Getting Old

ever feel that way? the old adage, "you're only as old as you feel" holds true. there are days i feel a hell of a lot older than i am. there are days, although not as often ,that i feel younger than i am.

i used to think it was funny when one of my grandmothers would say that they could feel it "in their bones" that the weather was going to change. thought they were full of crap. now i know it's NOT crap because i can feel it. my shoulder hurts worse, my knees pop, by hip pointer almost always acts up just before a front comes through.

it sucks having to pop my knuckles to make my hands work better. it hurts popping both knees when i get out of bed sometimes so i can walk painlessly. it hurts sitting in a chair when my butt needs popped (yes, my sacrum or coccyx does pop at the joint). my hip kills me when the pointer flares up. my shoulder really hurts when i lay on it or lean on it for even short periods of time or rotate it just at the wrong angle.

am i falling apart? not yet. i'm sure i probably exaggerate to a degree but these things actually do hurt. i don't complain a lot but they're noticeable. i'll lean down on the floor in the house and my knee will pop. sometimes someone else hears it an asks what that noise was. i'll blame it on a variety of things. i was a catcher in baseball for many years. all that stooping, bending, standing, squatting has caught up with me. running track, playing football, riding bikes, playing basketball, being a boy, climbing and occasionally falling out of trees; all those things probably helped somewhere along the lines.

now i just do it a little differently. i fight fires. i crawl on my hands and knees (ouch!). i lift people on to stretchers and backboards. i build things. i still swing an axe and sledgehammer when cutting wood. i pull when i should push. one might have thought that i'd learn a little, learn how to do things easier so i don't put as much wear and tear on my body. but i like what i do so i still do it.

we have 3 younger kids. they help keep both of us young or younger. i feel bad quite often that our son wants to roughhouse, play tag or whatever. i don't run like i used to. i'm old, fat, out of shape. i'm usually doing some other task, someone's at the house, or i'm just not in the mood to play those things that he wants to. i felt horrible a couple months ago when he came outside and told me he "wanted to work." hell, he's 7 1/2 years old. he's supposed to be playing, not working. he told me he likes to work. he gets a little of that from me in that there's always things to be done but gee whiz! enjoy being a kid. i did to a point but he needs to more than me.

i idolized my uncle because he was and still is the hardest working man i've ever met, the never stop work ethic. i don't think i ever worked that much but i learned from him that when the job's done you can stand back and look at what you accomplished and feel proud of your effort. i like being able to do that now. take splitting wood; a lot of people i know burn firewood, like we do. most have log splitters which takes a lot of the physical labor out of it. i use an axe and do it the hard way. i like being able to see how big my wood piles are at the end of a job and see just what i've accomplished by my own sweat and effort. makes me feel good knowing i did an honest day's work and my family will benefit because of it.

and there's the fire station. i see all these young kids running around whose parents i graduated with. these kids are seniors in high school or in college. there are kids that i can remember in diapers that now call me "old man." went to a fire a couple weeks ago and i was the senior man on the truck, by age only. our "daughter" is 22, as we've "adopted" her and she calls me "pops." i've always loved having a huge family and she's a terrific addition to our family. she loves our kids and they love her. but man, being called "pops" by someone who can legally drink DOES make me feel old.

i've been a paramedic for almost 19 years. i was giving patients narcotics before i could legally drink. i was an emt before my 18th birthday. in fact i had to wait for 1 1/2 months before i could get my certification because i wasn't yet 18.

i like watching cartoons, to this day, that i grew up with. i see that the tom and jerry, bugs bunny, et all, were made back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s and they're still fun to watch. i listen to music i grew up with. what i grew up with is now on "classic rock" stations. i see the "one hit wonder" shows on vh1 and see a lot of the songs i used to like that are now 25 years old or older.

i can remember my first cell phone. i can remember not having to wear seat belts. i can remember not worrying about who was sitting in the front seat of the car. i can remember having gas pumped for you at the gas station and the attendant cleaning the windshield and asking if you want the oil checked. 55 mph speed limit. towns where everyone knew everyone and all the house doors were unlocked all day, all night, even when out of town. 45s and 8 tracks were how music got listened to. dolby was the latest and greatest sound invention. floppy drives, not the small hard ones but the big 5" + ones for computers were everywhere. hell, i just watched "wargames" the other night on tv. no email. no computers. pong was THE game to have. had to have cable to see mtv. friday night videos was a cool show to watch. the "a team," miami vice, magnum p.i., st. elsewhere, hill street blues, emergency!; vinny barbarino and the sweathogs, lenny and squiggy, "dynomite!" the jeffersons, edith bunker and "meathead," schneider fixing what the girls messed up, even fred flintstone and his brood.

all these things add up. experience? experiences? experienced? yep, yes, and yup. my history pales to others but these are things in my upbringing. things i look back on and see just how long ago they were around. gives me a lot to look back on to draw from for a reference, for knowledge, for a lesson, or just because they're things i want to hold on to because i liked them. it is amazing how computers and the internet have changed the way we do things. even now, i get to look at the history by using the present and the future. i have no need for a library when i can do it all on a computer.