Change of Season

"What a difference a day makes," sings the song, "twenty-four little hours."  Yesterday, the second day of October, saw the temperature drop after weeks of heat and mostly dryness. It was even at nine o'clock, when I was free to take a morning walk, only around 54.

You know, usually I walk much earlier and by 9:00 would be finishing up four or five miles, but the sudden drop in degrees was indirectly involved with Friday's late start. I had the furnace guy coming early.

Yeah, I looked at the weather predictions earlier in the week and they all said the warmth was going to drop off the cliff by weekend and into the next several days, along with rain and rain and, you guessed it, rain. We needed the rain and many felt we needed a break from the blaze of summer sun and those high-eighty and ninety thermometer readings. We need a period of cool down. But that also said to me I might need turn on the heater. 

The heater had been off since the end of spring and as a result my power bills had been down considerably. Sure, we aren't masochists suffering the sauna of summer. We do keep the A/C purring or roaring, but several years ago we turned away from that gobbler of kilowatts  called central air to window units. Why cool the whole house when you live only in a room here and there? It was surprising the savings during those air conditioned months once we made that switch. However, 'tis a whole other tune once you snap that setting from cool to heat and the furnace begins chugging down natural gas. 

I like to avoid that rising bill as long as possible, but I knew the Little Woman would not be as interested in our pocket book as her shivering through the days ahead, so turning on the furnace was a for certain. As I mentioned, it hadn't been on for months and dust would be gathering inside and who knows what, plus the filter hadn't been changed now for a year, which is how long it is supposed to last. At any rate, I called my furnace keeper-upper, William G. Day Co. I switched to them about three years ago and found them very accommodating. I had used Horizon Services for decades, but it was time for a switch, but that is a tale for another time.

Anyway, the Day Company lady told me they could have a guy there to clean and maintain my furnace on Friday as his first scheduled job of the day. This is what I like about them, they come quickly. He was there by 7:45 AM and done by a bit after 8:30. Great, over and done and the furnace is ready for another winter. 

I still didn't get out of the house until 9:00, which is where we began this whole shebang talking about the difference a day makes.

I went up to Rockwood that Friday. It was 54, as stated, dreary with a light drizzle. Nonetheless, I wore shorts. I did pull on a long-sleeve sweatshirt upon arrival in the parking lot and I was good to go and fine for the four mile hike. My legs take chill better than the rest of me so the shorts were no discomfort at all...on Friday.

Not so much this morning. 

Saturday began as dreary gray as yesterday, but it wasn't raining when I headed out about

7:30, a time still a bit later than I'd usually go. Temperature was a bit lower at 52, but somehow the day was a lot colder. I wore my long workout pants and my sweatshirt, and at the park I pulled on a light jacket and my wooly hat. That is what wind will do to you.

It is what makes weather so tricky. You can go out in summer with a bright, uncovered sun and mercury saying it's 90 plus degrees and walk without a sweat if the humidity is 50 and a breeze is blowing. Take away that wind and make the humidity around 70 and you are oozing perspiration within a few steps. 

This morning was very breezy and that made it more miserable than yesterday's rain. 

The wind had whipped all night and the paths were strewn with downed leaves and other debris. Just off the footbridge over the little creek was a downed branch and broken glass. The falling limb had taken out a streetlamp.  


I walked up and around the Carriage house and then through the Kitchen Garden.

Seemingly out of place now in this gloom and chill, roses still bloomed  defying the change of season.

But it started me thinking, to contemplating the change. These red blossoms would soon fade and wither and all this green surrounding me would be gone. In a mere couple months this place will be brown and bleak, bare naked trees and undressed bushes and the slate gray skies so common to November would greet me. I in turn would not be near naked in but t-shirts and shorts, but dressed in layers of heavy clothes that would add weight to my every step and bog me down and restrict my movement. 

The year was cycling through now. Most of the activities of this place were done. The sleep under the stars in the meadow and the Ice Cream Festival at the birth of summer seemed distant now. Packed away were the costumes and props and stage of the August Shakespeare festival, Just ended last Sunday was the annual Faerie Fest.   The remnants of this last fling of a sweeter season remained in disarray. Chalked hopscotch grids were washing away in all these rains and the winds of autumn had played havoc to the childhood dreams tied upon the wishing bridge, the letter washed away and the now blank cards littering the landscape.

