards.

2. You can’t give ringworm to your pet or vice versa.

Actually, ringworm is quite contagious between mammals. Not only can you get it from your pet, you can just as easily give it to your pet, whether that is a cat, a dog, or even a rabbit. In fact, ringworm can affect any mammal.

3. Ringworm is only contagious through direct contact.

If that were true, the situation would be so much easier to resolve. The fungus infects the hairs, which are shed into the environment. These hairs can remain infectious for years. Part of treating a pet for ringworm involves extensive cleaning of the environment, that is, your house. Electrostatic wipes can be especially helpful for collecting all the pet hairs. Dr. Campbell recommends disinfecting all the surfaces you can with a common household cleaner. And don’t forget the air vents!

4. Only the affected pet needs to be treated.

If one pet in a multi-pet household has ringworm, you need to worry about all the other pets too. If the animals spend time together, it is very possible that they all have ringworm even if they do not have any obvious sores. To address the situation, you can either have all animals tested, or just treat them all. The choice depends on your preference and cost. Testing takes time (days to weeks) and can be expensive. The most common treatment for ringworm is lime-sulfur dips, which are fairly inexpensive. Discuss which course of treatment is best for your situation with your veterinarian.

5. If there are no visible skin problems or hair loss, the animal does not have ringworm.

Some pets infected with ringworm may not show signs, but still carry the fungus, meaning they can still transmit the fungus to other animals or other people. Make sure if you have a pet with ringworm to follow through the whole course of treatment. Never stop treatment just because the animal looks better.

6. A circular area of hair loss on your pet means ringworm.

While ringworm can be missed or misdiagnosed (mistaken for something else), it is also over-diagnosed. A lot of things can cause your pet to itch and lose fur. Mites, fleas, bacterial infections, and even allergies can cause hairless patches that itch. Be sure to talk to your veterinarian. Treating for ringworm will not help if your dog is itchy because of mites.

Now that you are armed with the facts, you can do your best to avoid contracting ringworm or to treat it aggressively if you or any member of your family does get it. If you still have questions about ringworm, your local veterinarian is an excellent source of information, so don’t hesitate to ask.

Andrea Lin is an Information Specialist at University of Illinois’ College of Veterinary Medicine.

Our 1877 Christmas Gift Guide

If you’re reading this post on your cell phone while standing, weary-footed, in a checkout line at a store, you have our sympathy. You could also have the comfort of knowing that Americans have found Christmas shopping a challenge for well over a century.

Back in 1877, American manufacturing was turning out consumer goods with unprecedented variety and speed. The selection of Christmas gifts was greater than ever. The Post helped its readers stay informed of all the new choices by reporting on appealing new items in local Philadelphia stores.

Elegant Russia leather boxes lined with satin… $10.00. Work baskets lined with silk, large and substantial ($3.00 and upwards)… Fans with pearl sticks mounted with blue and white Marabou stork trimming… $9.00.

Dolls of high and low degree, blondes, brunettes, mistress, child and maid, dressed with consummate taste and skill, dressed in materials of Fashion’s latest design designs. They cost from $2.50 and upwards, while others of less pretentious styles are as low as 50 cents.

Whatever the price of the doll, parents could be fairly certain they would please their youngster. As another Post writer observed, children were happy with any present.

All is fish that comes to their all-embracing net. Dolls, rocking-horses, marbles, balls, tops, kites, arks; it is a lovely way of finding out how brightly [their] eyes can shine. No questioning your motive, or the probable cost of your gift—no invidious comparisons with your possible presents in other quarters; they are satisfied and ecstatically happy for the time.

Men, on the other hand, were a problem, particularly bachelors:

Oh! the torment of finding a suitable male present. There are cigar cases, to be sure, in every form of elaboration and adornment, [and] the unfailing resource of a pair of slippers, or a watch-chain; and having enumerated all these, I will leave it to anybody if I have not exhausted the list. What Christmas gift can we make a gentleman?

Mittens they don’t seem to fancy… night-caps they all look like frights in—what’s to be done? He may keep the watch-chain you give him until after he is married. Some day his wife, rummaging among his old traps, will hold it up between her thumb and finger with, “What’s this thing, Bob?” Bob will reply, as he stops sharpening his razor, “That? Ha! ha! by Jove! it’s a chain a woman gave me who was once desperately in love with me; give it to Willie to play with!” Whereupon Bob and his wife laugh heartily, winding up with a kiss.

Ha, ha! Or maybe that scene will end with a flurry of new questions from the wife about that woman.

­

The Post’s fashion editor in 1877, Olive King, had a gift idea for men who already had enough dressing gowns and slippers: the smoking jacket.

Oscar Wilde in his smoking jacket—a gift from his greatest admirer: himself.

Never before this seasons have they been brought out in such perfection and elegance.

The most beautiful and expensive ones are of Lyons velvet with collar, cuffs, and lining of quilted satin in blue or scarlet.

They are cut in loose sack form, and are stylish, costly, and comfortable.

It is a fine present from a wife to a beloved husband, because you see it is all in the family.

And if the aforementioned beloved husband don’t behave himself, the aforementioned wife can cut it up into a magnificent cloak for herself.

She also happily suggested fashionable items that husbands should consider for their wives:

Double bracelets are now all the rage—one worn at the wrist, the other above the elbow, fastened together by a heavy chain. [Really?]

Six button gloves [mid-forearm length] are the only one considered comme il faut for full dress.

Yellow and blue are the favorite combination of color for reception dresses this season.

Another Post writer assumed there wasn’t a husband alive who, at Christmas time, wouldn’t think “I wish there was anything half pretty enough, or good enough for my faithful, true wife.” If such a wretched husband did exist, the writer continued —

may he always arrive at the ferry just as the boat is out of jumping distance, may his umbrella turn inside out when he tries to hold it right side up; may bank hours be over when he wants a check cashed; may his baby cry persistently and uproariously all Sunday, while he is at home trying to enjoy himself; and may he lose his pocket handkerchief some 25th of December, when he has a cold.

What then, did the Post recommend as the ideal gift in 1877? This suggestion appeared in the Nov. 24, 1877, issue. We reprint it for the sake of historic accuracy.

A year’s subscription to a weekly literary and family newspaper, such as the Saturday Evening Post, is always relished, as it has a permanent value, and, arriving every week with its fresh and varied banquet ornamental food, is a perpetual reminder of the kindness, thoughtfulness and good wishes of the giver.

