By Mike Austreng
This summer I will reach the age of 68. Those of you about this same age, or older will understand what I write about this week better than those younger.
I remember my early, early years when I was much more active. I could do a lot of things, like cut firewood, haul it home, split and stack it all day long. Sure I was a little sore, but I could still function and it didn’t take too long to recover. As the years went on I started noticing it took much less activity for me to feel those aching muscles – especially in my back. The activity didn’t have to be very strenuous to create the sore muscles. I can remember changing activities, like the beginning of the bowling season, or golf season – each uses different muscles, and the start of those seasons always created soreness in muscles that hadn’t been used in a while. The higher my age got, the less it took to feel sore.
There are things I will no longer do – like climb a ladder to get onto my home’s roof. There are house projects I prefer not to do – part of the lack of desire is that I don’t have the right tools or the correct knowledge, so I tend to leave those tasks up to professionals.
Shortly after moving to Florida, I noticed something different here than back home in Minnesota – here people have their driveways painted. Some are done with pretty elaborate designs. The primary reason is to seal the concrete to help it last longer in the intense heat and heavy rains experienced here in the summers.
Our home is 21 years old. So far we’ve re-roofed the home; replaced kitchen appliances; replaced the washer and dryer; replaced the water heater; had a water softener installed; and replaced the flooring in our kitchen.
During the first year here we contacted a driveway painting company to get an estimate for painting our driveway. We were not too surprised by the $4,500 proposed cost but didn’t agree it was worth that much, so I looked into buying the paints and supplies, and we decided we could do it ourselves. The cost was about $450. We took the paint and supplies we needed home with us, planning to get the job done sometime when there would be three days in a row without rain.
Then came my accident in St. Augustine, which put pretty much everything I (we) liked or wanted to do, on hold. Including painting the driveway.
Over two-and-a-half years later my wife and I decided it was time to get the project done. She and I painted the base color, but both of us knew we couldn’t be on our hands and knees very long and the border we wanted would take a lot of taping, so I recruited brother Don to help with the final stages.
Painting the border pattern wasn’t difficult, but it required someone who could spend a couple of hours taping the areas we didn’t want the border color to touch. About three hours later the painting was done – and so was my body.
I’m not sure I can recall anything else I’ve done in my lifetime that made my muscles ache as much as I did when this project was completed.
As you age, you lose the ability to do a lot of the things you used to have no problem doing. Or you may notice your aches and pains are much more intense than they used to be, even with light activity.
Another thing that changes as you age is your ability to recall things. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember anything I’ve done to make my body as sore as it was from painting our driveway.
I’ll have to take a few Tylenol at bedtime so I can sleep and help those aches go away.
Now where did I put the Tylenol???