There were hay bails near the carriage house, perhaps part of the haunted tours that are

beginning to mark the coming Hallowe'en Soon they will construct a spooky graveyard up before the mansion, complete with coffins and skeletons and dire warnings. But like the evil spirits let loose for that one night, this to would fade after All Saint's Day and then the brittle brown leaves would cover those spaces and the trails and the winds would come with hints of winter on their breath.

There will be a brief retrieve from the darkness as the clocks turn back to end Daylight savings time on the First of November. Once Rockwood has tucked away the faux tombstones and barrage of bats and plastic bones of the ghoulish dead,  they will begin the stringing of light garlands from tree bough to tree bough in preparation for the Holiday Open House on the beginning weekend of December. And soon enough about the country side as the curtain of autumn falls complete and frost forms across the pumpkin patches, more lights will flash awake. For a few weeks we will put off thoughts of anything but the gaiety and joy of the Christmas season, at least the majority of us will. We will have our streets ablaze not

only with the red and green and whatever other color may be mingled in among the white of candles, and perhaps many will turn toward the hope and salvation promised beneath all the merchandising and tinsel and jingling bells of sidewalk Santas. Perhaps a few will get the message of what Christ really brings to us as a gift. Perhaps for those few weeks much of the hate and chaos that seems to grow more virulent each day will subside somewhat and we may even have some good will among men. 

The bells of New Year will sound, the horns will be blown and the drunks will weave into another month and another Winter will fall upon us like a cold shroud. The bright lights will be snapped off. Days will be short and cold and the forest a dead zone, the months of bleakness.

And I guess I'm growing old. There is a weariness I feel too often now and I want to sleep too much. I remember how I pondered my father constantly nodding off when the family got together the last several years of his life. Just as the world goes through its cycle and nature seems to slumber off before a new birth of Spring, so do our bodies run down to extended nap times in our fading decades. Our seasons change and mine is sliding slowly into its winter. That is not a sad thing, it is nature and I never look back in regret, just always looking ahead to the future as I live in each moment of time, for the present hour actually is, no matter our chronological age, the only time we really have.

This Old Man's Workout

I know I was getting weaker, but chalked it up to also getting older. (I just began my 75th year two weeks ago as I write this.) I couldn't lift what I once could, nor do such things as pushups and chin ups and a lot of other such stuff. My weight had settled into a steady 195, which I considered perfectly fine. No one was calling my fat or pudgy; in fact, most people told me I was skinny.  I'm six foot tall and lanky. I've got long hands, long legs, long arms, everything about me is long and I think that distorts the appearance of girth.

I didn't consider doing anything about this until I went to physical therapy for the curvature of my back. Sudden;y I began to gain some strength under their tutelage and exercise. After my sessions ended, I decided to continue with an exercise program kind of based on what I learned at NovaCare (the physical therapy place I went), as well as some alternations to my diet in order to avoid any cholestrilol medication being added to my daily routine. My doctor, she say, "cut down on sugar and eat more fruit." So I did, no longer having a stash of cakes, tasty pies and candy here in my office and not putting sugar on my cereal and such, as well as ingesting a lot of fresh fruit each day.

I continued my morning walks, making at least four and a half miles every day and often more and up
to nine or ten. All these things conspired since spring in bringing my weight down to 170 pounds and increasing my strength at the same time.  I have gotten rid of most of my belly fat, although there is a stubborn ridge that has stuck it out, but I hope to eventually chase it away as well.

So here is my workout routine that supplements my walking every morning. I do the workouts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Besides the workout and the walking, I also bought a hand/foot bike, because I was on a hand bike at PT and wanted to keep at it. I often do this while watching TV. That is me using it in the first photo of this post.

WARM UP/STRETCHING

These first exercises came from the PT sessions. I begin with this stretch in a doorway. Hands and forearms flat against a door jam, I take a step forward with my right leg until I feel the pull in my shoulder area and hold this for 30 seconds. I do this 5 times, alternating my leg.

These two look similar, but are different. On the left is the chin tuck, pulling back to form a double chin. I do this tuck 20 times, holding each one for 3 seconds.

The other exercise is one to strength the back muscles along the shoulder blades. I compress those muscles for 3 seconds and 20 reps.

Another designed to strength the neck, the head tilt. I turn my head sideways and hold it there for 20 seconds, alternating to the left and to the right or 5 reps in each direction.





Now we come to some exercises they gave me at Physical Therapy to strength my core and abdomen.

First I raise my legs and press my hands against the knees, forcing each to fight the other and hold for 10 seconds. I repeat this 20 times. In fact, I do 20 reps for 10 seconds each on all these four.

