My ankle is still a little swollen which had impeded my speed considerably. I think I’m officially retired from my boyish antics but it would be nice to get in and out of the truck a little quicker. Getting old is tough pill to swallow.
I told you last week how even at 50 I could handle my own against the youngsters. I may have had a few more aches and pains the next day but I held my own. Jenny tells me that I have nothing to prove and that my need to outrun a 20 year old private was … hell I don’t know what she called it, some psychobabble jargon. I just call it teaching respect for elders.
Back in ‘89 we had this hot shot kid named Templeton get assigned to our unit. I was in Alaska at the time and there wasn’t much to do but stay inside where it was warm and entertain yourself the best you could. Being a bunch of leathernecks like we were, someone got the bright idea to buy a couple pairs of boxing gloves. Visits to the dentist when up 100% that month.
It was mostly in good fun, but this Templeton really took to giving everybody in the company a whollopin’. He was all state somethin’ or other back home and boy did he have a mouth on him. I was one of the old guys and Jenny always told me I should be an example to the other men, so I kept my mouth shut, for the most part. A Georgia man can be a patient man but it’s hot down there and our blood runs a little warmer than the average man, so about a week before Christmas when little ‘ol Templeton got to shootin’ his mouth off, it was time for he and I to have a little talk in our make shift boxing ring.
I’ll spare you the details ‘cause, as you might have guessed, I gave ‘ol Templeton a real lesson in respectin’ your elders. He didn’t break nothin’, unless you count a rib, but he found chewing his roast beef a little more difficult for the next few weeks. I got myself a nice shiner for my trouble but for a 49 year old Gunny like me, it might as well have been a medal.
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