Until the twentieth century, cancer was a rare disease.  It occurred mainly in chimney sweeps, metal workers, and alchemists.  Now, in modern society, cancer pervades our every consciousness, infects our children, and shortens our life span.   Cancer is completely avoidable and results from exposure to chemicals, radiation, and viruses.   Massive or cumulative accumulation of radiation or infection by rare and usually unknown viruses may induce cancer, but the main culprits are organic chemicals.   In Cotran-Clinical Pathology, a timeline reveals the exponential increase in leukemia during the twentieth century. Cells that divide quickly, like white blood cells seem more prone to developing cancer.

The main offenders in the development of cancer are organic chemicals.   As petroleum and the energy that it confers, the plastics that it makes, and the pharmaceuticals it does convene, use increases, so does the incidence of cancer.  Medical drugs, like heart drugs and anti-hypertensive agents, produced by medical corporations, act as Grignard addition reactants to the DNA and induce cancer.  On a molecular scale, active transcribing DNA in a cell, which makes proteins conferring a cell identity, becomes inoperable due to petroleum chemical addends, the cell reverts to a more primitive gene product in the chromosomes, one that mandates uncontrolled growth like a developing organ in a child.  The proteins a cell makes confer the identity and function of that cell.  Acid proteins and histones strip from the DNA on a chromosome permitting the DNA to translate into protein.  This translatable DNA is chemically reactive, and if destroyed by chemicals, the cell unmasks new genes on new chromosomes, by stripping histones and acid protein, and the cell to survive becomes cancer.  Cancer is uncontrolled growth, a condition resembling primitive embryonic cells in the womb. 

Cells have protein on their surface produced by DNA that reveals the cell’s identity.  As a tangential reference to oncogenesis, a fetus in a womb causes the mother to produce antibodies to the fetus and these antibodies, used in tissue typing are HLA antigens.  The mother produces antibodies to the developing child and when this response becomes paramount, the body induces birth or in an immunologic sense, a rejection of the child by the body.  Similarly with cancer, if a patient fights cancer long enough, the body produces antibodies to the tumor and rejects it.  The HLA antigens found on cancer cells reveal the cancer’s identity and also the chromosomes making the protein HLA antigens.  In Immunology parlance, these antigens refer to onco-fetal antigens.  Carcino-embryonic antigens found in lung tumors and ovarian tumors are onco-fetal antigens.  In Sir Harland Burnett’s theory of immune surveillance, cancer if fought long enough becomes attacked by the immune system and eliminated because it is non-host.  In reality, the drugs used in cancer chemotherapy destroy the immune system along with the tumor, and the patient, if they survive becomes susceptible to infection and dies of sepsis due to an impaired immune response. 

Back to the cell.  The 46 chromosomes in a cell are the product of millions of years of evolution from a single-cell entity, to a metazoan, and finally an intelligent animal.  This is why we have 46.  As carcinogenic agents destroy actively transcribing DNA primitive DNA from eons past starts to work, making protein antigens, and the cell trying  to survive, divides repeatedly.   The antigens present on the cancer cell membranes reveal the chromosome making the onco-fetal antigens.   Cancer cells can be immune-typed like tissue, with HLA antibodies.  The current dogma in Pathology of characterizing neoplastic tissue by chromosome mutation merely is the revelation of stochastic, happenchance destruction of actively transcribing DNA by chemicals.  It is this author’s opinion, that current Molecular Biology techniques used by Pathology are merely instruments used by professionals to bolster their income. 

Chemicals, even household chemicals if ingested produce cancer.  Metals like Chromium, nickel, and arsenic are revealed in Wikipedia as active causal agents.   Gamma radiation and alpha particles used in diagnostic medical research produce leukemia and lymphoma. Viruses seen in lower life forms produce neoplasia but this is a rarity and subject to another book.  Cancer if limited in growth by current antibiotic ribosomal agents or telomeres inhibitors eventually is rejected by the body’s immune system. Again, this is material for another book.  What I am speaking about is relevance.

If a human being does not want to get cancer, maybe they should not ingest chemicals. In modern society, this is more easily said than done as all food is preserved in the supermarket with either chemicals or metals.   Arsenic in pepper shakers happens everywhere.  Benzene, used to preserve hard liquor is everywhere.  Formula 409 and Mister Clean are potent chemicals that cause cancer if ingested, the list is endless and increasing.  The poor agrarian life of a farmer or food producer is probably healthier than an executive position in a skyscraper with lunch at a restaurant.  Please do not relegate this edition as ravings from Rasputin, the mad monk.   Rather, this is a lonely man who wonders how he can get a good buzz by himself of non-adulterated gin at the beach or by a long and winding river.  Maybe pot will do but this author does not like to get high.   Carry on and keep a stiff upper lip and maybe something will break.  HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL!  