The second I lie with my legs drawn up, then I raise my left leg and hold it the ten seconds, drop and repeat 20 times, I do the same with the right leg.

I follow this with a bridge, raising my rear off the floor, pressing with my abdomen muscles and holding each of the 20 reps for 10 seconds.

Finally of the four I do what looks like nothing, but I am actually forcing the small of my back flat against the floor while tensing the muscles. Again, 20 of these for 10 seconds each.

After finishing those PT four, I do 50 scissor kicks. I will slowly increase the reps on this every two or three days.

Then I do ten pushups. I couldn't manage one of these a week ago, but now I manage 10. I can't do a proper pushup, though, because of the damage arthritis has done to me. I can't bend or support much with the left wrist and several figures of my right hand are paralyzed. This prevents me going fully down to the floor with my upper body.

Now it is time to set out for my daily long walk, and I always go to Bellevue on workout day because I have added the exercise stations the park has a t intervals along the track. I can't do some of these very well yet, and a couple not at all, but I try and someday I will conquer them. The hardest part of doing these is it is out in public where others can watch you make a fool of yourself and sometimes fail. You have to get over that fear. I have.

I begin with the balance beams. A couple of weeks ago I simply fell off constantly, but now I am getting the length without slipping off. I walk it about four times and I plan to try doing it backward soon.

I admit I have failed on this one every time so far. The object is to step off a post and then go the length of this devise using you hands. I step off, hang there for a bit and drop. The last time I did get a swing going and almost grabbed the next bar. Eventually I will.







Next we hold a post with one hand and then raise out leg straight out forward, then to the rear and then the side. I am currently doing 14 reps for each leg or 28 reps total.





Now comes the log lift. There are three logs, each heavier as you go from right to left. I can raise the right log with one arm. I do 14 lifts with each arm.

The middle log I can lift my 14 times using both hands and arms.










The far left log is much heavier. I couldn't budge it more than a few inches a couple weeks ago, but now I can push it above my head five tines using both arms.  Progress.






This may appear as if I am leaning against a board. Actually I am about to push my body up so I am on my straight arms atop the board and hold that position for 5 seconds. I am currently up to six such holds.

 I'm not trying to escape a snake under my feet. I am jumping back and forth the length of a log, repeating my journey four times down and back its length.

The step ups. I do a step up with each leg in turn first on the smaller pillar, then the next highest, doing 10 step ups each leg.

The classic sit-ups. I am doing 12, but I can do more. I use to be good at these. I won the setup contest in high school, outlasting every one else in gym.

Whee! Object here is to grasp the rings and raise your feet off the ground and hold this for 3 seconds. I do 12.

Similar to the last, but a different set of look-a-like rings. You grasp these ring, plant your feet firmly on the ground and swing your hips around first 12 times to the right, then 12 to the left and then you do the hooky-poky and shake yourself about. Well, not really that last part.

Finally, before doing  serious four or five mile walk, I attempt the chin ups. A week ago I could manage a half a lift, but now, although it isn't pretty nor proper form, f am managing to get my chin above the bar four times. I'll improve.






After I am back home I can finish my routine, most of which involves light weights. These came from my Physical Therapy sessions for the most part.

The weight for the first three exercises is 5 pounds. I am holding a 2 and a 3 pound dumbbell to make this. Laying on my chest, I am raising these straight up and out from the side and holding them there for 10 seconds. (In my video I kept changing this to 5 seconds, but it is 10.) I am doing 15 reps.

The second exercise (not pictured) looks pretty much like the first, except my thumbs are out and pointed upward. This changes the muscle use and is actually a bit more difficult. It is still holding for 10 seconds for 15 reps.

The third is the same grip as the first, but I am raising the dumbbells out to the front, like Superman flying, holding each rep 10 seconds and doing 15.

This exercise is only using a 2 pound weight, but originally used no weight at all. I hold the dumbbells against my chest, then trow my arms out and back, putting pressure on the shoulder muscles. I hold them there for 5 seconds then release and repeat. I do 30 reps.

Now I will use these 65 pound bungees. In this exercise I am pulling the bungees tight in a downward moving, then holding 5 seconds before releasing and repeating 30 times.

The difference here is I am pulling straight back toward my chest, again holding it taut for 5 seconds and repeating 30 times.

 I am using two resistance bands together and doing 30 reps. I keep my upper arms pressing against my body and I stretch the bands using just the forearms. I hold each stretch 5 seconds before release.

