I’m not sure what started the following conversation. “Hoarding” was the topic – people who can’t throw things away. Letting piles of items grow and grow in your closets, garages, basements and elsewhere, to the point where someone else comes in, visits and wonders, “What the heck is going on with this person?”
 
I remember back at the turn of the 21st century (Y2K folks, remember that?) and we lived in Columbus, NE. In our neighborhood, there was an old AMC Gremlin (yup, what a name for a car, huh?) one block away from our house parked on the street. An old guy lived there.
 
Curiously, one day I looked inside the car because you could see things piled up against the window. “What the heck is in there?”
 
It turns out, a LOT. Mostly newspapers, but also cans and clothes and other stuff. Piles and piles, to the point where you realized something weird was going on, and that this individual NEVER drove a passenger since another human being couldn’t fit anywhere inside.
 
At that moment in collective world history, I’m not sure I’d ever heard about the hoarding syndrome – where people stockpile things that they can’t seem to throwaway (for whatever reason).
 
One important lesson in life that most of us learn, but not everyone, is that you must throw away things you don’t need. Nostalgia value doesn’t matter. Utility value does. You must make a decision.
 
If you don’t, your closet, garage or basement comes back to claim you. They get so packed with things you don’t use that you can’t find the clothes you want (closet), can’t park the car inside (garage) or do laundry (basement).
 
Recently during my morning workout routine, a trusty friend who always has great stories, weighed in with his own when I raised this subject. He laughed and related a tale with his son.
 
He mentioned he hoards two things: jackets and fishing lures. Both accumulate exponentially. He gets rid of them and soon thereafter the stash morphs like an amoeba splitting. Cut off the head and the body grows.
 
Enter his son. They take on the mission of reduction. His son does not appear to have the accumulation/hoarding gene.
 
They go to the closet. His son: “When was the last time you wore this?”
 
“Last year.”
 
“Gone. How about this jacket?”
 
“Uh, a couple of years ago.”
 
“Toss it.”
 
Things went on like this, slinging away all those little-used jackets. Then came the fishing lures.
 
“When’s the last time you caught a walleye with this one?”
 
“Never. I was thinking about getting rid of it.”
 
“Why didn’t you?”
 
“I don’t know. Always the hope the next walleye isn’t so bright.”
 
“Lose it. What about this one?”
 
“That one I got for my 21st birthday. I can’t get rid of that.”
 
“Sure you can. Do it.”
 
And so on. The process continued. Unused items got tossed and piles shrank.  All to the good. You have to break the bond, let go. My buddy knew this.
 
Yet, and yet.  Lurking is the potential for a return as new items replenish your stock. For lone-term success, you must resist this.

As my buddy jokingly stated, “a year later I was facing the same issue again.”
 
Sometimes you can use a logical plan to reduce the hoarding, like he did. You can also use the replacement method: “if something comes into the closet, something must exit the closet.” This works.
 
It comes down to decisions. Make them. Stick to them. Don’t look back. But save your dad’s baseball jacket because some day you might need it.

​Sometimes your brain is filled up with pop culture and won’t accept more. I found this out a couple of weeks back while talking to a friend who works out at the same time I do.
 
We discussed the TV show, “Alone.” Both of us are fans.

He went off on how great it was, and addictive. But he hadn’t watched it recently.
 
I talked about the most recent season, but he couldn’t comment because it had fallen by his personal wayside. “I don’t know why,” he said in response to my question on why he wasn’t watching.
 
Once we batted that around a bit, I suggested, “Maybe your pop culture brain cells are filled up.” He laughed, then nodded his head that it was a definite possibility, if not probability.
 
We followed that path for a bit, discussing how the show had flown away from his consciousness. Other things in life intruded. He focused elsewhere.
 
It’s a strange condition when you consider this. We may appreciate something like the show, “Alone,” and have good intentions about continuing to follow up. For reasons probably unknown, it doesn’t rise to the level of our memory where we say, “Yeah, let’s turn it on Wednesday night.” Or, “Let’s record the entire season so we know we can watch it when we want to.”
 