A long time ago in Tranquil Hills, darkness prevails and Grandpa is still alive.   He is having a ceremonial dinner with us and his family.   The Wracks doesn’t know if they are related or merely business associates but he calls them his family.   The Chivas are five in number and all men.   They do business with Grandpa and he has invited them all to dinner.  In the early evening, they all pile out of a large domestic sedan and storm into the small Wracks house.  They make themselves at home in the living room, the one with white and green shag carpeting.   The Christmas tree is still up and blinking merrily with five strands of incandescent lights.  The Wracks help Father extend the table so it holds twelve-plus people in the small dining area family room.  The table is set with festive colors and settings and mom calls the family to sit and have an Italian dinner.   The Fonz is here too.   Everyone sits down in the fold-out chairs usually kept in the garage. The Chivas dress in polyester pants with white short-sleeved work shirts.  They are all bald like Grandpa except for one who sits next to the Fonz and wears a blond wig.   They all say they are in the “business” except for the one who wears a wig and works as a manager in a convenience store.  Tonight, New Year’s Day is an Italian feast.  Grandma and mom fix two larger broiler chickens, peppered on top and stuffed in the cavity with garlic cloves and basil.  A large bowl of homemade sauce configured with boiled chicken feet tied in cheesecloth and simmered in tomato puree. A huge colander holds two pounds of rigatoni pasta cooked al dente.   In addition, a large picnic salad bowl holds romaine lettuce doused with olive oil and red vinegar.   Grandpa requests this fare because it is his favorite.  Petite demure Grandma sits next to the Wracks and always has a smile for him.   Dinner is on and the Chivas leap to the passthrough and heaps their plates with tons of food and pour tomato sauce all over it.   The Fonz and the Wracks are last and take what is left over in the Buffett.  At the table, Grandma puts an extra chicken wing on the Wrack’s plate and smiles. 

Father Wracks rings his wine glass with his fork and speaks. “Who is better than us?  Manja”. 

A fine rose in separate bottles passes around and everyone eats the Italian cuisine like ravenous animals.  When everyone has seconds and the buffet pass-through is empty, they sit around with big smiles and pick their teeth with toothpicks. For dessert, they enjoy Italian cannoli.   The youngest one named “Quinto” because he is the fifth-born child shows the Wracks a six-inch switchblade that he carries around with him. 

“When you punch someone, twist your fist in so you cut their flesh and make them bleed”

The Wracks smile and heed his advice. The one with the wig who sits next to the Fonz doesn’t say much but they seem to accept each other just fine.  Quinto shows the Wracks his left hand where his index finger was bit off in a fistfight in a bar with one of the gangs.  

He smiles and says “Omerta”

The Wracks nods his head and smiles sheepishly.   The Wracks’ grandfather grins with a carnivorous smile and goes to sit in the green reclining chair in the family room.   He lights up a foot-long Roi Tan cigar and the room fills with thick wafting smoke.   The Wracks goes to the window and opens the sliding window completely and the smoke drifts out in long strands.   Grandfather picks up the current LA Times reads the financial section and puffs away.  The guests move to the living room and ask for some whiskey.    Father Wracks has some and gives them a full bottle with five shot glasses.   They are all completely sated and amused.  The Wracks cleans up the kitchen and the Fonz disappears out the front door and then he goes and sits in his bedroom and reads.   Father announces that the guests are leaving.  The Wracks picks up the glasses, loads the dishwasher, and then starts it up.   The Chivas file out the front door and pile into the late model sedan, smile, wave goodbye, and are off.   The business deal has gone through and the Wracks will never see them again.  Grandma and Grandpa are the next to leave.  The Wracks retrieves their coats and they enter the white Ford Fairlane that the Fonz will eventually inherit and convert into a surf van.  They slowly motor off.  Once again, the Wracks are alone and he dismantles the big dining room table, Mom and Dad go to their bedroom and New Year’s Day is over.   The Fonz always disappears into one of the neighbor’s houses and the Wracks don’t know where.  The Wracks prepare for bed.

This is a long time ago when the force was weak and the darkness covered the city of Tranquil Hills.   The Wracker house does not exist anymore, the new buyers demolished it and built a two-story edifice to take advantage of the ocean view.  All things come and pass and humanity transforms into nothing more than another grain of sand on the beach.  The eccentric neighbors come and go and the housing tract speculates to the abode of the entertainers and their managers. The green house is still there and like everywhere there stand houses that seem empty but are owned by people that come and go in the night.  The only indication of occupancy is the trash cans set out once a week for Action Rubish to reclaim.   The canyon is there where the Wracks hunted but now is devoid of wildlife except for rodents and reptiles.  Beautiful sunsets remain.  As one looks out to sea, almost every day, the clouds are orange, then turn to red, and then violet and the day ends and the night begins and everyone comes out.    America is God’s country.