Early To Bed, Early To Rise With Graduating High School And Fitness The Prize

On my ass, one more time.

Stubbed my toe, flew like a disabled bird, through the air, fell on my pot belly and side and didn't/couldn’t jump back up. God was punishing me for wanting to get some empty calorie fucking jelly beans out of my car. My eye glasses were ten feet away, fortunately still in one piece. Laid there a few minutes, on the concrete, while thoughts flowed through my unscathed, empty head. I knew that those fucking jelly beans would get me in trouble and that I was an old man.

While stretched out on the concrete I concluded: 

1. Nothing felt broken, which, at 90, is a big fucking deal.

2. Felt like an idiot for not paying attention to where I was walking.

3. Felt like shit.

4. Going after jelly beans was a big mistake.

  
Wondered if I could get my fat Jewish ass vertical without help. Years of squats and flexibility training did make that happen.

My wonderful Pop made an early riser out of me. It made him nuts to have two intellectually superior kids, a third blossoming genius and me, an intellectual derelict (aka delinquent) kid in the middle of the action. Shitty school marks were my hallmark.

Nothing, including living in constant fear of bringing my usually terrible report card home, energized me to do better in school. I had concluded that there was absolutely no fucking way I could come close, much less equal, my brother Herman and sister Florence's accomplishments in school. Trying would be like pissing into the wind or rowing against the current.

My sister Florence caught hell because she knew I was lying to my parents about my delays in producing those fucking report cards. Making bullshit reasons was tough but doable. Our family intellectual King Kong, Herman, speaking from the mount called M.I.T. in Cambridge, made it plain and clear to my folks that I was hardly worth the effort to even try making a school success out of me. Being classified by the family guru as hopeless didn't bother me at all since I agreed with him.

When I would come home from school I would grab some fruit and go out the door with whatever the season called for: baseball, basketball, football, roller skates for street hockey. Whatever. Do homework? A disgusting thought.

We had, across the street, in the Bronx, an Italian neighbor Mr.Trissollini. Who had, as I was, an intellectually handicapped son, Patty. Mr.Trissollinni convinced my Pop that the only way to get my nose to the homework grindstone was to make me get my ass out of bed by 5:30 AM and do my homework before I went to school, not after I came home. And so began at age 14 a lifetime habit of waking early. It should be noted that it worked. I did graduate, painfully, high school, to the surprise of all including me. It did take a few remedial summer schools to qualify for a diploma.

I converted early rising time for school to early rising for business and fitness routines.

Yesterday, one more time, this major league klutz's fitness addiction saved the day. Years of walking 1 1/4 miles a day, pounding the hell out of my legs on tennis hard courts, (no varicose veins doubles) plus light weight lifting and flexibility training, had been interwoven into my lifestyle. So all of the fitness stuff has, at least, allowed me to fall on my ass at 90 and not fracture or break a bone, though I am sore. Picking on the scabs on my arms gives me some diversion. A small reward.

No need to worry about the 'bone' between my legs. Can't break, long gone. Sadly, as Willie Nelson so famously sad, "I'm sorry that my dick died before the rest of me."