Act Your Age

Our wacky weather hasn't yet been domesticated by the fact that its spring time.  Pundits can debate whether global warming is to blame but it doesn't matter.  Wacky weather is wacky weather regardless of the root cause.

The NWS said the wind was really gonna blow yesterday.  Most of us yawned and figured the wind "might" blow a little but certainly nothing like the Chicken Little predictions of the NWS.  Well, the wind came up and smacked us really hard.

Wouldn't you know that yesterday was the last shooting match of the season.  Gary hauled the gear trailer out to our public lands range area and dropped me and the gear off at 7:30 am.  I set everything up by myself before Al came by shortly before 9 am.

By that time the wind was a concern.  It seemed to grow stronger with each passing minute.  Seven of us gathered to conduct the match but it wasn't meant to be.  The wind decided to go on a genuine tear.  It ripped our American flag from it's pole.  It bent our steel rebar support stakes like pretzels   It blew up and ripped apart out target stands.  It blew over heavy steel targets like they were sheets of paper.  And, just for grins, it blew blinding sheets of grit and dust into our faces.  The wind howled so hard, none of could hear each other--even when we were yelling.  In a word, it was ridiculous.

If we would have dared guess the wind was going to be that bad, we would have canceled the match.  Bot, Noooo....we chose not to believe the NWS and we paid the price.  After the work schedule we've been keeping lately, plus the wind ordeal, we were wiped out when we return home not long after noon.

We tried to scrub as much of the grit and dust out of our skin as possible and then crawled under the covers and slept all windy afternoon.  The long nap didn't help.  We were still so tired we could barely sit in front of the computer without our eyes drooping shut.  Finally, we threw in the towel and called it a day and went to sleep at 7 pm.  We finally arose at 6 am, feeling only slightly better after 11 hours of nearly non-stop sleep.

Perhaps you may remember a common cliche of our childhood, "Act Your Age."  When we were much younger, adults would reprimand us with that cliche. Typically, it was a rebuke for someone who was acting childish.  Now when we hear echoes of "Act Your Age," we think of all our creaky joints and sore muscles and must reflect on the fact we are 65 years old and certainly not filled with the vim and vigor of a 10-year-old.  So, we now often remind ourselves to "Act Your Age," especially on days such as yesterday when the winds practically lifted us all off the desert and blew us into the mountains.

We're rather conflicted with that "Act Your Age" schtick.  Will there come a time when we truly get old?  Will there come a time when we must actually ACT old, too?  Why, yes, of course, that's a physical fact of life.  But when will these life chapters arrive?  Sooner?  Or Later?  When?  We suppose no one really knows.  Perhaps we will know when to "Act Your Age" in our own bones and fibers.  In any event, we are hearing many more echoes of "Act Your Age' lately and so these thoughts ebb and flow in our consciousness.  Luckily, days such as yesterday are few and far between....so far.