The Toothpaste Incident

Perhaps I don't need to worry about having done this this morning unless it starts to happen more frequently.

The Rest of the Mount Marcy Story

This highpoint episode was very disappointing for me. This was like the culmination of several things recently which have pushed me to the inevitable—I’m getting older.

I have hiked many, many miles, climbed some pretty high mountains, and done some things that even shock me. Needless to say, I was devastated to have gotten so close and been too afraid to scramble over the rock to the top. Additionally, I was disappointed in my old feet. They are just not what they used to be.

Since noon Saturday, (the time when I realized I just couldn’t go up on that rock) my mind has struggled with the adjustment to another phase in my life. It hasn’t been pretty and Gene is to be commended for having lived through it so calmly.

My Uncle Carl actually got me started hiking. He considered it good therapy and, at a particularly difficult time in my life, he took me for my first hike. He made pimento cheese sandwiches for us and stuffed them into his day pack, we gathered up the dog and off we went. On the drive to the trail head the dog thought a nap was in order so he curled up on top of the pack to catch a few Zzzs before the hike. At lunch time, looking out over the wilderness from a rock high on a mountain, we laughed at the result of the dog’s pre-hike nap. The sandwiches looked like flat bread with yellow halos. It didn’t alter the taste; you just had to plan a strategy for getting bread and cheese in the same bite. My uncle has always been one for an adventure so when it came time to head down the mountain, he thought it would be fine to just leave the trail and go off down the hill side. I slipped after only a few steps and landed on my bottom. The dog thought that was a fine ride so he jumped in my lap. Down we went for about twenty yards before coming to rest somehow. My mother has always been one to be in the woods walking about, and a few years after this first hike, she persuaded me to join Tennessee Trails, our state hiking club.

So hiking has been my hobby for many years and I never gave a thought about the distance or difficulty of any trail. I think those days are over. A few years ago, while spending what seemed like days in the backcountry office at Rocky Mountain National Park trying to get permits to climb Long’s Peak, a seasonal ranger made a comment to the effect that he and his wife (both over 60) liked fixing a thermos of coffee, stopping by the bakery for Danish, and enjoying their goodies at one of the many waterfalls within 2 or 3 miles from the trailhead. At the time, I thought that was really hiking and we should do that more often. Perhaps now is the time.

I was encouraged by a couple things yesterday. We met a couple not too far from the summit as we were going down who seemed to be about our age. The gentleman commented that they were in the “hiking” rather than “climbing” phase of their life. I’m so there! I had email this morning from a long time hiking friend who, like me, never gave much thought to distance or difficulty. We have been on some pretty long hikes together including California’s Mt. Whitney. His email said that he and his wife had done a 14 mile hike and were pretty bushed the next day. Had to go shopping instead of hiking. Thank goodness I’m not the only one feeling my age here.

Still, aging is a difficult process and hard to get my mind around. It is one in which I will have to change my focus from long distance hiking (carrying everything on my back and sleeping on the ground) and climbing mountains to sipping coffee by a waterfall, bird watching, and taking long strolls in the park. This is actually starting to sound pretty good, after all.

You're Getting Old When.....

I really don’t think of myself as old even though I am “of an age”. When I was a child, I thought of my mother as old when she was an age far younger than I am now. At that same time, I thought of my grandmother as really old, almost ancient. Lord, I am now only a handful of years younger than she was when I was having those thoughts.

Occasionally, I am reminded that I am getting to be on the high side of young. I sometimes wake up with aches and pains that had not previously been there. A few years ago I would have been concerned with such aches and pains, wondering if I should see a doctor. I always chose to wait around to see if it got worse. I finally realized it was just one of those things that goes along with aging. I sometimes forget where I put something, or the purpose for coming into the bedroom, or whether or not I took my calcium tablet. For a while I made lists to remind myself of what I was not suppose to forget, but I so often forgot to look at the list that I finally quit making one. My concerns over these things have given way to laughter.

Last night, I spent a lot of time laughing at myself. I had fixed a salad for dinner. I always use a cutting board to slice vegetables. After the dishes were washed and dried, I remembered that I had used the cutting board, but it was not among the dishes washed. I found it in the trash can. Ha, Ha. Wander how that got in there? I always set up the breakfast coffee in the evening before going to bed. I caught myself just as I was about to put a big scoop of oatmeal in the filter. Ha, Ha. Now wouldn’t we have been surprised in the morning? We were still laughing about the oatmeal when we climbed (maybe crawled is a better word) into bed. We had another big laugh about the stains on the bed linens which were caused by the leather of Gene’s wallet which I had washed along with the sheets earlier in the day.

Gene assures me that none of these things matter so long as I know who I am and why I am here. And I can always use a good laugh from time to time. I just wish it wasn’t quite so often.