Yesterday I was on the phone with a dear old friend that just came out of back surgery. Like me, he turned the half century a while back and all the shit we did and youngins is coming due for payment, with interest.
The running joke is that the parts for our repair have been discontinued long ago and although the models might not be that old, we put some serious amount of miles through some even nastier roads. Wear and tear are a bitch.
We were the No Pain, No Gain Generation. The shit we did would scare the crap out of any X-t\Treme sportsman out there…and we were not doing for sport either, we were just simply being incredibly stupid and lucky not to died in the process. Yes, jumping and flipping on your cute mountain bike is cool, but I dare you to flip the finger in the face of a south american cop and live to tell about it (car chase included and we won.) Poking at a snake and trying to remember if slit eyes indicate poisonous or safe? Wrangling a pissed off python because it snuck into your classroom on finals and you want to go home for the holidays. Going off-roading up a mountain at 2 in the morning, corralling your drunken friends (all 5 of them) shove them in the Landcruiser and go back down in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm (major pucker on that one.) Surviving collisions in cars, motorcycles, trucks. getting into a duct-tape-covered Cessna 172 with your friend who just got his license and wants to take you up as his first passenger. Telling a friend watching a military coup from his roof that the little particles of metal that just landed next to him are called shrapnel and they are designed to maim or kill your ass. We raced our cars past the 150 mph limit on tires designed for 80 mph without seat belts on vinyl-upholstered seats. And just for shit’s sake, we really got in the ocean to see if the rip current was really there or was it just BS from the authorities (Fell for that one three times.) You may ask why we did this (and more stuff I will not reveal) and the answer is simply, why not? We were invincible back then.
So we abused our bodies, took chances that were almost suicidal, got cut, broke shit, duct-taped it & carried on. We sang, we drank the wine (and rum both cheap and a lot) we loved & danced like fools, pledging our love to girls while fathers shot at us…with reason; it is a tad impolite to knock on the door a three am and sing an off-key and very much off-color serenade.
So now our bodies are saying “fuck you. time to pay the piper” and we find ourselves sedentary, enjoying watching other do things they categorize as dangerous with more protection than an Abrams tank and we naturally smirk. And if you ask us if we miss the old times and wish we could still do some adventurous stuff, we will say yes…
…but we regret nothing.
PS: Nope, that does not even begin to cover 1% of the crap we did. Some will never surface (we hope) and will take to our graves. Somehow we must give an image of respectability to the younger generations
And yes, cat does taste like chicken, so does python..
We must have grew up in the same era,all I can add is if I knew I was going to live this long I would of taken better care of myself I would like to think,but probably wouldn’t of changed a thing.It was a fun ride and now down to a crawl but what memories.
The running joke back when I turned 50 was that the warranty on those body parts was over. When I turned 60, they seized the warranty and burned it.
Another bad thing- you digestive system gets revenge for all the greasy, fatty, spicy, deep fried and sugar filled junk you used to eat like a starving coyote.
Now it tells you that it could cope with cheap junk, and as an older, more responsible individual, you really need to move on to sophisticated taste, quality ingredients, and good nutrition… or it will give you such suffering on the toilet…
Tabasco bottles now last up to a year and a box of Tagamet sits next to it. 😀
I wasn’t great at any one sport, but I was good at most. I dove for saves in volleyball without regard for my knees or floor burns. I dove for balls in the outfield in 16″ softball, even ran into a wall after a catch (that won us the game!), I set picks playing street ball that got me a broken rib on more than one occasion. Didn’t care at the time. 3 knee surgeries, 2 broken feet, every finger broken, rotator cuff surgery, broken nose, sprained wrist, a 4 inch gash over my right eye and on the back of my head later, I don’t play many sports. Bowling is about as physical as my body lets me get. Even that can be challenging some days.
Oh and like Joe, the digestive system isn’t the same either. Like the Pepto commercial, I like {insert food/spice here}, but it doesn’t like me.
You know you reached adulthood when you actually pay attention to the pharmaceutical commercials on TV
Yep, we ‘did’ do some stupid shit… And we survived… And went to war and survived that too. Police action my ass… Wore the warranty out, wearing the replacement parts out too…
and we did not have “Safe Spaces” either.
No Regrets