THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408180237
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastwise
SOURCE: Ford Reid
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
My friend Leon was a fine athlete. In school he played football and ran track and for years after that he joined softball and basketball teams.
Then his knees started to go, and his shoulders, too. His eyes aren't all that good anymore, either.
In short, he has grown old, too old to play sports. But then, he lasted a lot longer than I did.
Now, he needs exercise. But he can't jog, and wouldn't if he could, and he refuses to walk. It is, I think, a self-image thing. He doesn't want to associate himself with certain people, especially those who make a fetish out of physical fitness.
He's talking about taking up roller skating. Not on those trendy, in-line skates, but on the old fashioned, four wheels in a rectangle type. It is an interesting idea. I can almost see him at the rink, surrounded by 14-year-olds, going around and around to the strains of bubble gum rock and roll.
I had another idea.
I suggested that he hire himself out a couple of days a week digging ditches or chopping wood but there aren't that many ditches to be dug and he lives down on the coast of Georgia where the demand for wood choppers isn't that high either.
It is the blessing or the curse, depending on how you look at it, of this age that there is less and less physical labor required. A strong back is more likely to get you a spot in the unemployment line than it is to get you a lifetime of work.
It is the peculiar habit of this age that we pay one person to do our manual labor and another to make us exercise. Hire the kid down the street to mow your lawn so that you won't have to sweat and get out of breath, then hire his mother to lead your aerobics class so that you will sweat and get out of breath.
It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
Put on your designer jogging suit to run a couple of miles or climb on your $500, ten-speed bike for a little ride. But if you need a loaf of bread or a quart of milk, get in the car and drive the half mile to the store.
Most of us are guilty, me included. What we need is more useful exercise.
Mow the lawn with a push mower. It will wear you out, but that is the point, isn't it? Besides, it is quiet and you smell the fresh cut grass instead of exhaust fumes.
If you come from a certain time and place, it might even remind you of your youth.
Walk to the store, to the post office or to the beach. You get some exercise, you save some money on gasoline and the air is left just a smidgen less polluted.
Take a plastic bag with you when you walk the beach or the roadside and pick up trash along the way. It will give your exercise an extra purpose and make the world a nicer place.
You might even find someone who needs a ditch dug or some wood chopped.
Or you could join Leon at the roller rink. MEMO: Ford Reid's column appears weekly in The Carolina Coast. Send comments
and questions to him at P.O. Box 10, Nags Head, N.C. 27959.
by CNB