Rocky time

Dexter Sinister

Unspecified Specialist
Oct 1, 2004
10,168
539
113
Regina, SK
Yeah, I still think I'm 19 most days. Until I try to play a little one on one basketball with my son in the driveway. Damn kid's always a step and a half faster than I am. But experience and guile keep me competitive.

But the boomers are different. I'm 57, perfectly healthy as far as I know, and I've always taken care of myself. At 57, my father was an old man: fat, grey, diabetic, hypertensive, he'd had major abdominal surgery twice, for gallstones and a bleeding ulcer, and was a few years away from his first episode of congestive heart failure, which was ultimately what killed him at 72. No way could he have played basketball with me in the driveway at 57, he'd have dropped dead after three minutes.
 
Last edited:

L Gilbert

Winterized
Nov 30, 2006
23,738
107
63
71
50 acres in Kootenays BC
the-brights.net
Yeah, I know whatcha mean. My dad had 3 holes in his heart when he was born and they didn't figure out how to fix such a malady until after he died as a result of it. But he was pretty healthy till then, being in construction hauling heavy machinery, etc. Died at 56. My uncle Jim on the other hand still managed to get out and shovel his driveway in the winter at the age of 92. Slept himself into death at 93. Judging by what I see the planet coming to these days, however, I don't wanna last that long. Ain't gonna push it , though. :D If I last that long, I'll adapt.
 

Dexter Sinister

Unspecified Specialist
Oct 1, 2004
10,168
539
113
Regina, SK
I'm not sure I want to last that long.
Long as we're not crippled by infirmities we'll be okay. One of my neighbour's fathers is a tiny skinny old guy still going strong at 88. I've seen him in her driveway with a snowblower and in her garden with a rototiller in the last 6 months. I did some work for him last summer, repairing his fence. He's a great old guy. A bit deaf, a bit weaker than he thinks he is, but he's never going to surrender until a lightning bolt comes down from the sky and takes him out. The neighbours on the other side are WW2 veterans, both well into their 80s and still gardening and shovelling snow. I clear out their driveway with my snowblower because that level of effort' with a shovel is a little beyond them (and me too) and they buy me bottles of good scotch in payment, though I've never asked for or expected anything from them for it. I hope to be like those people when I get that old.