The Truth Hurts

Up until my senior year of high school a group of friends and I dating back to elementary school (Fight on mighty Central Tigers!) played dodgeball together. Some of my fondest memories of elementary school involve playing in the gym that, at the time, seemed so huge. Armed with boundless energy, we relished pummeling each other for hours with yellow balls and, every once in a while, "accidentally" losing control of a ball and nailing girls we liked and/or disliked (sorry Suzie Wadley that ball just got away from me.)

This past Christmas most of the gang was back in town so we decided to reconvene at Central and relive the glory days. The night before the big day, I began to worry that my 32-yr old body wasn't quite as nimble and flexible as it was 20-yrs ago. I flashed back to the morphine shot I received in the ER of LDS Hospital for my back problems as well as each of the 252 elders quorum moves I had been involved in. No worries, I run 5-times a week I'd be fine. Wrong.

Here we are discussing the ground rules for the game, exchanging insurance information, and communicating our last wishes should some of us not make it out alive. It was about this time that I realized I had designated Heather as the decision maker in my living will and health care power of attorney, which is a big mistake since Heather has already told me she is disregarding my instructions to pull the cord regardless of the doctor's prognosis. But that's a whole different story.

Here's Bartlett, Jake, and Russ as we prepared for battle. I'm not sure why Bartlett chose jeans but to each his own.

The game started and we bolted to action. For the first 3.5 minutes the euphoria of youth swept over me. I dodged, ducked, dove, dived, and worked by badself all over the place - - with moderate to poor success. I soon realized that my original strategy of just being able to outrun everyone was not going to serve me in a game played in a 70'x30' band-box.

After 3-4 rounds of playing (which is only about 15-minutes) I began to feel myself getting sore, a phenomenon I never experienced back in the day. I tried to shake it off, but it kept getting worse. I felt my hamstrings getting tighter and tighter. My back and arm muscles began to hurt. By the 8th game, my bursts of speed had atrophied to slow steps which meant I was a pretty easy target. The only thing saving me was my lack of weight gain since, well, junior high. I may have been slower, but there wasn't a lot of me to hit. This "advantage" only resulted in me being one of the last on our team still in play which led to 5-6 opposing team members hurling their projectiles at me at once. Thankfully there's no pictures of that carnage.

In the end we all survived. I picked up my hamstrings, Achilles tendons, and whatever shreds of self-respect I had left off the gym floor and drove home. I woke up the next morning in significant pain and without much range of movement. Aging is rough. Luckily I had this to come home to.