October 13 '01
Volume 280
Sore Muscles
[Memorable Experiences]
My son’s conversational skills
and thought processes can sometimes leave me frustrated. He has
enough of his mother in him to keep quiet unless he has something to say,
and he has enough of my humor-genes to thwart attempts by the average person
seeking a direct answer to a direct question. Jason seems to derive some
sadistic pleasure in avoiding explanations. He prefers to give the listener
a few clues and then expects him or her to figure out what it is he’s
talking about. In that regard, he is not at all a "chip off the old block,"
as I tend to over explain things.
With regard to how he approaches explaining something, he tends to rely upon
his mom’s technique of backing into a point, instead of making a point
and then elaborating. For example, I might comment on the need for wearing
warm clothing due to the weather being cold by stating, "It’s bad cold
out there, so you’d better bundle up before you go out," thus defining
the condition and explaining how to respond.
However, Barbara might choose a different approach. "I’m going to have
to find my wool pants, before I go to work today. It was supposed to get
down in the twenties last night. I don’t know if I need a sweater or
a jacket, today. Maybe, I’ll go with the layered look. It was cold when
I went out to get the paper."
See the difference? The fact that "it's cold" was not addressed until near
the end of the monologue.
At breakfast, one morning last week, Jason addressed me with a question.
"Do you remember the time you played baseball with me on Father Son Night
at our little league game?" He asked.
"I can’t say that I do," I responded.
"You don’t remember how sore you were the next day?" Jason asked.
"Are you sure I played in a game with you?" I asked, still stuck on the first
question and having absolutely no recollection of the event.
"Yeah, yeah, you did. And you were so sore you could hardly move the next
day," Jason said assuredly. "I'm that sore today."
Finally, Jason had gotten around to telling me what it was he wanted me to
know.
"How'd that happen?" I asked.
"Playing softball at the company picnic all yesterday afternoon," he replied.
"Take a few aspirin or a few Ibuprofen," I admonished in my best Father
Knows Best tone.
"I did, but it hasn't helped," he stated.
"Well, you're not a teenager anymore, and you'll find that as you get older,
sore muscles come around more frequently," I concluded as I began to silently
ponder the things that cause sore muscles.
These days, yard work is the most prominent offender of my muscular comfort.
If I cut my yard, Sarah's yard, and the "circle" all in one day, I'll be
sore the next day. Though I'm riding a lawnmower during it all, the jostling
about tends to take its toll on me.
Gas powered hedge trimmers are killers. With all the bending, stooping, and
contorting, while wrestling the trimmer over the tops and sides of hedges
of varying widths and heights, I end up taxing the limits of muscles in both
my torso and appendages.
I rarely use my LawnBoy self-propelled mower except for mulching leaves or
bagging clippings, but whenever I do, I'll have plenty of sore muscles the
next day. Mostly, the soreness will be confined to my legs, but depending
upon how many times the clippings need emptying, I may also have some back
soreness.
Through the years, I've discovered that almost any work that places a demand
upon muscles not regularly exercised will produce soreness. For example,
anything requiring carpentry skills will do me in, be it squatting to work
beneath a kitchen cabinet, climbing a ladder carrying roofing materials,
or simply putting up some new shelving in the utility room.
It seems my legs are some of the weakest members of my body. Though, come
to think of it, it's always been that way, at least, ever since I began to
take note of sore muscles. In the late fifties and early sixties, Tony Austin
and I used to toss and kick a football in the spacious front yard of my parents'
house on Woodland Street. I remember sore legs occurring more often than
sore arms.
There is one soreness recollection that harks back to 1959 that remains vivid,
even today. Dad considered my help in his grocery store of greater value
than whatever my one hundred thirty-one pounds might have to offer the local
football team. Dad figured I'd miss too many afternoons of work were I to
play the sport, so he pretty much nixed my idea of trying out for the football
team. I never wanted to play basketball, but baseball appealed to me when
I was in grade school. Yet, Dad felt baseball games and practices would keep
me away from my "job" too much.
Somehow, when I made known my desire to try my skill as a pole-vaulter in
the spring of 1959, Dad gave his permission. I don't know if it had to do
with the shortness of the track season or the fact that he himself was once
a vaulter, but he relented, allowing me to enter the high school sports world
for the first time.
