ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997 TAG: 9704010014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I'd like to know why these research people can't come up with something good to eat or drink that will add years to your life - if that's what you really want to do in a world that has Bette Midler television specials in it.
These people now suggest that drinking purple grape juice will reduce your chances of a heart attack.
Couldn't it have been one of those mixtures of tropical juices that remind you of Dorothy Lamour? No. Grape juice. That's almost as bad as apple juice - for which no claims have been made yet, as far as I know.
I wonder if any of these eggheads who do this research ever tried to mix grape juice with vodka.
`Shut up and drink your juice'
This is what's going to happen: All over the country, men will arise from sleepless beds and stumble to the fridge for a shot of orange juice.
Instead, they'll find a plastic jug of grape juice. Grape juice doesn't prepare a person for daily terror the way orange juice does.
"Alma, isn't there any orange juice in the house? You know that I like to use it to get the old blood pressure pill down in the morning."
"Shut up and drink your grape juice. I'm looking after your heart here, you know."
The only other drink in the fridge is a carton of that no-fat milk that tastes like somebody cleaned the blackboards with it.
So, these guys don't drink any juice and maybe they don't take their pills and pretty soon the emergency rooms in the country are overcrowded and a lot of people in Florida go bankrupt because housewives are buying grape juice.
Old Bennie's grape empire
If I were a younger man, I'd go out and buy me some acreage and start a vineyard.
I can see it now. Old Bennie the master of a grape empire that stretches as far as the eye can see. Annual festivals for the locals in which chorus girls imported from Las Vegas symbolically trample grapes.
(Some of you may think that I've been mixing the purple grape juice I found in the fridge with vodka. To which slander I can only reply that you should be ashamed of yourselves.)
If I did have a grape empire, I would immediately endow several research projects to discover good things that are good for you.
For example, I would gladly finance a study in which laboratory mice are fed peanut butter over an extended time and tests show that they are immune to every disease known to man or woman.
Right after that report came out, I'd probably invest heavily in the peanut business and maybe buy a jelly factory.
Red Dog, rats and poetry
I would also bankroll a project in which laboratory animals given a large ration of Red Dog beer show signs of mental creativity not found in other animals who were given a popular no-calorie soft drink.
I don't know how you'd find out that a rat is thinking creative things, but these guys in the labs know what they're doing. They can stick wires on a rat's head and find out all kinds of things.
Besides, if they're using my dough they'd better come down on the side of Red Dog.
It would be clear that Red Dog could be instrumental in producing more poets, novelists, architects, musicians and ballet dances than ever before.
This would suggest that people who drink the no-calorie stuff probably would become newspaper columnists or people who write television commercials.
Excuse me. I've got to go choke down some pills with grape juice.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB