Stuff that I Have Noticed # 71: Use it or Lose it

• Posted on 19th October 2023
• in entertainment books, New York City
• by Ben

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Browsing through old photos opens the floodgates of memory.

The NFL season stimulates memories of pain/elation and my somewhat exaggerated prowess on the gridiron. (One of my friends recently said, “The older I get the better football player I was.”)

That’s me at 18 trying to look tough at Hollywood High

When I was 18 at 5’ 9” I weighed 195 pounds and ran the 100 yard dash in 10.3 seconds. I was a fullback, a minor league precursor to Larry Czonka.

Seventy years down the line I stand 5’ 7” weigh 150 pounds and would probably run 100 yards in… 100.3 seconds.

What happened? Where is that boy?

He’s still in there… somewhere deep. This is the conundrum for old athletes.

You might say, as I did once, “I was an athlete when I was young.” The friend to whom I said it corrected me. “If you were ever an athlete you still are; just an old one.”

About the only athletic thing I do these days is ride my bike. I use it as transportation all over Manhattan, year round except when it’s raining or the snow is too heaped up at intersections so it’s hard to pass through. And I am noticing that my leg power and balance are not what they used to be. Of course, there are many folks who tell me I’m nuts to be riding a bicycle in Manhattan traffic at 88. Screw ‘em I say. I’ll do what I can do as long as I can do it.

I often hear people of my years say, “I’d love to do that (whatever “that” is) but I’m too old.” Unless one is bed-ridden, on crutches or in a wheelchair, I say bullshit. From early years I’ve often been told to act my age and have steadfastly declined such advice. Especially now. I’ve been blessed to have my mom, Lucy’s genes. She left her body at 98 and until a few months before was doing brisk half-hour walks in the Hollywood Hills.

The best example of her (and my) inherent toughness is best shown in a phone conversation we had about three years before her death.“How you doin’ Mom?” 
“Fine. I’m just a little stiff and sore.” “Why are you stiff and sore?” “I was standing on a chair changing a light bulb and I fell off.”

The woman was ninety-five, she fell off while standing on a chair and was “a little stiff and sore.”!! My Mother gave me those Genes.

Thank You, Lucy!

I don’t mean that the years have not taken a physical toll, they certainly have. Yet a youthful attitude mitigates their impact to a significant degree and I maintain, based on experience, that ‘acting ones age” only makes one less “alive”.

Life is meant to be lived to the fullest; physically and mentally to the maximum possible. My metaphor for that is stairs not elevator, bike not taxi and writing these essays to keep my mind alive.

There’s a well-worn phrase that pretty much sums up what I’m trying to say: Use it or Lose it!

Let that be the mantra for we codgers.