If you have read some of my most recent posts, you know that I have been writing about my experiences while attending the Logistics Executive Development Course at Fort Lee, Virginia. While at Fort Lee, I spent some time talking about finding a place to live, and we found a place in a trailer park in Petersburg. And I mentioned in that post my sentiments about the manager of that trailer park. But my family and I decided not to let that pickup driving, backwoods dwelling, varmint hunting, shotgun hauling trailer park manager interfere with our ability to get along and adapt to our new environment. Even though we were treated as if we were “other-colored” people, we learned to improvise, overcome and adapt. My son was getting along just fine and playing with his friends and time moved on. Well, as I said, time moved on. We all got integrated into life at Petersburg and Fort Lee. Eventually, I got accustomed to life in Petersburg and Fort Lee. You probably read that I would run through the woods surrounding the school where it was purported that Civil War battles had been fought. I ran through those woods pretty much every evening after school without fail. And you no doubt remember about the orchestrated run that was thrown together by the cadre at the Logistics Executive Development Course. However, besides talking about running, I talked about country briefs and international politics involved in the course. Or about being the target of a prank. The prank was a promotion which never happened. Yes, I was tricked into being wrongly promoted and then demoted in less than a week. I also posted about the commanding general’s invitational deer hunt, where I got to be a swamp dog. Yay. That’s always exciting. Not. I finally even relayed my theory of relatives. My theory of relatives actually had nothing to do with my attendance at the Logistics Executive Development Course at Fort Lee, Virginia. No. I just threw it out there on a whim (as I was reminded of it recently) for your reading enjoyment because I mentioned it in an earlier post as something that I would tell you about at a later time. My most recent post talked about one of my hunting experiences in the swamps of Fort Lee. Today, my post deals with a hard fact of life that we must all face at some point in our lives. I will call that hard fact of life: The beginning of the end. What do I mean by that? Do I mean that the world is suddenly going to screech to a halt? No. Do I mean that life as we know it will abruptly end? No. Do I mean that the universe will suddenly explode? No. Of course, any one or all of those things could happen independently. But that would be purely coincidental. What I am referring to is that point in life when your mind tells your body to do something but your body refuses to do it. Most professional athletes know that point full well. Some professional athletes have a hard time coming to grips with that point in life. Case in point: Brett Favre, Tom Brady, or perhaps you can think of others. That point in time is a vaguely defined point when your physical abilities begin to diminish. Ever so slightly at first, but more rapidly as time goes on. And you develop pains in every single joint in your body. Those pains may manifest to varying degrees. We refer to this affectionately as old age. But are we really old? No. It is just an indication that we have reached a certain benchmark age where our bodies have peaked and our physical abilities start to wane. When that same process happens with mechanical equipment such as cars, we begin to refer to them as clunkers or rust buckets or buckets of bolts or junkers. These cars look dilapidated, rundown, beat up, dented, and rusty. Some of them are even held together with duct tape and bailing wire. You’ve seen cars like these driving down the road. Admit it. You have. You’ve even shaken your heads in disgust at how they look. You may even wonder how many accidents that car in front of you has been in before because there are no bumpers anymore. The trunk is held shut with rope. The taillights are made out of tape (that’s if they even have tail lights). The fenders are different colors than the doors, and they may even be different colors from each other. Okay, so what the hell does that have to do with your body? I’m getting to that. When you injure joints and cartilage in your body when you’re young, it eventually heals and you move on. But does it heal? There’s the Gotcha. Cuz eventually you’re going to hit that point in life when you’ve reached the beginning of the end. The only real difference is that cars show their dings and dents. But our bodies don’t. Those joints and cartilage and ligaments that you abused over time. Yeah. They sat back and formed something called arthritis (for those of you that don’t know what that is, that’s the greatest indicator of old age). But the sneaky thing is you don’t even know that it is there. One day when you reach that point of no return, it just comes up and kicks you in the ass. Wham! Why am I telling you all of this? Because the beginning of the end for me came while I was attending the Logistics Executive Development Course at Fort Lee, Virginia. When the nice warm weather of summer gave way to the chilling, damp weather of fall, the beginning of the end snuck up behind me and kicked me in the ass. I wasn’t even aware that it had happened. One morning I arrived at school and sat down in class for the first session. After fifty minutes, we were given our first break and everybody sprang up from their chairs to go use the toilets and to get coffee. I also tried to spring up from my chair. But my body wouldn’t let me. Instead, it took me a minute or two to slowly and gingerly inch up out of the chair and ever so gently stretch out to a full and erect posture. However, to my chagrin at least three or four other students saw me and gasped in alarm. One shouted, “Hey, grandpa!” And another asked, “What in the hell is the matter with you?” What could I say other than a feeble retort of ‘arthritis’. I had previous indications that my body was riddled with arthritis. But I never knew the extent or the severity of the arthritis until then. When I was in Korea. I had reached the prime of my physical performance. However, while I attended the Logistics Executive Development Course at Fort Lee, Virginia, I had reached the beginning of the end of the peak of my physical performance. I thought perhaps the desert of Arizona might extend the life of my physical performance by a few years, but not by much. I faced the beginning of the end with no thoughts to the future exercises in futility.
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