Random Thoughts Over Labor Day Weekend

If bone were stone then my backbone would be made of granite. Coarse and porous, rough and brittle it would shred the nerves than ran down its path, transporting wave upon wave of pain and misery.

If bone were made of jelly, then my spine would be more flexible but less controlled; drifting around out of place and bending upon itself until nerve met nerve and then send great arcs of pulsing discomfort.

If bone were made of bone and well, likely it is; then mine is old and brittle. Cracked and yellowed scrimshaw weak and worn with age, it no longer repairs itself. Instead it grows barnacles like the hull of an ancient ship sharp and spiny it spurs my nerves and spears my flesh. And when my aching muscles swell from exhaustion and abuse they embrace my spine and wrap snug and tight until I am flat on my back near to unconscious from the pain.

I spent a lifetime learning the value of hard work, pressing myself farther and farther, and fighting the overpowering urges of my youth to pass through life in leisure and sloth. To live a pampered life as television and society often portrayed, showing the rewards of hard labor without the actual painful tedious often boring repetitive actions necessary to achieve success. The world appeared as the haves and the have-nots. To have was a gift and to have not was a sin.

Later in life I learned that the people who have are not always products of Gods great mercy. Quite often they were sons of carpetbaggers, grafters, shysters, corrupt exploiters of innocence and virtue, sham artists and liars of every degree. They are politicians for power and often oblivious to their own cruelty. “Child labor in third world countries? If not for my company giving them work those children would be starving and begging in the streets!” Of course they are still starving but much too busy to beg in the streets now.

I am a man of too much stuff. I have more toys than I can play with and still look longingly at every new contraption that comes along. I have eaten like a slovenly sow and have consumed far more than my share of natural resources in my short life and often bragged about it. Yes I beat the restaurant in New Mexico that claimed if you ate their whole steak dinner, the meal was free. My cousin and I both beat the house that day. I used to take pride in my ability to eat a whole pizza in one sitting with a pitcher or two of ice-cold beer. So it is only fair that now I am unable to enjoy many common delicacies readily available today. My meals today tend to be meager in comparison to a portion of my past and yet no less enjoyable. I remember little of what I ate in quantity, the junk the gourmet and the periodic home cooked meals all blur together as time passes, but the hard to come by meals scrapped from poverties recesses heated over a second hand hotplate from the dark and early days of my life, and the occasional splurge I allow myself these days are ingrained in my memory as feasts of value and sustenance that the McClowns and Taco Dogs and Casino Buffets of the world will never match.

Well that is about as random as they come. I bought a new bed this weekend and in the process of moving furniture around (I know I swore I was done with doing that) I put my back out again. I am back to the life of leisure and lounging. Lazy Boy has competition now, my bed raises and lowers and has magic fingers, just the thing for an old(ish) man.