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Monday, January 16, 2012

"One of The Old Boys?"

The local YMCA where I go to swim has a large percentage of seniors as members, and they are most often there during the day. I suppose there are very few kids there at that time and that's what makes it attractive. For many of the old boys who frequent the place it is as much a social activity as it is a workout. It is not uncommon for a half dozen of them to be sitting around the change room in their birthday suits telling lies and teasing each other. I happily join in the conversation although I don't hang around as long as them since I have other things to do. After all I'm not at the same stage of my life as all those old goats.

Today one of the boys was trying to figure out how to use the balance scale and one of the other wise guys snuck up behind him and put his foot on the back of the scale. This went on for some time with the rest of the gang snickering away in the background while the guy on the scale grumbled about how the thing never worked right. I jumped all over that and offered to try it myself. I knew almost exactly what the thing would say so I set it to 77.5 kilos before I even got on and sure enough it barely wavered. I suggested he try again and so he got back on, and much to everyones delight he said I must have fixed it somehow. He weighed 91 kilograms. While everyone else was congratulating themselves on what I great trick they had played I suddenly had this horrible sinking feeling!! My God!! I had become one of the old boys!!??

It was not a great day for this realization as my mood was already kind of low and I was feeling listless and tired. However, as I turned back to my to my locker and prepared to get out of there I heard the gang chattering about where the chart had gone. It took me just a few seconds to realize that they were talking about the metric conversion chart that usually hung on the wall, and in that same few seconds I knew I was saved. I realized that I was the only guy in the room that knew without a chart what 91 kilos was in real numbers. It was with a sense of elation on my part, and a sense of awe on the part of the room, that I calmly told the old geezer that he weighed just over 200 pounds. I was young again!

(swim 1000 metres, weights)

"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened"---Mark Twain

"I am not young enough to know everything."---Oscar Wilde

Love
Peter

1 comment:

  1. sorry, not buying that...you are OLD. Now get over yourself and get out there and do whatever you want, you old fart!!

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