It was a different world in which I found myself in my junior year, standing
in line to pick up my jockstrap, gym shorts, and track shoes, surrounded
by seasoned athletes, most of whom were football players who held no particular
love of track and field events, but were present because the football coach
wanted them kept in shape. The jockstrap was a new experience for me, and
once I figured out that it was not worn over my boxer shorts, I was soon
fitted into it.
The gym shorts posed no particular problem except they exposed far too much
of my white legs. The track shoes were definitely…different. They looked
entirely too much like ballet slippers, having pointed toes and barely covering
my feet. The thin soles had a series of spikes projecting from the front
portion beneath the balls of my feet, while the rear was without a heel.
When I asked about the absence of heels, a veteran athlete informed me that
runners run on their toes. I would live to regret not checking out the footwear
before making the plunge into the world of track.
Though I had signed on as a pole-vaulter, I soon learned that running laps
around the football field was part of the routine. I later thought it similar
to 'busy work' that classroom teachers find for students to do while the
teacher works on a separate project.
"Ten laps," the coach shouted, and I felt myself being urged along by the
mass of runners surrounding me.
"So this is what it feels like to be livestock or lemmings," I thought, while
striving to find a comfortable pace.
I soon learned that comfortable is not an official term as applied to "track."
Running on my toes was uncomfortable, as was running with shoes having no
heels. If my heel touched the ground first, an "uncushioned," uncomfortable
jolt resulted. Those whose athletic abilities were never in question, such
as Jimmy Weatherly and Wayne Tutor seemed to play along the way, running
effortlessly, prancing sometimes dancing, while others watched their fun
with bridled envy.
After five laps, I wondered how I could possible complete the remaining five,
but peer acceptance is a strong motivation for a sixteen-year old. Somehow,
I managed to finish the run without coming in dead last; that honor was bestowed
upon a few of the guards and linemen from the football team.
I don't remember if I practiced pole-vaulting that day, or even how I got
home afterwards. I did not have the luxury of my own car, and it's possible
that I walked or rode home with a friend. However, I do remember the afternoon
was on a day Dad had set aside to fertilize the corn crop. Since he was at
home, I believe the day must have been a Wednesday, because in 1959 most
businesses in downtown Pontotoc were closed on Wednesday afternoon.
It was my job to haul the fertilizer that was stacked in the backyard to
wherever Dad was in the field whenever he needed more fertilizer. I remember
not being able to walk, so I had to run as I did my chores. My leg muscles
had become so constricted during the ten laps around the football field that
their normal function was impaired. It's not easy to run with a fifty pound
sack of fertilizer on ones shoulder, but it is possible. Dad didn't have
much sympathy for my condition, thinking a little work would be good for
me, after my having played away half the afternoon.
I made it to school the next day, miraculously. Walking was painful, and,
though tiptoeing proved embarrassing, it afforded some relief from my misery.
I remember going upstairs was pretty easy, but coming down was a task.
There's a lot I've been allowed to forget about the whole "suffering experience."
I don't remember how I felt at track that afternoon. I don't remember how
long it was before my legs felt normal again. Yet, I believe I shall always
remember my first day of track and the absolutely sorest muscles I've ever
had.
Rick's Take
[More On Getting Older]
For as long as I can remember I had always wanted to be a U.S. Marine. I
can remember at age 14 walking into the recruiting station and
announcing to the recruiters that I "intended on becoming a Marine"
as soon as I was of age. I am sure that the Marines present got a good chuckle
and forgot me as suddenly as I had walked in. As you may deduce, "getting
older" has always been a rhetorical "thought" for me.
When I was younger, I thought I had my life mapped out. After all, like every
teenager, I thought the world was mine for the taking!. I would join the
Marines at 17, hmmm……stay in for 30 years, retire at 47, get another
job just to keep me busy until I was old enough to retire yet again (i.e.,
collect social security). Naturally, as time marched on, my plans changed
somewhat. I decided I would retire from the Marines after 20 years and become
a golf professional (at a club, not on tour – I am not that good. Ha,
ha). I really did enjoy being a Marine however; I volunteered for
every exercise and/or deployment I could. It was my reasoning that this was
the best way for me to succeed and subsequently provide for my wife and daughter.
