Daily Archives: 4/28/2011

Domestic Bliss

If I’d known…

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If I’d known it had to last this long, I would’ve taken better care of it.

(or reflections of a man faced with his own mortality)

Every now and then I pull up a picture of me in my young and vital days.  Oddly many of these involve me wearing some strange green garb, surround by similarly aged and arrayed contemporaries.

In a couple of months I turn sixty-one.  The young, athletic man who used to bound up and down off and in and out of an M60A1 tank with all the speed of a monkey with a firecracker up his ass?  That guy?  Well, now he is now reduced to hobbling.  Well, okay, walking, but with a decidedly obvious effort to favor a leg.

I’m out of service today due to soft tissue pain associated with my right knee.  Strangely, it’s my LEFT knee that hurts in such an continuous and aggravating manner when I drive for more than an hour or so.

The pain has increased past the point where it is manageable with over the counter anti-inflammatories and pain meds, so tomorrow is a scheduled trip to the doctor.  Being a person who investigates and and troubleshoots systems for a living, I am betting this involved a little prodding and poking, then a referral for imaging, a neat technical term for MRI and X-ray.

I’m hoping for a stronger round of anti-inflammatory stuff and some pain-killers to let me sleep a whole night.  And trying to train Miss Kitty to drape her fourteen pounds over the back of that knee as a kind of hairy, organic heating pad.

UPDATE: Just a little list:

Both ankles, chronically sprained from a 1970 motorcycle accident.  Totalled a Harley.

Shoulder problems, started when I caught the receiver of an M-85 machine-gun tossed out the back of a deuce and a half.

Knees, just too many miles, and for the last decade or so, overload.

Blood pressure.  that’s the age and weight thing again.

Cholesterol, blame it on genetics and a predilection for rich fatty meats.  Cajun, you know.

History

Today in History – April 28

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1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty, Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.

1862 – American Civil War: Admiral David Farragut captures New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Feds have been taking care of the place ever since…

1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement who became exceedingly brave once the Allies were on the peninsula and the Germans were on the run.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. I’ve read and re-read this story. It’s a classic tale of men against the sea.

1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Commander of NATO. He’s headed for the Presidency of the United States.

1996 – In Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more, resulting in draconian Australian gun laws that disarm the law-abiding. Crazy people, however, remain crazy, and criminals remain criminals.