Don’t look at us that way; we’re just including this for the sake of history.

Other presents are forgotten and are allowed to lie around in out-of-the-way corners, but such is not the case with the literary newspaper. On the whole, we know of no more suitable gift than a year’s subscription to a journal, and such of our patrons as feel inclined to present their friends with the Post will find us ready to fill all order they may send.

Limerick Laughs Contest Winner and Runners-Up for Sep/Oct 2011

Limericks
The boy is quite good at concealing
The way that he’s privately feeling.
But when the door’s closed
And the lad’s unopposed,
His actions are truly revealing.
—Neal Levin, Bloomfield, Michigan

The staff of The Saturday Evening Post is pleased to announce the winner of the Sep/Oct Limerick Laughs Contest: Neal Levin of Bloomfield, Michigan! For his clever poem describing the picture to the left, Neal wins a cash prize—and our gratitude for a job well done. If you’d like to enter the Limerick Laughs Contest for our Jan/Feb 2011 issue, you can submit your entry via the entry form here.
Of course, Neal’s limerick wasn’t the only one we liked! Here are a few of our favorite runners-up, in no particular order:

My principal stood very tall
As I passed with a wave in the hall.
When he left for the day
I had nothing to say
So I gave him my tongue, and that’s all.

—Paul E. Rikert, White Plains, NY

My principal’s seen me before.
The library’s on the same floor.
Though he’s really quite tall—
Doesn’t scare me at all—
As long as he’s behind that closed door!

—Nancy Kirbo, Rockwall, TX

This principal thinks he’s just great,
And his student’s would rank him first rate.
Why has he not learned
When his big back is turned
Some pretend to befriend whom they “hate.”

—Karen Snead, Dale City, VA

The man couldn’t possibly know
Just how fake was the friendly hello.
But surveillance soon caught
What the boy really thought
When he stuck out his tongue down below.

—Joyce Petrichek, Finleyville, PA

School rules can be so exacting.
Yet, on cue, the boy’s manner’s not lacking.
A fine gesture he’s made,
But it’s all a charade.
This lad has a future in acting!

—Karla Cooper, Midland, MI

There once was a fellow quite young,
Came to class when the school bell hand rung.
He seemed so polite
In the principal’s sight,
But when not, he would stick out his tongue!

—Elsie H. Wietzke, Camano Island, WA

Johnnie waves to old Principal Jones,
Smiling face hiding all of his groans.
But when no one is there
He soon takes up a dare
And starts mentally throwing his stones.

—Ruth Porter, Albany, OR

He really did look like a saint,
Not at all like he had a complaint.
The boy vented his spleen
Where he couldn’t be seen
Because stupid he certainly ain’t.

—Ralph D. Block, Warrington, PA

Thanks, Mr. Principal, for the advice.
You were really very nice.
Now, after a short detention
And the possibility of suspension,
I hope your remaining hair is full of lice.

—Edward Gottlieb, Detroit, MI

Sun Science

Does light therapy really cure winter depression? The answer is a qualified yes.

Clinical studies prove that light box therapy helps about eight in ten people with winter depression. The condition, also known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is characterized by oversleeping, fatigue, change in appetite, and feelings of hopelessness. These symptoms often improve within days or weeks of daily 30-minute, early morning light therapy sessions.

Individuals sit a couple feet away from a light box equipped with diffusing screen and special bulbs while reading, doing a hobby, or eating a meal. How does it work? There are lots of theories, but little clear evidence.

“Exposing the eyes to indirect bright light changes blood levels of melatonin that may reset the body’s internal clock and improve symptoms,” says psychiatrist and author Stephanie Mullany. “Is it hormones? Nerves? It’s like a pile of pick-up sticks, and we have much to learn.”

Light therapy boxes for winter depression are available without a prescription at drug, hardware, and online stores. The units are considered safe for easing mild symptoms in most adults—the main exception being those who take medicines that make the skin especially sensitive to light. (See “Before You Buy” for shopping tips.)

People with any type of depression should always talk to a qualified health professional about treatment and prevention options, including antidepressant medications and talk therapy.

SAD Light Box Basics

Before You Buy

Stephanie Mullany, M.D. is author of Give and Take: A Roadmap to Understanding a Psychiatrist copyright 2011, published by iUniverse, Bloomington, Indiana.

From Our Archives: Uncle Sam’s Big Pay-Off

in the Jan/Feb issue of the Post, Frederick E. Allen gives us the facts about Social Security and explores its history. That history is well-known to Post readers. In 1955, Robert M. Yoder penned this article, which features a few of the thousands of letters that the Social Security Administration received on a daily basis.

UNCLE SAM’S BIG PAY-OFF

by Robert M. Yoder
Nov. 19, 1955

One reason the Social Security Administration gets mail by the truckload is that every day finds an average of 15,891 Americans in need of Social Security cards. About 8220 need replacements for cards destroyed by accident, lost or stolen. The other 7671 are beginning their working careers.

For the great majority of those setting out to earn a living a card and a number are indispensable. Sometimes you encounter a real hardship case Like that of J. Wilbur, born all but anonymous.

J. Wilbur’s mother wrote in about him:

Dear Sirs: In regard to J. Wilbur. Seventeen years ago on January 14 I birthed a son. He was a fine boy, weighed 12 lbs. at birth. There wasn’t any account number on him anywhere and the doctor attending did not stamp any number on him. He grew up quickly.

When he was old enough he went to school as all other boys do. Learned very fast as he was a bright tot. He has been working on his father and his grandfather’s farms. Wilbur is now in the 11th grade. Mr. Jones asked Wilbur recently would he help him in his meat market on Saturdays. He also told him to write and get him a Social Security card. The boy never before having worked anywhere but on the farm we never did number him nor anyone else number him either. Will you all please number him and send him a Social Security card?

The Social Security people made haste to number poor unnumbered Wilbur, because if you don’t have a number these days you are cooked, and no two ways about it. You would also feel a little left out. For outside of the weather, taxes and the two-sex system, few things concern so many Americans as does Social Security.

Babies by the thousands are supported by Social Security benefits, and the other day a man in Massachusetts asked for a card at the age of 102. Some 69,000,000 citizens contribute every payday or when they pay their income tax, and while only 78,000,000 accounts are active, Social Security actually has a whopping total of 115,000,000.

