Can be bad for your health.
I have two sons-in-law who insist on riding their bicycles to work even though I have warned them both that in a collision with a car - the bike and cyclist lose out 10 times out of 10.
They both politely smile.
And then there is the rest of that earlier generation - all out jogging. And not just for a kilometer or so - Not for Them - nooo they have to run for at least 5 k or it is not worth doing.
I tell them when they reach my age - 62 - they will be on their 5th knee transplant.
They too politely smile back.
What they all lack is my wealth of experience but not from personal experience since I have tried to avoid useless exercise all my life.
To me, exercise should be gained from splitting wood or heaving bales - it simply escapes me why anyone would want to exercise just for the fun of it.
And my philosophy in that regard had held me in good stead- no knee replacements for me.
Now my wife Anne is another story entirely.
Several years ago she went on one of her own 'exercise' kicks. We had taken skiing lessons but had not been all that active on the snow hill front. One day she said enough - we were off to the highest peak around and were headed for the Diamond Run.
We all headed down - Anne - myself and our three children made five - but only 4 got to the bottom.
Anne had blown out her knee about a third of the way down the Diamond.
Next thing I knew I was following Anne, Ambulance bound for the Truro Hospital.
Surgery followed and a knee replacement to this day has not been ruled out.
The only good that came from this was that Anne has spoken less (much less) about the need for exercise.
I was in a neighbourhood store the the other day when the wife of a good friend of mine stop me and suggested, if possible, that I make some time to visit her husband. Apparently he was laid up from a sports injury and was not at all mobile - so some company would be most welcome.
That afternoon - off I went. The dear soul was confined to a cast from ankle to groin. Talk about immobile.
What happened, I enquired. Playing volley ball - the ligament that controls the motion of my leg snapped, he said. In other words, he had no ability to either lift or lower his leg below the knee. He'd been confined in this contraption for approximately three months.
Did it hurt, I asked?
Well yes, but not as much as when I injured my other knee. I then looked at his cast free leg and at the knee which was a mass of scars from previous surgical interventions.
What happened to it, I enquired?
Soccer, he responded.
Well I hope your days of exercise are over I intoned, you can't take much more. He nodded without smiling.
And then just this weekend, I was in a hotel elevator with a chap on his way to a golf tournament.
Quite an extrovert him. Without prompting, he told me that a few years back he had torn his rotator cuff and that this was his first time back at golfing. He allowed that he was not sure if he could even still swing a club but off he went to try.
I thought the guy a masochist.
So exercise - great for dogs but for their owners...
As I see it...
'K.D. Galagher'