Now that I am getting older, I struggle daily to live with those choices;
having missed my daughter’s first footsteps, too many birthdays to remember,
and far and away too many Christmases/holidays have matured into painful
and regrettable memories. I suppose that is a consequence of having approached
age with rhetoric?
I have been tested more times than I care to remember by Him. I watched both
my parents endure a lingering death, went to a war in which my heart tells
me I may have killed men, and even experienced a potentially crippling automobile
accident (certainly a career-ending one). When my "plans" were changed by
this accident (I could no longer serve as a Marine because I could not run
or walk long distances, or become a golf professional because of those
limitations/pain), I was granted the opportunity to do a self-evaluation;
albeit a half-hearted one. Having had no experience other than leading men
and women, and a healthy portion of self-confidence (I have learned since
that in the private sector this trait is called arrogance and
obnoxiousness. Ha, ha), I learned what fear was! I’m not sure if
that signaled that I had grown up or not? Nevertheless, I dabbled in purchasing,
operations, and warehousing in various industries from auto parts to furniture.
It seems that age has had a reverse effect on me, the older I have gotten,
the more I have refused to grow up! I still have a lion’s share of
anxiousness, and continue to look for a challenge. But, fortunately, my age
is beginning to catch up to me – I tried relocating to another city,
lured by money (greed), but learned that home is where the heart is. I have
since settled into an industry and job that I believe I can and will "grow
old with".
I don’t know what has forced me to face reality; Lord knows that he
has watched me exert a mammoth effort to avoid it, every step of the way.
I believe that "an awakening" occurs as one gets older; one tends
to "look back". Although I am sure that there are many, many people who would
advise to never, ever look back (the Marines called it decisiveness), I have
come to believe that "looking back" can and will help you see that which
is in front of you clearly. He knows that I never would look back, only ahead.
I believe that is what He has been trying to tell me; some of us are just
a little hardheaded, so He has had to use various teaching aids! Believe
or not, it was only recently that He suffered me yet another "tragedy" that
finally awakened me!
Age is, by definition the length of time a person or thing has existed; a
period of time; periods of history; or even maturity. My definition is "a
period of endurance". I also believe that as you do get older you tend not
to take things (or people) for granted.
I personally like Sarah’s (RRNews, Vol. 275) summation: "I submit that
youth and middle age can be likened to climbing the mountain. Getting older
is like coming down the mountain… Coming down is easy…’Grow
old along with me, the best is yet to be!’"
I never have had many fears, right or wrong. Perhaps if I had, some of my
choices may have been different. I know that I have never felt a fear for
dying – although I know that I will. Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared
that "we have nothing to fear, but fear itself!" Although the circumstances
for his historical speech were entirely different, and he was trying to assure
and motivate a nation, I used to plagiarize his words, marching around, to
and fro, bellowing his words without truly understanding them. To Marines,
friends, or family, I would assure them that the only thing they needed to
"fear was fear itself!" I realize now that we should allow ourselves to have
fears – not to succumb to them but recognize them and face them head
on.
You may glean from this article that I tend to approach things (life)
pragmatically. You would probably be right. But I am working on it…which
is my perspective "On Getting Older!"
Written by Rick Greene
Bodock Beau
[Kids: What Do They Know]
Gradeschoolers were asked to list one trinket of truth they'd gleaned from
their life. They came up with surprising bits of wisdom.
When you want something expensive, ask your grandparents--Matthew(12)
Never talk back to a teacher whose eyes are twitching--Andrew (9)
Sleep in your clothes so you'll be dressed in the
morning--Stephanie (8)
Don't flush the toilet when your Dad is in the shower--Lamar (10)
Never ask for anything that costs more than $5.00 when your parents are doing
taxes--Carrol (9)
When your Dad is mad and asks you 'Do I look stupid?' don't answer--Heather
(13)
Never tell your Mom her diet's not working--Michael (12)
Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat--Joel(12)
When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your Mom when she's on the
phone--Alyesha (13)
Never tell your little brother that you're not going to do what your Mom
told you to do--Hank (12)
Remember you're never too old to hold your father's hand--Molly(11)
Listen to your brain. It has lots of information--Chelsey (7)
Never dare your little brother to paint the car--Phillip (13)
Wear a hat when feeding seagulls--Rocky (9)
Never bug a pregnant Mom--Nicholas (11)
Stay away from prunes--Randy (9)
Submitted by Dusty Parker
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