That many interested parties are bound to have a great miscellany of problems, claims and questions. So it is not surprising that mail trucks bring 300,000 to 400,000 letters a month to national headquarters of Old Age and Survivors’ Insurance activities, in Baltimore, with thousands more arriving at the six area and 532 district offices.

Most of the letters in this Mississippi of mail are routine business correspondence. But there are anxious letters and sad ones. And it lightens and brightens the job that there are also funny letters: From the man who wanted a new card rushed “because I need it to obscure my job with.” From the man whose card “was stolen or picked” in spite of the fact that he was “in a sobber state of condition.” From the woman who thinks Social Security can be turned on like electric service. “I would like to draw Social Security for the coming five months, taking effect the 10th of December,” she wrote briskly. “Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have become pregnant.”

There is a steady stream of letters asking the big social-insurance agency to locate someone. With nice economy of words, one letter painted the picture of a man who finally broke under a great common burden. Many will know how he felt. Said the letter:

“Dear sir: I have a cousin of mine who is missing for three years. He went away to pay his income tax and never showed up any more.”

The assumption that Social Security is on familiar terms with all its millions upon millions of clients brings in letters like the one from Millie. “Please get in touch with Dan, my husband,” she wrote, “and tell him to call or write home right away, the bathroom is out of order, water is leaking under the house. I don’t have money to fix it. Thinks.”

Social Security and the Railroad Retirement Act are correlated. It may be necessary to decide which fund pays a wage earner’s survivors. So a standard question is asked: did the wage earner ever work for a railroad? To many, the question seems odd. To one widow it seemed entirely natural. “My husband never worked for a railroad, ever,” she wrote. “You must be thinking of his brother, Willie.”

Social Security knows a Willie or two, she was right about that. In Smiths alone, they’ve got some 32,000 Wills, Willies, Williams or Bills. But Social Security doesn’t know all its clients personal-like, as you might say—not as well as the widow seemed to think.

Name changing produces a lot of mail, including this little lament: “Sir: I was living here under another name on account of a woman. She said to go under that name. Which she has gone and got me into a mess of trouble under that name. So please sign my card in my right and lawful name.”

“Dear sir,” one woman wrote impatiently. “As you was asking why wasn’t my name the same on Item 1 and 3. So as you may know. People are always getting married. Arn’t they? And that is exactly what I done.”

People sure always are, and it is tough to keep up with some of them. An impulsive Texas girl asked for a new card on February second because she had just married. She wrote next to ask for the old card back “as I am no longer married.” That was on February third.

Or they don’t quite get married, and it takes several letters to find out just what the deal is. When an insured wage earner died, in the Southwest, it appeared he had a common-law wife to whom benefits should be paid. But Rosa, the lady in the case, said the relationship was purely informal and for fun. “I was just room here,” Rosa wrote, “and he was my boy friend. Because I have a husband.”

A widow’s right to receive benefits sometimes is beclouded by a previous marriage. In Lucy’s case, Social Security needed assurance that Lucy’s first marriage, to Frank, had terminated in some definite way. Lucy wrote back that it was definite enough.

“You want to find out how my marriage to Frank ended. Well, sir, I DEVOURED him. Signed with my own hand, Lucy.”

Another widow, hoping for benefits as the survivor of Husband No. 2, needed evidence that her first husband was not an impediment. She wrote her mother in Mexico. Mamma replied with spirit.

“How thoughtless are the gentlemen,” she wrote. “You first husband is now dead and it is impossible to dig him out of the cemetery. I am very sorry. If he were alive I would have found him and would have sent you his head in a box.”

What mamma had against poor Juan, or Pedro, or whatever, she didn’t say. He may have been shiftless. Some men are. As this letter makes clear:

“Dear Social Security: My husband took sick January 20 and died Feb. 27. He hasn’t earned anything since.”

Sometimes a mix-up is Social Security’s fault. The administration got one card back with the complaint “You spelt my name rong.” But a little confusion is inevitable. A Mississippian with a card in one name began using another. Asked why, he explained that his mother had just remarried, at eighty-four. Her boy, aged sixty-five, had taken the name of his new papa.

On suitable proof of death, a lump-sum payment is made to defray funeral expenses. Often something less definite than a death certificate must be accepted, since not everyone dies in bed. Social Security was satisfied in Emil’s case. For about Emil’s passing, to a watery grave, a witness wrote this:

“The last I saw of Emil he was pulling on the whistle frantically to signal the other boats with one hand and holding the wench with the other.” They assume the writer meant “wrench” or “winch,” but in any case it seemed clear that Emil was gone.

Sam’s friends didn’t see him make his exit, but they were confident Sam was a goner. Said a letter about this:

“Dear sirs: Everybody here is sure that Sam is dead. We and the police looked everywhere for him. He was very regular and we could always count on where he was if he wasn’t home. At Johnny’s Stag Bar they said they knew he’d walk in the door at 5:30 on the dot every night. But he never came that night, so I know he must be dead.”

Jimmy’s wife said there was no doubt in her mind about Jimmy either. She knew him. He was dead, all right, or he’d come home for meals.

“Gentlemen: I know what’s in your mind. You think that James walked out on me. Well, he threatened to, often enough, but he never meant it. He liked his comfort too much and he couldn’t eat restaurant cooking. If he’s still alive, it would be a big surprise to me. It just wouldn’t be like him.”

Usually the lump-sum payment, running from $90 to $255, is to a close relative. Occasionally the expenses are borne by a seeming stranger. Then Social Security looks into the circumstances. “You were hardly more than a casual acquaintance,” one man was told. “Why did you pay this man’s funeral expenses?” His answer was simple, plain and without a trace of self-glorification.

“Well, sir, I had to,” he said. “He warn’t in no shape to do it.”

What with one thing and another, Social Security people are hard to surprise. Even so, one death notice hoisted their eyebrows, for it seemed to come directly from the late lamented. It was a letter apparently asking for the lump-sum payment, and it said:

“I, Enola, died Sept. 14. Please answer and let me know. Thanks.”