Instead, it fades away, like so much pop culture entertainment. The good reason we don’t necessarily follow up is because shows don’t really matter. Life intervenes. You’re working, cooking, doing laundry, commuting, raising children, caring for pets or elderly parents, working on your house or yard.
 
Pop culture is a diversion from all that other stuff. We watch and listen to get away from our daily grind issues.
 
It becomes easy to forget. “Dammit, ‘Alone’ was on last night and we missed it.”
 
Not a big deal. You can always catch the next episode. Once you miss though, it becomes easier to forget the next one as well, and that’s where those saturated pop culture brain cells come into play.
 
THERE ARE SO MANY ENTERTAINMENT OPTIONS VYING FOR OUR ATTENTION! Sports, movies, TV shows, books, stuff on YouTube, music, and the list goes on.
 
When you fill up, something has to go. I often use the analogy of the brain being a sponge, soaking up water (information). It gets saturated after a point. You have to squeeze it to get the liquid out, then the sponge is able to re-absorb more material.
 
That’s hard to do because the brain still stores data back in there somewhere. You can put things on the back shelf, but things are still percolating.
 
Which may be why “Alone” (or whatever example you want to use) takes a back shelf. Something else took its place.
 
This syndrome plays out in many parts of our life as we forget to return phone calls or text messages or emails. We forget appointments. We’re late to an event because it slipped our mind.
 
A full brain is endemic to our lives today. Figuring out how to empty it, and keep the important stuff flowing placidly along, on time, is a challenge.
 
I think the best advice is to set those priorities on what you really care about. You have to commit. And, most pop culture entertainment doesn’t rise to a level of critical importance. We fill up. We eliminate. We move on.

​You have to imagine that most people in our rapidly changing world have at least a touch of technology paranoia. It’s hard not to.
 
“AI is coming for you” appears as the newest force to radically modify our lives. Perhaps this will be true, perhaps not. There is no question it already is being applied and will continue to do so in the years ahead.

When technology jumps into play where it previously hadn’t ventured (or simply didn’t exist), humans tend to take a big gulp. I know I do. “Gulp, what’s next? How’s this going to affect me? Can I keep up? Can I even remotely come to understand how this stuff works? Does it matter?”
 
You look at bad outcomes. You foresee disaster.
 
Regardless of your perspective, there are phases we go through: recognition; adaptive; rejection (or acceptance); learning; understanding. I just made all those up and throw them out there for your pondering moments.
 
There is an element of paranoia that can creep into your thinking process, similar to the Buffalo Springfield line, “Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it creeps.”
 
Recently, for example, my wife began to receive online mail updates from the USPS on what items will be deposited into our mailbox on any given day. Yes, maybe this is a good technology invention if you’re concerned about mailbox theft.
 
But, also, it’s paranoia inducing because of EXACTLY what they say is going to arrive in your mailbox on the day they say those pieces of mail are supposed to arrive, you get concerned that something wrong has happened. Theft, for example. Ineptitude by the USPS. Or, maybe the mailbox blew open and the letter that was supposed to arrive is now fluttering on the wind waves of North Dakota.
 
In a recent personal case, I was supposed to receive a check for my writing work. The USPS notification said the check was arriving Tuesday. Nope. The next day, no dice, mailbox empty. My wife, who set this notification up, is the one who has informed me of this.
 
Now, in general, I don’t worry about these glitches. F-ups happen all the time – everywhere and in every profession. It’s no big deal for me; I cut them slack.
 
Since two days in a row have elapsed though, and no paycheck, there’s the little paranoia thing creeping into the back of my brain. “Do we have a mail stealer in our neighborhood? Is the post office hiring losers who have a friend at a bank who will help them cash a check not made out to them?” These odds are very, very slight, and typically my rational side dominates and I’m able to blow off the concerns. Technology anxiety was ascending though.
 
Another example came recently as I switched from a Windows-based desktop computer to an Apple-based one, after input from my family and listening to the experts at Best Buy. I knew there would be some issues to work through, but accepted these, despite my technology-phobic bent. It was a hard decision for me, swayed by others who knew what was best for me in the long run.
 
I plunged, made the switch, and yes, it’s mostly good. I still have to figure some things out about how pictures are stored on Windows vs. Apple, and how I can access my old files and properly term new ones so I can pull them up quickly without going through a massive brain hemorrhage.
 
Venmo is another one that really isn’t at all difficult to adopt, but is one more example of new technology penetrating your day-do-day. For many summer league basketball games that I officiate, you now must use Venmo to get paid. That’s caused some back and forth communication issues with the payer, that ultimately worked out satisfactorily, but didn’t assuage the worry when the problem was occurring. In those moments, all you think about is, “Am I going to get paid? When am I going to get paid? Is this technology really going to work or am I going to get screwed and have to follow up again and again?”
One of my great friends is an avowed Luddite – non-technology adopter. I love his approach. I’m not in his league, but understand his value system. It makes life safer in many ways. Yet, technology continues to intrude, so the best adaptive measure is probably going to be to remain vigilant, learn what you need to learn, discard the bells and whistles. Keep it simple as best you can, staying with what you can wrap your mind around.

​When I work out in the morning at our fitness center, I often see a guy who’s older than me pounding the iron, moving his legs, stretching the muscles. It pleases me to see him.
 
He’s been at it for at least the past seven years based on my active memory. He lost his wife five years or so ago. I’d guess he’s currently in his early 80s.
 
I’ll call him “R” for short. He makes me laugh.
 
This is no small task. You have to be funny to make me laugh. You must be original. Creativity is critical.
 
The ability to make anyone laugh is unique. And, it is also very difficult because humor is an odd part of our human behavior. What makes one person crack up can put a picture of puzzlement on the face of the other 99 percent of humanity.
 
Back to R. He has a wry sense of humor. Very deadpan.  You ask him a question, and with no hesitation he replies. And the response is often funny. Here’s an example:
 
A year or so ago, someone mentioned it was his birthday. He could have been 80 or 81 at the time, somewhere in there. It made me inquire how he felt.
 
Me: “How does it feel to be 80?
 
R: “I don’t know. I’ve never been 80 before.” He said this without hesitating in the slightest.
 
I laughed so hard that R actually smiled in return (not so sure you get raucous laughter out of 80-year-old humans; a smile is a big deal; but I could be wrong about that). His spontaneity surprised and humored me, and got me thinking.

This is what I thought: Do we ever really know what we should feel like at a certain age? Where do we get information about how we should feel at a certain age? Is it accurate? Is it based on study or observation? Etc. Lots of questions.

The point being: We don’t really know how we should feel. We only feel how we feel. Bad day, good day. Stiff or sore. Not stiff or sore. Lots of energy or lagging a bit. Ready to run a marathon or ready to run back to bed.
 
“Feeling your age” is a strange statement if you think about it. It’s why R’s response to my question was so damn funny. You can’t know how you are “supposed” to feel at a certain age because you’ve never been that age before.
 
R’s response also got me thinking about how we live, the choices we make and how we perceive our days and activities. We can choose to reach out to every day as something new and fresh. Experience each day in all its splendor, remaining open to opportunities.
 
Or, we can cocoon ourselves, blanket our souls in ways that prevent growth or joy. Live limited rather than living expansively.
 
I hear people say on birthdays (when they’re 50 or 60 or 70) something to the effect of, “I feel the exact same way I did at 40.” I don’t really understand that response because I don’t know how you can feel the same. I certainly don’t.
 
You feel different. You’ve learned new things. You’ve developed. Your brain has absorbed more. Your body has dealt with lots of things, and changed. There is good development and there are ways in which you decline.
 
The next time someone asks me how I feel for my age, I’m going with R’s response, “I don’t know. I’ve never been this old before.”

​Last Tuesday, our senior men’s baseball game got called off due to rain. Not just any type of rain. But, rain that lambasted you. Soaked you till you shivered. Hammered you.
 
We came in off the field, hoping to get in one more at-bat. The south sky looked ominous. Still, you couldn’t tell the storm was about to hit.
 
Then, whammo. Large drops pelted us. Wind started. The pace increased. Then whoooo boy, it was hold onto your hat, pack your bags and get ready to run.

Except the parking lot was a couple of hundred yards away through sheeting rain that barely allowed you to see. We stood in the dugout, pretending we were protected.
 
That was a joke. With no wall facing the direction of the wind, the horizontal onslaught of water blasted us under the awning. Our team all moved to the far edge of the dugout, hoping it would provide slight protection. No dice.
 
We all congregated behind the helmet rack, 11-12 grown old men trying to hide from nature, as this position was the only place that offered a wall. We joked, chattered to each other, trying to decide whether to make a run for it.

In these situations, your clothes are saturated in seconds. The temperature dropped precipitously (15 degrees in a few minutes, to be exact). You don’t want to be there.

When is the last time you can remember being caught in a storm with no place to go? When is the last time you honestly got so wet from a rainstorm that your shoes squished when you walked?  Probably a number of years, I would imagine.
 
This incident took me back to 1982, when I bicycled across North America, and multiple times had to withstand thunderstorms of similar intensity. Then and now, what I felt was a sense of “what the heck am I doing out here,” and then later an incredible thankfulness for having survived.
 
On that bike trip, there were 3-4 storms I encountered in those four months on the road. The worst was just outside Manhattan, KS. I rode into a state park late in the day to set up camp for the night. It was Midwest hot and humid. No air.
 
The campground was packed, easily 35-40 campers, mostly RVs, and some tents sprinkled in. As I lay trying to fall asleep, you could feel the stillness of the earth, mosquitoes buzzing the net of my tent. The ground below me began to shake. I could feel the storm, many many miles away the bolts of lightning thudding.
 
When it hit, my tent was defenseless. I moved under a shelter and clung to a picnic table, praying for survival. The storm blew through in less than an hour. I finally slept, nothing inside the tent dry.
 
In the morning the campgrounds were empty except for a few RVs, including one in the site next to me. The husband and wife came out to greet the day, I’m sure just as thankful as me to be alive. They asked, “We thought you’d knock on our camper door to come in during the storm. You should have.”
 
Oddly, I’d never considered that. Just wanted to make it through the night. I did.
 
You don’t have many moments like that in life, where you plant a kiss on the earth and offer sincere prayers of thanks. It shakes you up, makes you appreciate what you have in life – the chance to take on a new day with a changed perspective, appreciative of the opportunity to do something more down the road. Take on the day.

A wind blasting torrential thunderstorm on the baseball field isn’t the same thing as what I faced in Manhattan, yet it serves as a reminder of our fragile lives.

​A number of weeks back, someone prompted me on an issue we’d discussed, wondering whether I’d taken action on the item. When quizzed by this other person regarding how/when I’d followed up, I said I didn’t remember. This puzzled my conversational partner.
 
I thought about the puzzlement for a few seconds, and said the reason I didn’t take any next step or even remember the issue under consideration, was because, “It was low on my priority list of remembering things.”
 
When I made that statement, I thought to myself, “That’s so appropriate.”
 
How often do we forget things? Why do we forget things? What do we CHOOSE to remember?
 
I highlight the word “choose” because I believe that is what it comes down to when we remember something that could be trivial or not necessarily mean action is necessary or immediate. If we are to remember items of this type, we must commit to them. We must prioritize them in our brains.

Thirty years ago, as a reporter in Washington, D.C., I covered EPA’s Superfund program, which listed the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites under their National Priority List, or NPL. The goal was to identify and cleanup the most contaminated sites in the U.S.
 
Maybe our brains need to develop an NPL, determining the most important action items in our lives. This would be difficult, particularly because what one person gives priority to is not the same as what you or I might identify as a top priority.

EPA had the advantage of skilled experts finding the bad sites and analyzing them. They used data points, measured, analyzed and ranked the sites to build the most effective NPL.
 
If we could do that in our daily lives, we’d probably be more efficient, though we might not make our friends and colleagues happy if we used different criteria to prioritize, which, of course, would be the case. “Yo, I thought you committed to meet me for a beer Friday night after work at Bullwinkles.”
 
“Ah, sorry. I thought we were just considering meeting. I didn’t know we’d set a firm date. Sorry. Let’s try it again sometime.”
 
Those types of communication breakdowns happen all the time when a date falls low on your priority list. Because it wasn’t a big thing, it fell down in your rankings.
 
Changing the cat litter, for example, can fall low on your priority list. Similarly, vacuuming up cat hair from your carpet can be a low priority. Putting the dishes from the sink into the dishwasher has a low prioritization for many people. Picking up clothes from the floor and placing them in the laundry hamper can easily become a low priority. And, so on.
 
These little things can lead to bigger things though, making it important that you properly file away your priorities. You have to put thought into it. This won’t just happen, like saying to yourself, “Tomorrow I’ll mow the grass,” when you know darn well you’re going to play golf and have a few beers afterwards.
 
You need to be honest with yourself, recognize what’s important and set up mental reminders, which to me often means pasting a yellow sticky note on my forehead. Just kidding. But, seriously, a little written note on the breakfast placemat does wonders for those daily reminders. You just need to put that note high on your personal priority list.

Where did all the magazines go? I’m not talking about the news stores either, those phantastic places where you used to be able to go and browse through Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, The Atlantic, Outside, Bicycling and so many more magazines people actually read.
 
No, though the newsstand is a goner, I’m talking about waiting rooms. Where did the magazines go in our doctor, dentist, physical therapist, workout facility lounges, chiropractor waiting rooms?
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Covid killed the magazines. All those germs waiting around on the pages planning to annihilate your immune system. That’s over though. It’s been over for years.
 
So, where are the magazines in our waiting rooms today? Why haven’t they returned?
 
I’m slightly puzzled by this. On one hand, once something changes, people and systems often don’t readjust to a new reality. In this case, the decision was made to eliminate magazines due to health safety reasons. Though that threat is currently minimal at best, since the new system is in place, no one clamors to change it.

The other reason we haven’t reverted to spending time perusing mags while we wait to get worked on is because we’ve changed. It’s probably slightly more accurate to say: the reading habits of the citizens of the United States (and world) have decreased to the point that almost nobody purchases and reads magazines. This is the more valid argument.
 
The smartphone has supplanted many things in our lives. In particular, books that you could open and page through and magazines where you could flip through pages have suffered if not downright disappeared in favor of online venues. They are published less often than 15 years ago, if not downright disappeared.

This came home to me in the past 6-7 years or so. I’d subscribed to Sports Illustrated (SI) for decades. Then, it didn’t seem to be coming as frequently. I had to go online to figure out what happened (in all fairness, I probably overlooked any snail mail they sent telling me they were reducing the number of weekly editions they published).
 
This didn’t just happen once. Over a period of 3-4 years, SI again reduced its published number of issues. At some point they went to once a month, then to once every other month. Sadly, because I always liked that they put extra time into their writing to give perspective on sports-related issues, I finally canceled the subscription because I wasn’t getting the magazine often enough to even care about it.
 
They are an example of the death of magazines (the ones you hold in your hands and page through). There are (at a minimum) hundreds of other examples of magazines that lost readers or found the reading public with a shorter and shorter attention span.

Maybe this is influencing the doctors, dentists and chiropractors of the world. Because they or their employees or their patients don’t read and dump their old issues on the waiting room tables, we’re left with nothing but to pull out our phones and stare blankly into them. Ouch.
 
Covid killed the waiting room table magazines. But we could have brought them back. The tide has gone out. Will it come back? It doesn’t appear so at this point in history.

​Our education system misses the boat on many classes students could use in our rapidly changing world. If you’re a thinking person, you’ve probably thought of classes that every student could use to better adjust to society and prepare for complexity and tough situations they might encounter in the years ahead.
 
Having discussions with friends and colleagues on these types of issues, I often hear “financial management” as a necessary class that is not taught (investing, preparing for retirement, balancing your checkbook/budget; little and big stuff). Another one that arises during conversations is comparative religion – teaching all the world great religions so teenagers enter the adult world with a more rounded perspective on the beliefs of others.

The potential subjects are almost endless. I’m confident you have thought of your own.

Here are three of my favorites that roll around my head. Two are relatively new to my thought processes (one in the last few months and the other in the past year or so), while the other has bounced around my brain for 3-4 years.
 

1. Artificial intelligence (AI): This one has cropped up most recently. We need to teach what AI is, how it acts, what it means for jobs, how it will change the workforce and our REALITY. The implications are so thorough that we can’t afford not to teach our youth in-depth about AI. Whether you like it or fear it, AI is going to affect all of us for many years to come. Being prepared is critical for each of us.
2. BS detection of memes and deep fakes: This one has arisen over the past year or so. I keep telling a good friend he needs to create a business where people send him deep fakes and he analyzes them (he has the skills to do this professionally) to determine true or false, manipulated or accurate. We are living this world. We are crushed with images and phrases that have been changed and charged to cause you to feel something that’s not true. The only way to understand these types of is to have a BS detector. A well taught class would prepare us, and this is a survival skill in our ever-more-digitized world.
3. Anger/conflict management: This is a personal favorite and one I’ve discussed vehemently with many people over the years (more on that in a sec). This mandated class for high school students would be designed to help identify angry people and situations and give you the tools on how to mitigate the conflict, dial back rage.

Several years back, I wrote extensively to all my elected representatives, suggesting this as an important course for high school students (and their lives as they continued to mature and grow through the years). Given the number of school shootings in the United States, it is a realistic and doable alternative to mitigate some of the mass shootings that occur far too often in our society. It would arm students with tools to understand and identify when someone is going off the rails, and step forward with solutions.

Alone, it is not going to cure the world. But it is a step. None of my federal or state elected officials responded to my emails suggesting they develop and push for this type of legislation to build an anger/conflict management program in our schools. That sadly says something about the state of our elected officials. While I didn’t expect an immediate “yes, this is great and I’m going to adopt everything you wrote and sponsor a bill,” I did expect a rational response that supported the intent of what I’d written to them.
 
Those are three worthwhile classes if we’re going to have a next generation adaptive to changing technology, visual manipulation, outright lies and people who struggle to handle complexity without popping a blood vessel in their foreheads. Let’s hope someone listens. Feel free to share this column with your elected officials. Maybe something will happen.

​Weird how quickly movies disappear from the theaters these days. This is not new. Probably, if you pay attention, you’ve noticed this has been the case for 10 years or more.
 
You see an ad. You decide you want to go with your partner. You talk about it. Somehow you agree that you both want to see the flick. This process takes three weeks. You go online to check times for the coming weekend, and what the heck, it’s gone. Poof. Disappeared.
 
It’s called the disappearing movie syndrome (DMS). DMS affects most, but not all, movies. Identified blockbusters (who chooses to apply that mantle to a show is anybody’s guess, but it’s not you and me) stick around longer. Sometimes three or four weeks.
 
Though I exaggerate that point about how long a great (or high attendance) movie stays in theater, I’m not exaggerating by much. If you even think you want to go see a movie in the past decade, you pretty much need to decide that first week or two and then GO. If not, DMS takes over and it’s gone. You forget about it. And, you’ll likely never take the time to look it up on a streaming service and give it a viewing. There are far too many other entertainments options and our small brains don’t have the capacity to care or catalogue the flicks you want to watch enough to make that effort.
 
A couple of months back, during some daydreaming time, I looked up the current movie suite in our local theater. “Whoa, I’d like to see this. Man, this one sounds good, I should check it out. That’s a unique sounding plot; I should go.”
 
I selected several that charged my batteries. I wrote them down (and, of course, still have that list, hence this incredible column). They included: “Novocaine”; “Black Bag”; “The Monkey”; “Riff Raff”; “Queen of the Ring”; “A Working Man”; “Mickey 17.”
 
How many did I see? I’ll give you a moment to realistically consider this. Think about what else you do in your life, what grabs your attention, what stops you from even going out to the theater, other things that clutter your life. Now, out of those seven movies, how many did I watch?
 
You probably guessed right: two. “Mickey 17” and “Riff Raff” were the two I went to. What did this depend on? Was it convenience in terms of time and theater location? Did I rank them and go to the best first?
 
Quite frankly, for me, time and location became an initial deciding variable. Then, it became apparent that the others weren’t going to be around and other things in life took over, and poof, there they went to the ether. “Queen of the Ring” gone the day after I first looked. “Novocaine” gone in one week. “Black Bag” gone in two weeks. “The Monkey” disappearing in three weeks.
 
My life is not a failure because of this. But it makes for interesting observations about popular culture and why we don’t have as much of a shared culture as we did 30-40 years ago. Because of the fracturing and hyper intensity of the movie market, they come and go astoundingly fast. Blink and you miss one.
 
When I graduated from college, the movie “Grease” was in our theater in Ottawa, IL. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, but that movie stayed in town the entire two years I lived there. Yeah, great movie, but there must not have been a lot of other flicks hitting the market.
 
A few years earlier, I remember “Jaws” hanging around our Kankakee, IL downtown theater for months and months and months. It was a great movie, no question about it. But in today’s world, it would get a month run, maybe.
 
We can’t keep up. The speed of entertainment options exceeds our capacity to observe, absorb and handle (make a decision to go or not to go). We’re all slammed by this. Most of us turn personal filters on. Or we completely ignore numerous movies and other entertainment sectors promoted towards us. It’s the only way to survive. Walls up. Block them out. Forget they exist. Move on, pick up a book.

​Over the past five years I’ve been playing old man baseball on two teams. That’s hardball. The two leagues, one for players ages 55+ and the other for 62+, are loaded with athletes wanting to continue competing despite sometimes compellingly told by our bodies to cease and desist.
 
I say that because of the injuries which occur every season. So far – keeping fingers crossed – I’ve avoided major injuries. One year, I tugged a hamstring, but soldiered on. Another year, while batting, the force of the fastball upon making contact with my bat contorted my right elbow in a direction it didn’t want to go. Icing, Advil, and an arm sleeve for compression allowed my continued participation, but it was excruciatingly painful for several weeks.

The body does not agree with what your heart desires. It tells you to rest, quit or retire. Most of the players in both leagues deal with these types of season/career-defining injuries. Resting and rejuvenating are critically important to keep yourself on the active playing list.
 
Each year (as the oldest player on our 55+ team) for the past three seasons, I advise newcomers on physical survival. I speak from experience, and wanting new teammates to stay healthy playing the game they love.
 
Here are the tips: Stretch before every at bat; don’t try to sprint (instead, taking baby steps before slowly accelerating as you run the bases or chase a ball); if at all possible, avoid sliding and diving; take it slow.
 
My teammates nod their heads. They understand. They agree. Mentally, they recognize the need to follow this advice. But, do they? Of course not.

Instead, competitive instinct and the heart take over as players repeatedly try to beat out a ground ball, steal a base, or make a spectacular diving catch on the outfield grass. Is this a good idea? Again, of course not.
 
What happens in these situations? You can predict the outcomes – torn rotator cuffs; ACL tears; pulled and torn hamstrings; twisted ankles; torn ligaments. You name it.

Of the new teammates each season, typically three get injured and are either out for the season or must miss 5-6 weeks rehabilitating an injury. Most recently, as we started this season, four of the 12 players on our roster got hurt during our opening game. One popped his hamstring in the following game and appears out for the season, despite being urged to take it slow and easy, and to be careful. He dove back to third on a play, and that was that. We all felt his pain as he lay face down on the dirt.
 
As this information was related to two good friends, they amusingly said we should change the name of our team to “The Arthritics.” We all laughed at this. We kicked around other names, including, “The Cracked Bones,” “The Sore and Grouchies,” “The Strained Muscles,” “Muscle Tearers,” “Leg Benders,” and “Ankle Crushers.” We had a good laugh batting these around on email.
At one point the suggestion was made to approach someone of decision-making power at a local Milwaukee area hospital to see if they would sponsor our team. Maybe an orthopedic practice. They could make some money off us.
 
The injuries will not go away because almost every player loves the game too much and won’t retire until the pain is non-negotiable. It happens to everyone at some point.
 
We slog it out. We have fun. We beat ourselves up. We cheer for our teammates. We agonize over their injuries, and our own. We take the field again and again for love, the joy of being on the field, the spring breeze, smelling fresh cut grass, the eternal mashing of the ball and watching it soar, flinging a pitch past a flailing hitter or making a diving catch to secure a victory.
 
The body retaliates. But love keeps resurfacing.