The Elder Beeboy

We had to rearrange a wiring closet, both network and voice cabling, in an area where we couldn’t do any work until the caregivers had gone home for the day.  It involved installing a large, freestanding steel rack, and bolting to it a variety of networking devices including two large battery packs.  Usually when I move one of these, called a UPS and weighing about 120lbs, I remove the batteries to make the chassis a little lighter, but my much younger partner wanted to get it done quickly so he could get home on an already late workday.  So the two of us muscled them into place, got everything up and running for when the shift returned the next morning, and then we went home.  By the time I pulled into my driveway I could feel my heartbeat in my knee and I half expected that had I looked at it, it would be throbbing like the throat of a bullfrog.  A cartoon bullfrog. 

                I went to bed with a brace on it – yes I own a knee brace – and I dreamed of the days when I had knees whose fragileness I was blissfully unaware.  By morning it was back to normal.  Well, as normal as a 52-year-old knee can be. 

                When I was young I never thought about lifting too much or going too long.  My first job was a paperboy, called Beeboys after the paper we delivered.  Sadly our newspapers have shrunk to a paltry version of their former selves, more like propaganda leaflets being dropped into our driveways.  Do they not throw them on the porch anymore because their weight, or lack thereof, would never allow them to be flung that far?  When I delivered The Bee it was more substantial.  Sunday’s edition was roughly the size and weight of a 5-inch naval shell.  And I landed them on doormats with the same accuracy as our fine Navy gunners.  Most Sundays I couldn’t take the whole load in my bike’s saddle bags and had to make two trips.  And woe to the kid who let his bike tip over with a full load; he’d likely have to empty them just to right that ship.  A lot like taking batteries out of a UPS before lifting it into a network rack.

                So I’m older now.  Yes, I have to think about my knees.  I have to think about my back and shoulders, and hands, and wrists, and was that last light green or red?, and well you get the point.  But I don’t mind really.  Even though I have more aches and pains than some sort of retired hybrid baseball catcher/ rodeo clown, I honestly don’t feel old.  Occasionally I find I’m as naive about some thing as I was as an 18-year-old, which I kind of find appealing.  For instance knowing when to use “who’s” verses “whose.”  What humiliated the boy charms the man I guess.