That line of Thomas Gray’s about “the short and simple annals of the poor” is much admired. Any Social Security correspondence reviewer would observe, however, that the poet didn’t know many poor people. Their affairs, financial and domestic, can be complex in the extreme. The same is true of men and women in middling circumstances. One of Social Security’s widows has married nine times since they began keeping track of her. Nine husbands, all different, wouldn’t present much of a problem, but she favors two men, marrying first one and then the other. And in interludes of singleness she prefers to revert to her original married name; though it has been explained to her that she can no longer claim widow’s benefits.

The “ordinary man” frequently turns out to be an extraordinary fellow indeed, battling extraordinary problems. The proprietor of a coal yard was reproached for not keeping up on the reports an employer must make. He replied that he was having woman trouble, at age seventy-two.

“I would have complied long ago if I could,” he wrote. “I have a wife seventy years old. My business doesn’t justify me having someone just to do my writing. I can’t keep a combination housekeeper and to do my work because my wife is so jealous. No one will stay long enough to learn the work. She makes them sleep in the hall or in the room with her, when we have plenty of vacant rooms. If you have any suggestions that will help, I’ll be glad to co-operate.”

Many a big-business executive might not be able to take the troubles which snap and yap at the little businessman. Sometimes they prove to be more than the little businessman can take. Reproved for not filing returns on time, one man—the names are fictitious—replied as follows:

“Sir: I had an accountant, a Mrs. Warren, that got pregnant. Everybody was so surprised, but she and her husband seemed to know all about it. One day she was working and the next day she was in the hospital and back and forth she went.

“She had various employers, and one, a Mr. Phillips, overdrank and dropped dead. This caused Mrs. Warren to miscarry her baby, and by the time I got my books out of this six months calamity I am surprised that any of it was reported correctly.

“I paid the accountant to do the work and she was supposed to do it right as well as the accountant who took over from her. I was very careful to get a man that time as I found out you can’t do anything with a pregnant bookkeeper. However, the man I got turned out to be a preacher on the side. I finally got so discouraged I sold the damned hotel.”

There are days when you can’t lay up a dime, whole years when working gets you nothing much but exercise. The self-employed sometimes find themselves—in the expressive phrase of one Social Security claimant—”suffering from inability.” A farmer reported that he raised a lot of hogs, sold them, and sat down to figure out his income, so he would know how much Social Security tax to pay. No matter how many times he figured it, he said, he came to the same conclusion—no loss, but not a nickel’s profit for all his labors with those hogs. “Anyway,” he reported philosophically, “I enjoyed their company.”

“Please use the back door,” a Social Security field worker was directed, “as the front steps don’t exist.” That is often the case with birth certificates, and establishing correct ages may be tough. If there is a family Bible, that may help. The Bibles often contain a wealth of information, crisply reported. In one, after a whole list of children born to one union, there was this terse notation: “Maw quit Paw—June, 1923.”

To one woman it was suggested that her husband might have documents bearing on her age. She replied in wrath. “I dare you to write me about him any more. Please remember that I did not live with that sorry man and do not class myself with that trash. These people may be your class, but not mine.”

Another didn’t remember the date of her birth, but did remember the gunfire which that event occasioned. “There was doubt,” she wrote, “as to my rightful father. I can faintly remember seeing five men shot over my birth or my existence when I was around five or six years old.”

Social Security workers are an enthusiastic lot, who regard the big insurance program as the happiest thing to happen to this country in many a year. Some of them have voluntarily postponed their vacations four and five years hand-running, to keep the work rolling; some field representatives put in a fourteen-hour day straightening out the affairs of men and women in remote communities. Effort like that is bound to generate friendship. Many a business house gets a good response when offering an informative booklet. But its customers probably don’t enclose a quarter for a free booklet, and write, as one man wrote to Social Security: “please take contense and go and git you a bottle of beer.”

The friendly feeling shows up in chatty letters full of neighborhood or personal news notes. Like this:

“Dear sir: They told me you want to get rid of a typewriting machine you all have. I would be tickled to own one. I would give you good money for it. It would be real nice to write a letter and not have to use a pensil, my pensil is always broke and the butcher knife is dull because the baby digs holes in the yard with it. I got the money left from the hawg I razed last yr. I had to use part of it when our cow got the black leg. It didn’t do no good. Old Pansy dyed enyway. Yr true fren—“

“I don’t know how you figured my check,” wrote a satisfied customer, “and I don’t care. But I think it was largely owing to the good job you did. If you ever want a murder done, let me know.” Another wrote: “Never was allowed a Social Security number before. I’ll be just as tickled with it as a pig with a tail on both ends.”

On the other hand, there is no telling what simple question will provoke a storm. Applying for an account number, one man failed to supply his father’s name. Asked for it, he wrote as follows:

“Stranger: You can get my father’s name from the county court house. I positively will not give it to you. To hell with any number or anything else as far as I care. It seems to me a lot of you people want to know too dam much that is none of your business.”

There is a steady demand for advice on problems of heart and home. One sixty- four-year-old woman would in a year begin drawing widow’s benefits. But she was engaged, she explained, to a man of sixty-five. She wondered: Would she be better off, benefit-wise, as a widow or a bride?

“As a wife,” she was told, “you will have to be married three years before you can draw benefits.”

She said promptly that she would call the engagement off. “It pays to go into these things,” she said. “Three years, is it? I just don’t think it’s worth it.”

But Social Security felt duty-bound to show her the whole picture. In the unhappy event that her new husband died after hardly more than a taste of wedded bliss, she could draw benefits after one year of marriage to him. That put a different complexion on things. Three years, no. One year, yes. “In that case,” she said briskly, “I’ll just go ahead with my plans to marry and thank you very much.”

Now and then a little confusion develops over mothers’ benefits. A young widow draws benefits of this nature, but they stop if she remarries. Even so, payments to small children go on. Little Howard’s mother got a mothers’ benefit check after she had remarried. She wasn’t entitled to it, and sent it back, announcing her decision:

“I have married, but Howard is still with me,” she wrote. “I am sending the check back and keeping Howard.”

There are letters written in black despair, from those trapped in an impoverished old age. But there are others from good jaunty souls meeting old age with fine serenity. Notifying Social Security that it was time to start sending those checks, one man wrote:

“Well, the wheels has rolled around to three score and ten. I understand I shall receive a donation from our good old U.S.A. I have the enclosed number and am self-employed. I have purchased me a rod and reel and a .22 to kill frogs for bait. I have retired.”