Using the same two resistance bands I begin with my hands together before my face. Then I stretch them straight across] until taut, where I hold them for 5 seconds each rep. I do 30 reps.

Last, but not least, I spend 40 minutes on the rowing machine.

After that I can go about what ever else I care to do on those days.

Maybe it doesn't impress, but you gotta remember I am in my 75th year and was very out of shape.

I have attached a 5 minute video of my workout the other day. Obviously when I do takes longer than 5 minutes, but the video is spread up 8 times normal. Anyway, here is this old man's workout.

There Was a Crooked Man…

…and he walked a crooked mile, 

He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile; 

He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse, 

And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

So it went like this, see, I went to my Doctor's on December 18 of the year just passed. I wasn't ailing or anything, you understand. It was just a regular routine look under the hood and thumping of the tires. These become more frequent as you age. They keep a check to see what rusty part might have sputtered over the last half year.

I didn't see the actual doctor on this visit. I saw one of his Nurse Practitioners, of the female order. This was of no never mind, as my grandmother use to say, because I had a female doctor for a couple of decades until she closed down her office last fall. (If you are wondering about what a

Nurse Practitioner is, they are Nurses with above and beyond General Registered Nurse education, thus kinda super nurses  They can do pretty much everything your General Physician can do, they just stopped short of the MD.)

Everything went swimmingly. She found a heartbeat, always a good sign, and my blood pressure didn't burst anything on the sphygmomanometer. Always feels good when you can fly on through these checkups without them pushing some new pill down your throat. Of course, she gave me blood work for my next oil change, so there will be a bunch of scales and ranges that might say this guy needs some STP or something to keep the motor from knocking. 

However, I made one little mistake. I didn't sit up straight enough, which actually is hard to do when your seated atop those examination tables with your feet all dangling down barely tapping the floor. There is no back to lean against and you just sort of slip into a slouch. 

She asked if I had any pain?

"Pain?"

"In your back from the curvature of your spine?"

"No, not really."

"Have you had a recent injury?"

"No. I've had this curvature all my life, as far as I can remember. I figured I was born with it. I got the usual Quasimoto and "ringing any bells lately" comments.

"I thought maybe I had Scheuermann's Disease," got to show off my own medical acumen. I think I pronounced it "Sugarmann's Disease". She didn't react much to my medical know-how though.

Now Scheuermann's Disease is characterized by a very distinct rounding or hump in the back as shown in the illustration on the right. This becomes more pronounced when the patient bends over. On the left is a photo of myself when we were laying carpet the other year and you can see why I would consider myself a victim of Scheuermann's. 




Ms Nurse Practitioner began typing on her pad. Next thing I know I am making appointments for X-rays and Physical Therapy.  I was quite surprised how quickly I could get these appointments.

I had three X-rays ordered, but only one for bone density actually required I set up an appointment. I Googled the lab locations and only one in my general area performed a Density scan. It was located out on Augustine Cut Off.  I could come get it done the very next day.

They told me come 10-15 minutes early, paperwork you know. You usually spend more time in doctors' offices filling out paperwork than anything else. I had the jump on them though. I went to their website and I filled out and printed the required new patient data form and medical history and some other stuff. I had everything together, man, Mr. Efficiency.

I had never been to this particular medical mall before, but I had good familiarity with the area where it sat. I still determined to levee 40 minutes before the appointed hour to allow time for traffic or whatever. It was the whatever that proved the problem.

So I am getting ready and want to take a shower, but decide to wait until some laundry finished. The digital readout on the washer said 15 minutes to go.  I checked after a bit and it said 17 minutes to go…what the hey! I go back and forth and the time jumps up and down, thus I stop and stand over the washer like watching it will make it behave and it just ain't acting right and then an error code pops up. DE, it says, whatever that means. I open the door and swish the contents about and I see the water isn't draining out. I close the lid and another code appears, FL. What's this, Freepin' Loser?

Upstairs to the office room to the file to the manual on the washer. FL is "Failed to Lock". Okay, the washer locks the door closed when it starts to keep you from thrusting in an arm and having it ripped off. DE  means the washer is off balance not allowing it to spin. How DE stands for that I don't know, but I got an answer. I rush downstairs, pull some of the quilts out (me wife was doing bedding) and now it locks and it spins and water comes out and I run upstairs and grab a shower while it is doing this and then dress and back down and yes the water has all spun out and I plop the bedding in the dryer and I put the quilts I pulled in the washer on spin only and I look at the time and I haven't got 40 minutes anymore.

