So it was about 1982 I happened to stop by a yard sale off highway 24 just outside of Topeka and bought my first blender. It was an Oster Beehive model, two bucks. I started my morning ritual of blending various fruits and vegetables shortly after, concocting some delicious offerings, and some not so great.

The blender on the left in the photo is the original one, now housing a marble collection. It lasted, remarkably, until about 2017 when we purchased a new beehive Oster as pictured on the right. The newer Oster did not hold up, especially since I got approximately thirty five years out of the older Oster, and it was used!

As our friend and all around good-guy Nick Tomazic had been singing the praises of the Vitamix, in 2017 he helped Connie find a good deal on a re-conditioned Vitamix Turboblend 3-speed model for our anniversary. I’ll never go back to a cut-rate blender again.

Over the years I’ve been asked, “Gary, just what is it that you put in your blender each morning to make the concoction that has kept you so youthful and effervescent?” Most recently, my brother from another mother, Marty Olson, asked me that very question (paraphrased) and I sent him a play by play pictorial. So now you’ll know the secret to longevity, too.

I plop in a banana, an avocado, and beets and carrots. I pre-cut beets and carrots to fill a Dannon-type yogurt container that lasts over a week.

Then I use a generous amount of cinnamon and turmeric along with a hunk of ginger. Also a dollop of plain yogurt.

I then add frozen fruit I have on hand. My main five are blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, and mango. Strawberries and mango I’ll buy fresh when I can, cut them up, and freeze them. The other berries are too expensive fresh here in the southwest.

I keep chard and/or beet greens on hand to stuff in the top.

Then I add a bit of these four liquids; kefir, kombucha, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar.

Then the main liquid is a combo of either flax or oat milk and apple juice or a veggie green juice when I can find it.

Here’s a pic of the blender and the final result. I make enough for each of us along with a container for an afternoon pre-nap delight. The things that thrill us in in our 60s are not the things that thrilled us in our youth. Just sayin’…

Thanks, folks, and keep those cards and letters coming!

The American Southwest, 1986

Have some of this…