In only twenty years, Social Security has become “a basic resource . . . for most American families,” in the phrase of Commissioner Charles I. Schottland. It is “the cornerstone of the Government’s programs,” as President Eisenhower put it, “to promote the economic security of the individual.” And an old boy in Denver figured the program could increase its usefulness by doubling as a matrimonial bureau. After a Colorado disaster, it was announced that the women widowed by the blast would receive as much as $25,000, over the years. A sharp-eyed widower at once took pen in hand.

“I am at home after 4:30 every evening,” he wrote, “and would like to meet some of those nice women.”

A further testimonial comes from an oldster who said this mighty piece of social engineering had tided him over just fine until he found something which was more fun. Returning a pension check, he wrote:

“It is with great pleasure that I inform you that I have returned from the never-never land of retirement to the land of the living, the ranks of the employed. At 70 years of age, a bachelor, with a book-keeper’s career behind me, I am starting a new career as a salesman of household products. I am going out into the wide world and meeting the fairer sex on equal terms. I find ladies in almost every kitchen who look with favor on me, who take pleasure in inspecting my wares and chatting over a cup of coffee.”

Ladies whose husbands, he added smugly, “apparently do not have the gift of conversation,” though all right at earning money, with which to buy household products.

A great many of the letter writers want a general description of the whole program. In this thirst for knowledge, this praise-worthy interest in public affairs, they may even be impatient. Like this:

“Dear sir: It seems like we just get our card game going when someone starts in on politics or something, lately its been income tax and Social Security. What conditions must excist before Social Security can be collected and how is it firgured? Please settle our argument so we can go on with our card game.”

To read the full original article, see below.

[embedpdf width=”700px” height=”900px”]http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/uncle_sams_big_pay_off_orginal.pdf[/embedpdf]

How Norman Rockwell Escaped His Celebrity

To us mere mortals, the idea of fame is exhilarating. The life of a celebrity, we imagine, is a world where everyone knows you, worships you, and hangs on your every word. It’s easy to forget that fame can also be a burden. Strangers come up to you while you’re dining in a restaurant and speak to you as if they know you. Most celebrities ultimately wish they could just be regular folks again.

By the 1920s, Norman Rockwell was a major star. And, like many other public figures before and since, he relished nothing more than the opportunity to get away from it all. He needed to escape the shackles of celebrity to stimulate his creative juices.

He found that freedom at Gibson’s Point at Louisville Landing—a town in upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River. It was a sleepy town with not much going for it aside from a small dance hall and the ferry dock where passengers boarded for the short voyage across the border to Canada.

Summering at Gibson’s Point, Rockwell shed his big-city background and fame. He retrieved drinking water from stone wells, carried firewood, and swam and fished in the river. It made him feel like a character in one of his illustrations. “This place is like a series of living Post covers—and I’m in it,” he told a young man who also visited there.

More than anything else, he enjoyed being treated like one of the local boys who sat on the porch of the general store in the evenings, listening to their elders expound on the comings and goings of the ferry. The stories told by these hard-working, honest men ignited ideas that later blossomed into Post covers. One of the themes that emerged was a return to innocence, as if the very process of quietly observing the elders of the town transported Rockwell back to his youth. It was while sitting on that porch that Rockwell was inspired to create the December 3, 1927, Post cover (pictured) celebrating the kid in all of us. The benevolent Santa is modeled on John Malone, a father figure to Rockwell and his host at Gibson’s Point.

Glorious Desert

The best deserts, I think, horrify at first glimpse. Looking toward the horizon, nothing between you and it but sharp edges and heat waves, a person should feel a quick rush of fear. And that should be followed by pity for the pioneers who crossed this landscape without maps, having no idea how long they’d be pulling cactus spines out of their heels, their throats closed from thirst.

Yet a lifetime in the Southwest has taught me that the truth of the arid landscape is something much different. The best deserts hide their secrets under cactuses and boulders, and only offer them up to people who know the magic phrase: “Yeah. I have time to stay a while.”

Joshua Tree National Park—first set aside as a monument by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, but not gaining national park status until 1994—encloses 794,000 acres of one of the very best deserts. Two of the best deserts, in fact, because in valleys between six ranges of mountains the park holds both the lowland Colorado Desert and the high desert of the Mojave, which is cooler (peak highs around 105 instead of 115) and a little wetter (up to eight inches of rain a year as opposed to five). The east side of the park slants down toward the Colorado River while the west side leans toward a coast that is only a few hours’ drive away.

And although the two deserts are geologically unalike—completely different in their plants and ecology—in either one, the first glance seems one of utter hostility: mountains shaped like jawbones of filed teeth, plants with needles that can penetrate leather boots, and animals with poison bites.

But the wise traveler stops to look closer. And then the landscape comes alive with more than 900 species of flowering plants: gold poppy, gray ambonia, desert trumpet, aster, the wooly daisy, and wide, blue Canterbury bells. “And we’re still finding more,” says Joe Zarki, the park’s chief of interpretation. Seventy-five species of butterfly flit their shadows over tarantulas, and species of shrimp swim upside down in small pools caught in the crooks of folded mountains. In the lower Colorado Desert, spiders spin morning webs between the barbs of cholla (called “jumping cactus” for good reason); in the Mojave, desert night lizards perfect the art of being invisible under the fallen bark of Joshua trees. Deserts are landscapes for the miniaturist.

Desert Queen Ranch
In the rugged desert environs, Bill Keys once built a life for his family at Desert Queen Ranch where the stamp mill and ramshackle family home still stand. Photo by Ralph Nordstrom.

Deep in the heart of the Mojave, I get out of my truck on the park’s Geology Tour Road, a dirt track that skirts the Hexie Mountains. The cooling engine is the only sound, until I start to hear the bumblebees gathering nectar from late blooms and the slow hiss of wind through the reaching branches of the Joshua trees themselves. The air smells like warm rocks. Maybe three hours east of Los Angeles, not another person in sight, I turn a full circle, arms outstretched to the sun.

Stepping around the long, silver spines of a devil’s cactus, I climb some rocks that look like petrified stale bread. Joshua Tree is a paradise for rock climbers who have set hundreds of routes on these odd, beige formations. I once came to watch my wife climb; she was 60 feet up a sheer cliff when a woman stopped and got out of her car to gawk. “Do you think she’s okay?” she asked. “Oh, if you could see her face,” I replied, “you’d see the dopiest smile right now.”

