I look both ways before crossing the street.  I don't jump off bridges (No mom, not even if my friends do).  I don't keep a loaded pistol under my pillow.

I've never been one of those live-fast-die-young-leave-a-good-looking-corpse types.  When I do go, I want my corpse to look at least 100 years old.  Older, if possible.

But lately, some of my acquaintances have been making me feel as if I'm living on the edge.

It all began when I signed on for some tanning sessions at a local salon.  In my parents' day, doctors actually used to prescribe sunny climes to ailing patients.  In these more enlightened times, we've all heard enough from the surgeon general (the world's biggest party-pooper) to know that sunshine, whether real or artificial, is bad for you.

When my buddies learned of my efforts to bring my skin-tone in line with my own self-image as a groovy beach-type guy they immediately started in on me.  Some said it was the height of vanity to work that hard at a tan.  Some implied I'd be dead of radiation exposure within a week.

Well, so far it hasn't been much work.  It's been over a month now and I'm still not dead.  And for the first time since I moved north from Phoenix I have a decent tan.  I think in this case my various detractors are simply jealous of my pre-melanomic glow.

I intend to sign on for another hitch of artificial sunshine when my current membership runs out.  Is it worth the health risks involved?  Sure, and I'll tell you why:  Everything - yes - everything is bad for you.  Even things you've been led to believe are good for you.  Like sunshine.

An example: Several years ago, I rented a house with a hot tub on the back deck.  Back then, they were all the rage.  All the health and fitness "experts" said they were great for everything from tired blood to manic depression.  I figured this was actually the case.

Then my brother the nurse paid me a visit.  He had helped me move a particularly heavy stove and since neither of us are regular partakers of manual labor we were both a little sore.  I was looking forward to a long soak in the spa and I invited him to join me.

Eyeing the bubbling water dubiously, he said, "I'm not sure.  Is it safe?"

"What do you mean?" I replied.

He dipped one finger into the water, examined it carefully, then wiped it on his T-shirt.  "Well, I've heard these things are a breeding ground for dangerous micro-organisms."

"Oh, not this one," I said confidently.  "I have enough chemicals in there to kill anything."

My brother nodded knowingly.  "That's what I'm afraid of," he said.

I ended up soaking alone.  I looked carefully, but didn't see any micro-organisms.  And the chemicals didn't even burn off my tan.  I kept using the tub.

There are plenty of other "healthy" things I've done that have, in recent years, been declared unsafe:  Jogging.  I used to jog.  Then it turned out jogging is bad for the knees.  At least my knees.  I gave that one up.  I never cared for it much anyway.

Mega doses of vitamins.  Like a lot of people I went through a vitamin phase.  For about a year I took enough B, A, C and D to keep a small Mediterranean country sniffle-free for a decade.  Then someone (probably the surgeon general) discovered all those vitamins were doing weird things to my insides.  I gave the vitamins up, too.  But then, I hadn't liked the vitamins any better than I had liked jogging.

And what about all the things that used to be bad for us that have turned out to be healthy (or at least non-harmful) after all?  Like beer.  It used to be one of the seven deadly sins.  Now doctors tell us a couple glasses a day help prevent heart disease.  I don't know which doctor first discovered this fact, but I'd like to shake his hand.

Sitting too close to the television.  My mother always told me I'd shrivel up and die if I sat with my nose pressed against the screen.  She was wrong.  I still watch TV that way.

Reading in dim light.  Mom said it would make me blind.  Current ophthalmologic thinking says this isn't so.  It might give me a headache, but that's about it.  

With this kind of dubious track record, how can any of us be expected to trust health "experts"?

I, for one, have had it with trying to keep pace with what is and isn't bad for me.  From now on I'm going to keep my own counsels.  Good or bad, at least they will be my own.

I'm going to keep eating red meat, salt and fish from Lake Michigan.  I'm going to keep watching TV in the dark.  I'm going to be late to bed and late to rise, and I bet I'll still live longer than Ben Franklin, although I doubt I'll be as wealthy or wise.

And of course, living this way, when I finally do die, my corpse will look 100 years old.  Even if I go tomorrow.