{"id":9615,"date":"2015-06-12T07:12:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T11:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=9615"},"modified":"2015-06-12T07:12:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T11:12:33","slug":"growing-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/growing-old\/","title":{"rendered":"“Growing” Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Growing” Old<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The other day, I decided to move the logs I had toted from Heaven knows where to the garden that I painstakingly laid out decades ago. The logs were heavy. They were much heavier taking them out than they were putting them in. I’d like to say they were water-logged and really heavier, but the fact is, I’ve grown old over the last 4 decades. Those logs I hauled in and an laid around the garden as a border and a barrier long ago went in much easier than they came out.<\/p>\n

After decades of planting gardens, weeding gardens, tending gardens, fighting bugs, plant diseases and too-much-rain, not-enough-rain, too cold, too hot, frost, floods and drought, I decided that I had had enough of gardens. Enough! I said to myself.<\/p>\n

Every year I’ve threatened not to till up the garden and just mow over the weeks with the lawn mower and be done with it. This year I decided to actually go through with it. Why? Because I am old and I am wise. I figured out that last year I spend about $200 growing about $15 worth of tomatoes. Figuring in money I spent for adding more topsoil, organic fertilizer, organic bug stuff, water, plants, and those kinds of things, I had to add in the $100 or so I spent on deer repellent (which didn’t work, by-the-way). I planted about 30 tomato plants. And I made a lot of deer happy – but I ended up about a bushel for myself. A wise man knows when to say when. I am not growing anymore gardens to feed deer, no matter how cute they are. And NO! I’m not going to bring in more logs or posts and build a fence. Heck, it would have to 8 feet high to keep the deer out. Nope this year, I’m older and wiser:\u00a0 I will find and organic farmer – well not an organic farmer really, but a farmer who grows crops organically, and I’ll buy my tomatoes from him (or her).<\/p>\n

I’ve gone through with my plan this year, after threatening to do it for years. Now it is, mid-June, no garden and I just cut down the weeds in the garden with my lawnmower.Done and done!<\/p>\n

\u00a0But it wasn’t that easy.<\/p>\n

Logs. Those stupid logs that went in so easy all those years ago, had to be taken away so that I could more easily erase all traces of the garden, which by this time of the year had gone to weeds – big weeds. So, I grabbed a log with every intention of picking it up and throwing it in a pile of trash I’ve been working on this spring. I could barely lift the darn thing. When I put those logs in there I was carry them two at a time, with enough wind left to cuss loudly at anyone who was dumb enough to listen. There I was the other day, same guy, me, barely able to drag the logs out of there. I did four of them and sat down on a lawn chair gasping for air and trying to ignore the pain shooting through my lower back.<\/p>\n

Six more logs to go. I stood there, hands on my hips, looking at those logs like I was about to climb Mount Everest without a Sherpa. Four more logs, I sagged into the lawn chair out of breath- oh yes, old, and out of shape.<\/p>\n

I look over and groan from both misery and from forethought: two more logs to go.<\/p>\n

Someone once said, and I can’t remember who, because my mind is going, something like “you can’t be a sissy and grow old” – you have to be tough. because it’s tough, I tells ya!<\/p>\n

I finally got up out of the chair, still wheezing and aching and moved the last two logs and put them on the heap of trash that I’ve been building, much to the chagrin of my neighbors, for a while now.<\/p>\n

Again I slumped into the lawn chair to chatch my breath and ease my old pain-ridden body. This time I remember the day i put those logs around the garden. That day I went over to the log store and bought ten telephone-pole-sized…not really… logs\u00a0and tossed them into the back of my old pick-up truck and took them home. Then I carried them two at a time back to the garden until I had all ten situated around the garden, both as a barrier and a border. That being done I planted a few dozen tomato plants and pepper plants and dozens of seeds. Then, and oh this makes me sad, I went on a 3-mile, 18-minute run.\u00a0 When I got home, I squirted off the sweat and cooled off with a good old garden hose. And after all of that, i had nary a pain nor any signs of heavy labored breathing.<\/p>\n

On the bright side of things, having pushed my old flabby body to its limits, I didn’t drop dead with a heart attack or stroke. I survived! It’s kind of like winning a fight!<\/p>\n

Anyway… having caught my breath and needing to go to the bathroom, I gingerly lifted myself out of the lawn chair and shuffled into the house. That’s right – I said “shuffled”. I thought about how time takes its toll on everything…except wine, cheese, and honey. I have thought about getting back into shape, maybe even do a bit of jogging, but even thinking that kind of stuff exhausts me and I quickly come to my senses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It’s better to live in an illusory world. And I do.<\/p>\n

For instance, when I see that guy on TV who invented the Teeter-Hanger — or whatever it’s called – who claims he’s 74 and starts jumping around like he’s 30, I grab my remote and turn him off. When I shave or have to anything that requires looking in a mirror, I do so in dim light – just enough to get the job done. Luckily, I have had my plumbing fixed, and I don’t mean the plumbing in the house, so that going to the bathroom is not hurry-hurry affair anymore. And while I can’t peel paint off a barn with it…oh sorry – let’s forget that. God bless my doctor for fixing up my plumbing. You will never know how important plumbing until things start happening. It’s horrible not being able go when you have to! So at least two things are now working right – my plumbing and my brain. Well, I guess many would say that my brain isn’t exactly screwed in correctly.<\/p>\n

But you know what? One thing I’ll never do, is allow myself to fall into the routine that I call the “waiting to die” routine. I’m not ever going to retire. Why should I? So I can sit around wondering what day it is, watching re-runs of “Gunsmoke”, “Marcus Welby, M.D.” or “Bonanza”– may Hoss and Little Joe rest in peace — drinking prune juice, putting everything I eat in a blender first, sit around for hours on park benches feeding pigeons and all the other things I associate with the “waiting to die” routine.\u00a0 It’s not for me.<\/p>\n

So though I may not be able to move logs anymore, I’m not giving into the “waiting-to-die” routine. I’m going to keep on working and keep on trying to keep on. I’ve made a pledge to get back to walking at least 3 or 4 miles a day, no matter how tough it may be. I had to stop walking about ten-months ago due to some health issues which have not been, hopefully, resolved.<\/p>\n

I think we should all keep on keeping on and never give up, no matter how heavy those old logs my be, or how out of breath we get. We’re all going to go sometime, but why spend years preparing for it?<\/p>\n

Eat,drink, and be merry. And hire somebody to move those logs…<\/p>\n

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“Growing” Old The other day, I decided to move the logs I had toted from Heaven knows where to the garden that I painstakingly laid out decades ago. The logs were heavy. They were much heavier taking them out than they were putting them in. I’d like to say they were water-logged and really heavier, but the fact\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9616,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615\/revisions\/9616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}