I’m not as ambitious as my wife. I only scramble up 20 feet or so. In a crevice of sand, lizard tracks scratch a pattern I can’t read. A patch of rock goldenbush seems to grow without roots, offering pinhead yellow flowers to the bees that wander by. A hummingbird, breast iridescent in the creosote air, buzzes me and moves on. When I look out at the view to the horizon, at the Joshua trees in full bloom, at the red-tipped ocotillo, the world suddenly becomes too big in a glance. Turkey vultures casting shadows over quartz veins laced through the giant boulders seem to have no trouble taking it all in, though.

The first time my wife and I came to this park a dozen or so years ago we didn’t know what a Joshua tree looked like. We thought we were just looking at big yuccas until we thought to check the cover of U2’s album The Joshua Tree. (“We still get a lot of people coming because of that,” says a park official.) And in a way, that’s what the park’s signature plant is—a big yucca. Named by early pioneers who saw the tree’s branches as the arms of Joshua pointing the way—thirst and hope are powerful persuaders—the Joshua tree is also an ecosystem all its own. Yucca brevifolia shelters orioles and owls; kestrels rest in the branches from hunting trips; and Loggerhead Shrikes stab lizards on the spines, letting the meat ripen. On spring nights, Yucca moths pollinate the trees’ flowers, which look like popcorn bouquets.

Cholla Cactus Garden
Cholla Cactus Garden showcases the lush-looking plant with bristles that “jump” onto unwary passersby. Photo by Ralph Nordstrom.

The animals knew from the beginning what it took people a while to learn. “Anybody who lived out here had to meet the landscape on its own terms,” says Zarki. “You have to reckon with the fact that the desert only offers so much.”

And for those who learned the lesson, the desert could be a surprisingly gentle place. In a tiny bowl canyon in the northwest edge of the park, the Keys family ranched, farmed, and mined the area for more than 50 years. Digging 25 feet or more to hit water, using equipment abandoned by those who could not find a way to water the desert into Eden and so fled for cooler climes, the Keys raised their kids here, accepting any guest who walked by. The family patriarch, Bill, even appeared in a couple Disney movies. The ranch, now open for tours, shows the way to survive in the desert—waste nothing and pay attention to the details.

On a small basis, the park simply absorbs human impact; when the people leave, the mines cave in and dirt blows over their trails. But now, with more than a half-million visitors a year, that impact lingers. Air quality is an increasing issue as the cities and agriculture draw closer. Coyotes prowl campgrounds, and increased trash has created a boom in the raven population, which has, in turn, brought a crisis to the tortoise population (because ravens enjoy nothing more than some tortoise for dessert).

But I tend to think this is all temporary. Time works differently in the desert, and with all the time in the world I watch a trail of ants working a low hill and see the curved track a snake took towards shade. Early in the morning the white petals of a ghost flower glisten with dew, and at night the sky is deeper by hundreds of light years to what I’m used to seeing.

“When I first came, this all looked dead to me,” says Jenn Schramm, a ranger in the park. “And now I see all kinds of stuff.” The very best deserts, I think, teach you how to look. It just takes a little time.

Lose Weight for Good!

Becoming happier, saving more money, falling in love, and spending more time reading are all perennial favorites among Americans’ New Year’s resolutions. But year after year—according to online polls and other surveys—the number one spot remains the same: losing weight. If you’re an optimist, you might interpret that as a sign that we’re facing up to the national obesity epidemic; 68 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. But if you’re a realist, you may see the unending quest for weight loss differently—as evidence that shedding pounds and keeping them off seems to be harder than growing a third arm.

Why? Or, as anyone who has tried and tried but failed and failed to permanently slim down might put it, “Why??!!” If you read the testimonials from people who lost 50, 100, or more pounds on a commercial diet or the seemingly sure-fire advice from health magazines (eat pistachios! try grapefruit!), losing weight is easy. But here’s the irony: There are almost as many ways to successfully lose weight as there are people who need to do so.

To name but a few examples, drinking lots of water does make you feel fuller and therefore likely to eat less. (In one study, drinking 16 ounces of water before a meal led to 5 extra pounds of weight loss after 12 weeks—people felt too full to eat more.) Eating soup for dinner does, indeed, fill you up (again, with water), making it easier to eat less. Covering two-thirds of your plate with vegetables (no cream sauce!) leaves less room for calorie-laden meats and starches, reducing caloric intake. Cutting out booze, sugar- or fat-laden drinks (that includes lattes), potato chips, baked desserts—you know the list—does help. But knowing what works and doing what works are two different things.

Just in time for 2012, research is finally addressing the “doing” part. From psychological tactics such as exploiting the power of groups to a new understanding of metabolism, science has more to offer dieters than ever before, providing guidance about which diet and exercise regimens offer the best chance to help you lose weight and become fitter.

Take the most fundamental of dieting basics: that weight drops when and only when the number of calories you burn exceeds the number you take in. Experts now recognize that both sides of the energy/balance equation—calories burned and calories consumed—are not as simple as how much you exercise and how many calories are in the food that passes your lips. “The conventional thinking about calories in/calories out is changing, as research shows that people have different reactions to different macronutrients,” says Dr. Richard Kreider, professor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University. “That’s why no one diet or exercise plan works for every individual. If everyone cut their intake 500 calories a day and exercised an hour more, it would have different effects on different people.”

Let’s start with calories burned. Don’t be discouraged by the paltry number you burn during exercise (for a 160-pound person, 288 calories in a leisurely one-hour bike ride, for example, or 317 in a one-hour walk at 3 miles per hour—in both cases, barely enough to burn off a couple of scrambled eggs on unbuttered toast). Instead, emphasize the kind of exercise that can increase your metabolism so you burn more calories doing “nothing.” Fidgety people tend to be slimmer; burning extra calories for, say, 16 hours per waking day, seven days a week, adds up to more than you get by brief and sporadic bursts of exercise. That doesn’t mean we should all start fidgeting. But the basic principle means that it helps to incorporate resistance (or strength) training into your regimen. Leg lifts, situps, squats, and the like build muscle, notes Kreider. A pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat. Therefore, replacing fat with muscle will raise your baseline metabolism. “You burn more calories after your workout as well as during,” Kreider says.

