It occurs to me that I ain't as young as I use to be. There was a time not too long ago when I could readily get up and down a basketball court and hang with the fellas at the Downtown Dallas YMCA for some five on five basketball.
Unfortunately for me that is no longer the case and not something that I would even contemplate doing in my current physical condition in spite of my lack of common sense at times. I'm simply not as limber as I use to be.
Anymore it seems as if it takes a good deal of effort just to ever so gingerly climb out of the v-berth in the mornings. All of which brings to mind the lower back ache that I've been coping with for the past couple of weeks.
For you see a couple of weeks ago I got an invitation to head on out to one of the ball fields here in Marathon for a little recreational softball one afternoon. Well it wasn't quite so recreational after all. There simply was too much bickering going around with teammates getting on each others case after every perceived missed play.
Mind you that I'm not talking about a bunch of young kids doing all the bickering either but rather a bunch of old geezers in their fifties and sixties... and don't doubt for a moment that these same old fuddie-duddies collectively and fervently believe that Glen Beck and Shawn Hannity of FOX Fabrication News Network are all somehow enlightened.
But this geezer talk is all noise insofar as backaches are concerned and this gratuitous commentary will simply have to wait for another day before becoming a blog entry in its own right.
It was in any event somewhat fun to get out on a ball-field and be a kid again. That was until a day or two later when I seemed to be hurting all over. It seemed as if every muscle in my body was aching. Who would of thought that a leisurely game of softball could possibly inflict so much discomfort upon a person?
My thighs were completely sore from running the bases and sprinting throughout the outfield. My arm was aching from having attempted to throw out a number of runners at the plate, and my back was killing me after having swung for the fences on every pitch while at bat.
I also doubt whether all those batting practice swings that I took before the game were of any help. Especially now that I've got a lower back muscle pulling on my spine all in one direction.
To make matters worse, I aggravated my aching back muscle when I finally took it upon myself a day or so later to take my outboard that was mounted on the transom of my boat to a marine mechanic for repairs.
That effort involved loosening the clamps that held the outboard onto the engine bracket and of then lowering it down into my dinghy and later muscling that heavy thing onto the backseat of my car only to later have to repeat the process in inverse order once I had retrieved it from the shop.
That Nissan 9.8 HP outboard easily weighed over a hundred pounds and it did indeed seem to take a toll on a lower vertebrate or two of mine. I'm still feeling the effects of carting that outboard around all of which reminds me of the time when I had previously aggravated a lower back muscle while living in Dallas a few years ago.
I can well remember the incessant pain and discomfort of that back pain and of finally coming to terms with the fact that I did indeed need a deep tissue massage to complement all the muscle-relaxant and pain-reliever pills that I had been swallowing down by the hand-full every so often.
It just so happened that the Dallas Downtown YMCA were I frequented had a few trainers on staff instructed on how to perform muscle massages on athletes. These athletes were invariably marathon runners and the like.
I had never before shelled out any of my hard earned mulah for a massage before so I didn't quite know what to expect. Somehow the thought of someone other than a significant other massaging all my muscles to be a bit too seedy for me. So yes, this would be my first muscle massage ever.
I'm hobbling about and in some serious pain when I pay my fee for a massage session. I then make my way on over to another floor where the large dimly lit room with various massage tables are located.
Waiting inside that darkened room is the same sleazy looking Hispanic character that I'd seen many times before throughout the YMCA facilities. He was still wearing the same large, dark sunshades like he'd always had before as I struggled to climb up onto the table after showering.
It was at the moment that it somehow occurred to me that he perhaps couldn't see when he didn't reach out to take my receipt that I was extending out to him as proof of prior payment.
Not wanting to be politically incorrect, I politely inquire, "Excuse me sir, are you perhaps sightless"? , upon which he then stands erect and shouts, "No Man!... I'm not sightless!... I'm blind!!".
And with that, we both proceed to laugh are asses off. Turns out that he was a most delightful person to chat it up with and even better yet, he knew what he was doing insofar as massages were concerned. For the next hour, he proceeded to apply deep pressure all throughout my lower back muscle that had me in so much pain.
Within a day or two my back muscle had completely loosened up and stopped aching. It felt as good as new. (Hey Frank... hope all is well with you)
No comments:
Post a Comment