The old saying, “Age before Beauty,” has never meant quite as much to me as it does now.
I know that I am not very old compared to Methuselah, but I am beginning to understand the difference between my 21-year-old body and my 46-year-old body. 
When I am pushing something or picking something up, I must make sure at all times to have my back in a proper position to avoid any slips or cracks or pops or tears and to keep any appendages that I like tucked in close to my body. I also need to make sure to get everything done that needs to be done on the floor while I am down there too.
I am not quite ready to give way to Father Time, but he has been hitting me hard lately with stuff. For instance, I was just pushing my bed a little closer to the wall several weeks ago and heard a “POP” on the inside of my right elbow. Believe me, I felt it too. This pop ended my bed pushing for the night and definitely took throwing batting practice to my son with my right arm out of the equation. I just dealt with it and figured that it would heal up on its own, but it has not.
I did resort to throwing left-handed to my son in the batting cage recently and that has worked somewhat, but he does laugh at me a little.
My pride got to me a little bit and that was about it, because I could do nothing else about it. I am not sure why I even try to compete with a 15-year-old at the top of his game. I AM NOT 15 ANYMORE!!! That was hard to say, but it is the sad truth. I finally made an appointment to get my old wing checked out and hopefully something can be “fixed” or taken to make it better.
I cannot even scratch my head with it without pain; heck, it is even hard to brush my teeth. I did about everything right-handed and I am realizing that now more than ever. If you see me and attempt to shake my hand, I will offer up the left one because some folks like to man up and I am just not into that kind of a handshake at the moment. I feel that 20 years ago this injury would not have happened. Whatever decided to turn loose or tear up in my arm would have held, I am sure, but facts are facts…POP went the tendon.
I don’t really need anybody else to tell me that I am getting older and such, because old pictures and these gray hairs yell that very loudly at me, every single day. My elbow, or actually the upper part of my forearm near the elbow joint, is hurting while I type out this column and is probably not as bad as it feels like it is…but it is quite unpleasant to say the least.
Just to be clear, I am thankful that my current woes are nothing more than an ailing elbow and I’m also thankful that I don’t have to pitch tonight. Carry on!!!
–
Stan Beall is the sports editor at The Star-Herald. He can be reached at sbeall@starherald.net.