Slashing your caloric intake, on the other hand, lowers baseline metabolism. This is why so many people are yo-yo dieters. They shed pounds by limiting their calories to, say, 1,200 a day, but because very low-calorie diets tend to take off muscle (in many cases, half or more of the lost pounds are muscle) the result is an increasingly lower metabolism. Eventually it gets so low, says Kreider, that you have to practically starve yourself to keep from gaining weight.

Starving yourself is not fun, in case you hadn’t noticed. And being miserable on a diet is also a big reason people give up, setting the stage for next year’s New Year’s resolution. Very low-cal diets can trip you up for another reason. A study published online last September in The Journal of Clinical Investigation found that when glucose levels drop, as happens when we consume too little, the brain’s hypothalamus senses the change and activates the brain’s insula and striatum, which are associated with reward, inducing a desire to eat. At the same time, the prefrontal cortex seems to lose its ability to put the brakes upon the “EAT! EAT!” signals coming from the striatum. That impairs the ability to inhibit the impulse to eat when glucose levels plunge, explained Dr. Kathleen Page of the University of Southern California, who led the study.

Different foods can raise or lower your baseline metabolism. To lose weight, you want more of the former without compromising nutrition. Green tea and caffeine raise baseline metabolism. And because muscle burns more calories than fat, foods that build muscle—namely, those high in protein—will indirectly raise your metabolism just as resistance training does. Calories from protein also take more calorie-burning energy to digest and leave you feeling fuller than calories from carbohydrates. High-fiber grains are a close second followed by fruits and vegetables with starches and sugars trailing badly. If a diet leaves you feeling full, you are more likely to stick to it, making it a true lifestyle change and not an eight-week crash program. The realization that foods differ in how full they leave you led Weight Watchers to revamp its famous points system a year ago. A PB&J on white bread with chips sets you back 11 points, but so does a heaping Greek salad, soup, pasta, and grapes, which is much more filling. The idea is to use your points on foods like the latter.

The protein effect helps explain why, in a 2011 Consumer Reports analysis, Jenny Craig, Slim-Fast, and Weight Watchers were all good to excellent at both short- and long-term weight loss and adherence (Jenny Craig came out on top). These diets are effective because they get 20 percent or more of calories from protein (experts suggest going as high as 30 percent) and include at least 21 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories. How much of a difference can protein and resistance training make? Kreider put patients on a 2,600-calorie-a-day regimen—800 more than they’d been on during an earlier weight-loss diet—plus exercise. They had very low resting metabolisms, probably a result of their low energy intake. But the patients lost weight on the higher-cal diet; its higher protein content and resistance training built muscle and raised baseline metabolism. “Higher protein intake can also lead to changes in gene expression that make you burn fat more effectively,” says Kreider. It never hurts to have your DNA on board.

One reason Jenny Craig edged its competitors is that it offers single-serving entrees, desserts, and snacks (1,315 calories a day), removing the element of choice. That may sound restrictive, but many dieters are relieved to outsource such decisions. “They’re very effective for some people,” says Dr. John Foreyt, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine and director of its Behavioral Medicine Research Center. In fact, “some people” seems to be “many people.” Strictly prescribed plans tend to have lower drop-out rates both long-term (one year or more) and short-term (less than six months), Consumer Reports found.

On a structured eating plan you are also less likely to eat anything actively bad for you such as foods containing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Here is another example of how not all calories are created equal. Although HFCS has no more calories than other sugars, its effect on the brain and body seem to be different, says Dr. Richard Shriner, director of the eating orders and obesity program at the University of Florida, Gainesville. It reduces levels of leptin, the appetite hormone that signals us that we’re full. Shriner calls HFCS a “bariatric food”—a food that alters our physiology in a way that promotes more weight gain than its calorie count would indicate.

The most important factor in whether you will lose weight on a diet is whether you can stay on it. That may partly explain the edge that low-carb diets have over low-fat diets. Low-fat diets are necessarily lower-protein diets because most proteins (meat, dairy, nuts) come with fat. “A low-fat diet is like eating cardboard,” says Foreyt. “You feel hungry and unhappy. For long-term success, a diet has to be tailored to your likes and dislikes.”

Foreyt’s statement is supported by a 2010 study in the New England Journal of Medicine in which fewer people on high-protein diets (like Atkins) dropped out than on low-protein-high-carb diets (26 percent vs. 37 percent).

Exercise plays a role in adherence, too. It promotes a sense of well-being thanks to its ability to raise levels of endorphins and other feel-good chemicals in the brain. “And if you feel better about yourself, you’re more likely to stick to a diet,” says Foreyt. That said, it’s just about impossible to lose weight by ramping up physical activity if you don’t change what you eat. A 2011 analysis of 14 exercise studies, which included 1,847 overweight patients, with aerobic exercise programs ranging from 12 weeks to 12 months found an average weight loss of 3.5 pounds after six months and 3.7 pounds after 12. Or as the scientists from McGill University in Montreal concluded, “isolated aerobic exercise is not an effective weight loss therapy.” For exercise to help, it must be “in conjunction with diets.”

The realization that many diets work as long as people stick to them, and that what matters for any individual is whether he or she can do that, has led weight-loss experts to recognize the crucial role that psychology plays in efforts to slim down. Jenny Craig offers counseling sessions, and Weight Watchers has weekly meetings. Curves offers 30-minute structured resistance and aerobic exercise workouts—30 minutes, 500 calories, plus residual metabolism increase. The importance of exercise to build metabolism-raising muscle as well as burn calories means that social support making you more likely to work out can mean the difference between success and failure. “If you want to lose weight, don’t go it alone, especially for exercise,” says Kreider. Try a buddy system. “Trying to lose weight can be a very lonely experience,” says Shriner. “When you’re staring at the fridge at 2 a.m. and are about to binge, have a friend you can call.”

Research has now focused in on what other kinds of psychological support are most helpful, and the winner so far is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In this approach, which has also proven effective in mental illnesses such as depression, a therapist helps people recognize the negative thoughts that may be keeping them from losing weight, especially the idea that having failed before (as is true for most dieters) means they will fail again. CBT “helps make people aware of what they are telling themselves, especially in the aftermath of a multitude of previous failures,” says Brent Van Dorsten, a clinical health psychologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. A 2005 review of 36 studies with 3,595 participants by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international group of scientific and medical experts, found that CBT “significantly improved the success of weight loss” compared to diet and exercise alone. “We now have years of research showing that cognitive and behavioral components make a real difference in weight-loss programs,” says Van Dorsten. “When therapists help you set a realistic and clearly defined weight-loss goal, combine several dietary and physical activity strategies, and keep you from catastrophizing”—that is, concluding from one slip-up at the dessert table that you are doomed to fail again—“all of these improve long-term weight loss.”

