Satchel Paige didn’t have an official birth certificate so there was a guess made about how old he was when he entered the Negro League of Professional Baseball. He pitched until he was “59” years old.
Some wondered how he was able to keep going at such a high level for so long. He said, “It’s a matter of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it don’t matter.”
Whenever somebody asked him about his age he would counter with his own question: “If you didn’t know how old you was, how old would you be?”
I ponder that occasionally. Some days I feel younger. Others much older than I am.
Because I’ve kept myself in good shape over the years I’ve surprised people when I tell them my age. It also helps that I never had children to rear.
Perhaps it helped that I skipped my 40’s, too. That’s right, I was 39 for eleven years.
Full disclosure time now, I turned 57 last March. Ever since then I’ve had to admit more and more that I’m no longer a kid anymore.
I have a sleeping companion that I never considered using in bed before. But occasionally I need to apply heat to sore places on my body to help me sleep through the night. Even though there’s a warning on the heating pad about not laying on it I do it anyway. That began in April.
I actually move it around to hit different aches during the night.
Yeah, this old body is wearing out.
I took a driving assignment last week that reminded me I can’t do some things as well as I used to either. I had to chain steel items to a flatbed trailer.
When I tried throwing a chain over the load it didn’t quite clear the top of the freight on the second attempt. It used to make it every time back in the day…not these days.
I don’t think I’ll be going back there unless I’m desperate.
I’m even developing kinks in my body from painting too much. The muscles on the base of my neck on the right side occasionally cramp up. I guess I need to become a south paw painter to even things out.
I bring this up because I just heard a sermon about Caleb. Yeah, that 85 year old who wanted to chase the giants out of the land that the ten spies feared forty-five years earlier.
He claimed to be as strong at 85 as he was at 40. Of course he had the advantage of eating the world’s only perfect food for forty years…manna.
I do my best to eat wisely. With the food choices we all have I’m surprised more folks don’t take advantage of that.
I exercise regularly…well, as regularly as I can with as irregular a work schedule as I have these days.
Sleep is my worst enemy, if I’m honest. That crazy work schedule has really done a number on me there.
I have my own set of giants that need to be dealt with these days. I don’t plan on backing down from them, neither.
My secret is the same one Caleb used. I know it’s God who will slay those giants before me, not me.
I have a hard enough time swatting a mosquito these days.
I’ll see you later. Wade
