Thursday, February 19, 2009
Not So Old Age
I met this older guy at the Y the other day. I have seen him often working out. I asked him how old he was and he said, “87.” I couldn’t believe it. “”You are eighty seven years old?” Yeah,” he said, “and I’ve never stayed in a hospital overnight. I broke my leg once in the service and they set it and I went on back to the barracks.” I asked him how long he had been working out and he smiled and said, “Oh, forty-fifty years. Used to play a lot of sports but the only thing I can do now is play golf.” He doesn’t walk like an old man. He doesn’t talk like an old man. He doesn’t think like an old man. In fact, he is not an old man. Diane Ackerman said, “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” I do believe my 87 year old friend has learned that you have to live all the way to the finish line.
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Today I ordered off the senior menu at Ihop. That always give me pause. But if I just live to 87 I've got 32 more good years. I should be able to do a whole lotta living in that amount of time.
ReplyDeleteI'll be 50 in three days, but I run regularly, so still feel like a young man in many ways. My dad is almost 79 and he still hikes about 1500 miles a year. As they say, "Getting old is not for sissies!" I loved the Ackerman quote, Roger. I will have to consider that for a future calligraphy design. Cheers!
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