Yesterday, son Jim and Grumpy set out early in the morning (after wasting three hours trying to get the old Ford pickup started, but more about that later!) for Port Orchard to pick up a trailer load of fireplace wood. The Grand Mother admonished us both to "be careful; don't hurt yourselves" as she bid us goodbye for the day.
The wood was all neatly stacked next to the house of Jim's good friend and former co-worker, Ray. With the trailer next to the wood pile, the wood was soon loaded with three of us pitching in. Well, the reader is cautioned not to think of the word, "pitching" as in "throwing with abandon". Some of those chunks of Douglas fir were big enough to cut into "cookies" to make a garden walkway! They were so heavy that it was easier for two people to pick one up than it was for one person to try to manhandle it by himself.
With respect for Grumpy's advanced age, son Jim inquired two or three times during the loading, "How are you doing, Dad? You okay?" Grumpy always proudly responded that he felt fine -- "no sweat" (well, that was true! It was a fairly cool November day; the sun was shielded by a high overcast and the surrounding tall trees kept us mostly in the shade anyway.)
Later that day, long after the trailer-load of wood was backed into the back yard of Grumpy's Castle, as Grumpy was undressing to take his hot shower before retiring for the night, he noted those almost-forgotten aches and pains of muscles and joints that had not been exercised "like that" for lo these many moons. Grumpy took two aspirins before going to sleep, in hopes that that would forestall a complete shutdown of his musculo-skeletal system by morning.
So, Jim, I guess I didn't feel it at the time, but it caught up with me later!
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