Where Do I Go From here ( A partial repeat of a story)
I just finished reading Daniel Meyer’s story “There I Go” As usual it was an excellent read..
Also as usual, it was a thought provoking arrangement of words.
I sat back in my chair and thought, maybe a little too much. It seemed to me that what might be only an exercise in “gee this could happen to me” by our younger generation might be closer to home to the ones approaching the next life. Sometimes, it doesn’t pay to turn on a fertile mind and start thinking “If”
As we begin to stack up the years, we also begin to stack up life’s experiences in regards to general health.. I have been very lucky in that I’ve had reasonably good health so I don’t have as many ‘forgettable’ but not forgettable health experiences. Even aside from that thought, I do know that ,just like an old car, it takes much more warming up to get the body started in the morning. It is also an inescapable fact that as we age, our body becomes more fragile. Evidence of this is in the fact that we bruise easily because of our parchment like skin on our arms. coupled with capillaries that have tissue thin walls. Overall stiffness of the whole body doesn’t lend itself very well to confidence in riding a motorcycle at 9/10’s or even lower. Some will find that reaction to emergency situations is much declined. We all have seen the results of that in seniors in cages, timid driving, unexpected turns without signaling, wandering in lanes, etc. However, come to think of that, the same could apply to teenagers while texting. So that doesn’t count in my list of morbid thoughts.
These thoughts, in various degrees, are with me now in my senior years. In my supposedly mature thinking and experience I believe that all of us will be faced with these thoughts in the future.
So, How do we overcome these thoughts? After all, they are a detriment to our ability to enjoy the wind.
HELL, I don’t know!!! I’m going for a ride.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
Now, instead of a ride, it's a DRIVE! The Miata awaits. The day is nice, The goal is my favorite and close, Pokagon State Park. The top will be down as soon as it warms and I'll be “In The Wind!”
Yesterday, I drove to the Auburn WarBirds Museum. A lady from our KWVA chapter asked me how I could fold myself into a car that small and low to the ground, inferring my age. I thought about that. Determination and I WILL do it, is enough to overcome my bod's resistance to bending.!
So, shortly I'm off. I will enjoy the drive in a different way from riding but enjoy it I will!
Later, not today, I will be seeing if I can straddle my son's Triumph Scrambler and riding that. THAT would be the icing on the cake
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Update again. Sept 24, 2015.
Last week my name was given by our pastor to a lady in our church. She needed to help in our annual rummage sale but didn't want to leave her 89 year old husband by himself as he has short term memory loss from a stroke.
I agreed to 'man sit' with her husband. We got along fine, He is a retired farmer and I'm a city person so we swapped lots of stories. I took him for a short ride in the Miata with the top down and he really enjoyed it. We stopped for lunch and then drove back to my apartment where I was going to swap from the Miata to the Mazda Six. I asked him to get out of the Miata while I drove it into the garage. He not only got out of it but also pushed the garage door opener at the door while I was driving the Miata INTO the garage. The safety worked. The door reversed before it hit the Miata. His mind wasn't working quite right and I should have noted his other mental problems. Whew! A very nice gentleman who's trying his best at 89. Later, his wife told me that he puts unusual things into the refrigerator. She will have her hands full if his condition worsens.
However, that day was nice. I had a nice day, she had a nice day, and i hoped that he had a nice day. After all, it's not every day that two old codgers with a combined age of 176 are riding in a roadster with the top down. Some say that the Miata is a chick magnet but I didn't notice that.
Overall, a nice day for both of us. I felt like I was doing a little bit of God's Work.
Wayne, solo 1