The use of CBT is part of a sea change in the science of weight loss, which recognizes that what happens inside your skull is as important as what happens inside your digestive system. For instance, a 2011 study by scientists at Yale found that when people thought of a food (in this case, a milk shake) as rich, indulgent, and loaded with calories, after drinking it people’s levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin fell off a cliff; they couldn’t eat another bite. But when people thought of the same food as low-cal and “sensible,” their ghrelin levels hardly budged after they drank it; they were still hungry. That offers another explanation of why “diet” foods don’t work—we think they’re about as filling as a carrot, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lesson: Persuade yourself that the foods on your meal plan are filling and indulgent.

At the end of the day, eating sensibly and exercising requires will power. Here, too, science is revealing previously unsuspected aspects of this precious commodity.

Psychologist Roy Baumeister of Florida State University has shown that will power is a finite resource just like, say, energy; if you use a lot of it for one thing you have less left for another. People who are on a strict diet have trouble resisting the siren call of buying, for instance. Having deployed their self-restraint on passing up dessert at lunch with friends, they have none left to resist that amazing pair of shoes calling to them from the shop window.

And, if all else fails, there’s always New Year 2013!


Easy Rules for a Stay-Slim Life

Will power is limited. Arrange your life so you don’t need to tap into it so often.

Shop lite.
Don’t buy calorie-laden, temptation foods in the first place. If you do buy them, put them as far out of sight and reach as possible.

Eat at home.
Scarfing down thousands of calories at a restaurant is just too easy.

Keep a journal.
Make a record of your weight-loss project—and don’t skimp on the self-praise. On a day when you couldn’t resist the ham, cheese, and mayo-stuffed triple-decker, seeing how abstemious you were on days past can be a real confidence builder.

Sleep better.
Because sleep deprivation can sap will power, make seven or eight hours per night of shut-eye a priority.

Reward yourself.
Everyone needs rewards, and frequent little ones can help will power. Try incorporating a treat into your weight-loss regimen. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that dieters who ate one dark chocolate each day lost the same 11 pounds over 18 weeks as those eating the same foods but without the chocolate.

Don’t Overdo it.
Pledging to lose weight is hard enough, and trying to make other lifestyle changes at the same time will weaken your overall resolve. Get real! You can’t have it all. Don’t start a stressful project at work or at home just as you launch your weight-loss plan.

Eat More often!
Another tip that has emerged from a better understanding of physiology and physiology is that eating stimulates the digestive system to store glucose and fat, which increases metabolism and quells appetite. Between meals, fat and glucose are released from storage to keep our cells running, and metabolism slows. Bottom line: Many dieters have better results if they eat five small meals a day rather than three large ones. Eating more often keeps metabolism elevated and prevents the blood-sugar crashes that can make you devour an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s. In contrast, if you eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day, your body, which thinks famine is at hand, hunkers down in survival mode, slowing down your metabolism and promoting fat storage. And feeling chronically hungry eventually makes all but the most self-flagellating of us abandon the diet.

Aunt Mary Ann’s Four-Layer Whiskey Cake

My Aunt Mary Ann always made this four-layer whiskey cake for my father, a Christmas tradition dating back decades. For most of her life she kept the recipe secret, although she finally decided to share it with the rest of the family a few years ago. The resulting cake will be dense and heavy, like a fruitcake, with a strong whiskey odor and flavor.

Two warnings:


Aunt Mary Ann’s Four-Layer Whiskey Cake

Ingredients:

Cakes:

Icing:

Directions:

Cakes:
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream butter with electric mixer and gradually add in sugar. Beat mixture until light and fluffy; mix in vanilla.

Still using the electric mixer, slowly add in flour, baking powder, and salt. To keep the batter at a manageable consistency, alternate adding dry ingredients and splashes of milk. Beat batter until smooth.

In another bowl, beat egg whites (set aside egg yolks for the icing) with electric mixer on high until they’re stiff but not totally dry. Fold egg whites into cake batter with a spatula. Batter will be very thick.

Spoon batter evenly into four round, 9-inch, pre-greased baking pans. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean; remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes before turning cakes out on wire cooling rack.

Icing:

While cakes cool, beat egg yolks with a fork and put them in a saucepan with sugar and butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes or until sugar is all dissolved and mixture has thickened slightly. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining icing ingredients. Let stand until cool.

Assembly:

Spread cooled icing between cake layers and on top of assembled cake.

Place the iced cake in an airtight container for 3 or 4 days to allow it to flavor before serving.

The Spuntino Way

After serving up heaping ladles full of John Mariani’s Sunday gravy from our Jan/Feb issue, we wanted to try even more of the Italian specialty. Fortunately for us, the owners of Frankies Spuntino restaurant in Brooklyn, Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo, obliged. These recipes come to us from The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual, by Falcinelli, Castronovo, and food writer Peter Meehan. Buon appetito!

Frankies Spuntino Tomato Sauce
(Makes about 3 quarts)

Directions

1. Combine olive oil and garlic in large deep saucepan and cook over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring or swirling occasionally, until garlic is deeply colored—striations of deep brown running through golden cloves—and fragrant. If garlic starts to smell acrid or sharp or is taking on color quickly, pull pan off stove and reduce heat.

2. While garlic is getting golden, deal with tomatoes: Pour them into bowl and crush them with your hands. We like to pull out the firmer stem end from each of the tomatoes as we crush them and discard those along with the basil leaves that are packed into the can.

3. When garlic is just about done, add red pepper flakes to the oil and cook them for 30 seconds or a minute, to infuse their flavor and spice into the oil. Dump in the tomatoes, add the salt, and stir well. Turn the heat up to medium, get the sauce simmering at a gentle pace, not aggressively, and simmer for 4 hours. Stir it from time to time. Mother it a little bit.

4. Check the sauce for salt at the end. The sauce can be cooked with meat at this point, or stored, covered, in the fridge for at least 4 days or frozen for up to a few months.

Meatballs
(Makes 6 servings—18 to 20 meatballs)
Cooked Meatballs