I grab my coat and go rushing out and on my way. Still shouldn't be a problem getting there on time. I am closing in on the entry of Augustine Cut Off, speed straight ahead and turn onto Rt. 202 South and it is just down the highway. But I suddenly find you can't turn onto Augustine no more, no more. They changed the roads around here a couple years back, cutting off the cut off from 202 and I should have turned earlier on to Park Drive, but too late. I must enter I-95, go into Wilmington and sneak up on the Lab from the other side. 

I just make it. Whew, ain't I good. Old got-it-all-under-control Larry! The Receptionist asks for my medical insurance card and my

Photo ID.  Then she asks for the Doctor's Orders.

 Uh?

 Smack me upsides the head! I left the Doctor's Orders at home right where I laid them so I wouldn't forget to take them. 

"I don't have them," I whimper.

She begins perusing her computer and she finds the Doctor's Orders for the bone density test, but not the others. This is okay, because it was only the bone density requiring this appointment anyway. 

In moments a friendly lady calls my name and leads me to a back room, bidding me lie down on this … uh …bed. Sounds rather seductive, don't it, a strange woman, a back room, a bidding to a bed?  But the bed is hard and unglamorous to say the least and the back room is an examination room and the lady is a Radiology Technician. She isn't going to see me with my clothes off; she's going to see me with my flesh off. "I can see right through you," she will say. 


She didn't say that. She did say she never knew a Radiology Technician who didn't have thyroid problems. 

She went behind a wall and this machine like something out of Flash Gordon passed over me, pausing here and there and making bips and peeps.

Once I was done, I quickly drove home, snatched the other orders and returned for another nice lady Radiology Technician, on a different floor and different back room, to X-ray my neck and my curving backbone.

I haven't heard any feedback on my X-rays to date. I moved on to my next assignment, Physical Therapy.

I admit to some dubiousness about this. I mean, good golly Miss Molly, I'm in my 74th year. What're they 

goin' to do about this crooked man now. I expect my vertebrae are pretty set in their rounded ways by now. Then when I arrived for my first session I had even more tremors of reluctance. I pulled up and could see through the slat-blinded windows a large room with equipment here and there. It was like a gym. Was all this going to transpire in open public, with other people, and (dread, dread) would I have to take my shirt off? The paper of instruction said wear loose clothing like workout pants and a shirt easily removed. I hated being a "skin" in high school gym class and nobody wants to see a 73-and-a-half year old man's naked chest. 

On entering I faced a counter and a loose-leaf notebook and a sign saying, "sign In", but I could not figure out the book and so just sat down in a nearby chair wondering how quick I could get out of this place.  A young man greeted me, but I had a hard time understanding what he said, but then a young

woman (almost anybody working still is a young man or young woman to me anymore) called me back to another back room, or side room actually, and bid me not to the bed within, but to sit on a chair. Her name was Kelly and she would be my therapist.

I have nothing but good things to say about Kelly and the others at NovaCare. She quickly made me comfortable, asked a few questions and explained about the backbone with a detached one in her hands. She then showed me several exercises, which I do there and at home, pictures of which are scattered about this piece.

She finally took me out into that big room, where others were being worked upon, but nobody had any shirts or otherwise off, although I saw them direct a lady to remove her pants, but she was wearing gym shorts beneath. I sat upon a chair and Kelly strapped a bulkily device about my neck that was 

some kind of heater disguised as a towel. She then pasted four electrodes across my upper back and shoulders. 

"Is this going to make me confess everything I've ever done?" I asked her.

She gradually turned on the juice and at first I felt hardly more than a slight twinge. She kept turning it up, telling me to say when to stop. I guess I'm a glutton for pain for I just kept indicating "up", even when it felt like a bunch of pins repeatedly sticking me. Finally the pins turned to a bubble effect and I said, "stop". I then endured this odd sensation for ten minutes to loosen up my muscles, whats left of them.

It was akin to having Flacco, my daughter's giant Siberian Cat playing the piano on my back.

But it felt good. Everything about the experience was positive and now I am visiting three times weekly to do my exercises and have my back electrocuted. And lo-o-oving it!

We will see if this leads to me standing up straighter in the end. I wonder if it will even make me taller. I long felt if I had not this curved spine I would have been six foot two rather than just six foot.

We will see.

 Flacco