Tag: aging

Everything looks good … for your age

Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
— Popular hymn written in 1897. Number 118 in the song book at church.

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I am blessed.

The Oxford dictionary defines blessings as “God’s favor and protection.” A good friend and mentor once defined blessings as family, friends, shelter, never going to bed hungry, health, and happiness. That same person, who knew wealth, said, “Money and material things are not blessings; they’re just yardsticks for those who foolishly think they are.”

My loving mother led me to learn about blessings. Attending services with her at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant where I was blessed to learn the heart and mind of being thankful to the Giver of all blessings. Exposed to God’s inspired word with Mom’s careful oversight.

Over the years I ‘ve come to believe, however, that I’m still comprehending more every day about how truly blessed we all are in one way or another. And how I need to be increasingly more grateful.

Concepts of blessings in my youth centered around simple things. Like leaving the classroom convinced I had just bombed a test, only to discover the next class period that I miraculously squeaked by, just above the bare minimum for passing. Or too many times when blessings overshadowed my bad decisions. Amazingly allowing me to dodge jail time and serious damage to my health record.

I have no doubt that I single handedly forced more than one guardian angel into therapy or early retirement.

Thankfully, however, not the one riding with me the long-ago night when a failed motorcycle tire at 70 m.p.h. caused my bike to abandon all natural forces and gravity. Catapulting me over the handlebars and through the cold night air. Slamming the right side of my head and shoulder down onto U.S. Highway 67. Sending me sliding on the pavement, grinding away the right side of a perfectly good safety certified helmet.

Blessings allowed me to get up and walk a quarter mile to find a ride to the hospital. Then allowed me to go home that night with only scratches, bruises, and a separated shoulder.

Some years after that, another poor guardian angel was assigned to bless my ride flying a Piper Cherokee 180 from Center to an Oklahoma destination I’ve since forgotten. My comfort in the reassuring sound of a Lycoming aircraft engine at full power boosting the aircraft upward through 6,000 feet at 725 to 750 feet per minute vanished when the motor faltered, missed, and began losing power.

Emergency procedure training kicked in and raced through my head. Along with an episode of Art Linkletter’s old TV show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” When Linkletter asked one youngster who wanted to be a pilot what he would tell his passengers if the engine quit, the little guy thought for a moment and replied seriously, “Now I lay me down to sleep …”

That’s when straight ahead, I saw the runway at Carthage, Texas. Altitude and airspeed were perfect for a straight-in semi-gliding approach. The airplane’s tires squeaked smoothly on the pavement just as good as any planned landing.

Blessings were abundant on Monday of last week in a big-city health care facility waiting room, filled to capacity. Where too many of the occupants required canes, walkers, and wheelchairs for mobility.

“I knew this day was coming … if was lucky,” I thought. “Sure seems like it got here in a hurry, though.”

“Always tried to take care of my health with exercise. Eating properly, sometimes.” I offered the cardiologist. “My doctor said I should come see you. Used that ‘at your age’ thing. The one that isn’t really funny any more.”

I was still counting blessings while walking on the treadmill. “Chest pains? Shortness of breath,” he asked? “Nope,” I responded. I counted more blessings as I watched my heartbeat on a monitor while skilled hands and eyes searched for the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Everything looks good,” the doctor reported. “Great … for your age.”

Christmas is coming. Decorations are in place. I have family and friends who love and care for me, and whom I love and care for in return. My bed is warm at night. I have more food than I have any business eating. And maybe we’ll sing hymn number 118 Sunday at church.

I am truly blessed.

And I’m working harder every day, even at this age, to be more grateful for … “what God hath done.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Documented: A lifetime of struggling with staying healthy

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. —Doug Larson, (1923-2017) Wisconsin newspaper editor and columnist.

Struggling to construct a searchable database of my column-writing career has been an eye opener. What I’ve found “stored” in newspaper clippings, photocopies and digital files is a pretty good cross-section of my life. At the very least, it’s a record of what was on my mind once a week which is treasure trove for someone who struggles these days with remembering what was on his mind five minutes ago.

I’ve lamented not working harder at keeping a journal. However, the database project now taking shape has shown me that I just may have unknowingly accomplished something similar with weekly digests spanning some 40 years, many touching on just that topic: staying in shape.

My earliest offering on living healthy, penned and published in 1980 in the Center, Texas, East Texas Light (now the Light and Champion), began: “No meats, sweets, coffee or tea? No wheat, nuts, beans or peas? And no chocolates? What can I eat, doc?”

“All the cauliflower, white bread, and potatoes you want,” Doc Ginn assured me. “And broiled chicken or lamb once a week will curb that purine content in the blood triggering arthritic conditions in a major joint, usually the large toe.”

“Come again doc?”

“Gout,” he replied without hesitation knowing that question was coming.

“That’s an old man’s disease,” I chuckled. “Mmmmm,” was my trusted physician’s reply with a shrug of the shoulder and a smile. “Look doc, I didn’t come here to be insulted.” As if to comfort me, he added, “Gout is a rich man’s disease suffered by King Henry VIII.”

“Still, my colleagues and those previously considered friends laughed, ‘Gout?’ My own children scoffed, ‘Isn’t that what grandpa has?’ Worse, no one was impressed with the King Henry VIII story.”

That piece written during my 32nd summer concluded with, “So after all that eating healthy, I’m still falling apart. I wonder if they serve cheeseburgers at  the nursing home?”

Fourteen summers later while publishing the Boerne Star down in the Texas Hill Country I wrote: “When I turned forty, a friend (or so I thought) gave me a mug proclaiming, ‘After forty, it’s patch. patch, patch.’

“Nothing illustrates that so graphically as Monday morning when my alarm sounds at five, but it doesn’t matter. I’m already awake and have been for an hour.”

“Time was when I rose early to exercise. Surgical repair of failing parts disrupted that routine and, as habits are prone to do, you miss one day then watch years pass. I still think about exercising. But it’s hard with a standing appointment at the clinic, plus bandage, muscle relaxer and liniment bills that keep the drug stores bidding on my business.”

“The worst blow came when the doctor said, ‘You better give up caffeine,’ adding those words I‘ve learned to hate: ‘At your age.’ Withdrawal was awful. I wrung my hands and broke out in cold sweats just smelling the beans roasting. I switched to decaff, but the fake stuff just wasn’t working. I’m back on the real thing again until I get busted.”

“I’d already given up sugar, bread, staying up late, desserts, and fried foods when I read an article at the clinic about how to quit smoking. I was having a nicotine fit thinking about it before it dawned on me—I don’t even smoke!

“Just a lapse in memory, I guess which is one sign of advancing age. I can’t remember the others. With age does come wisdom though. Unfortunately for me, it’s the knowledge that I’m not as young as I used to be.”

With the database almost done and 2019 winding down, I’m acutely aware that “not as young as I used to be” is no longer a relative comparison. Now when I attempt to describe someone by noting, “He’s younger than me,” I have to remember that group is just about everyone.

I’ve abandoned hope on those cheeseburgers at the nursing home for now, but I’m fine with the healthy compromises as long as mornings simply remain difficult.

It’s when I have to give up mornings that I’ll really start to worry.

—Leon Aldridge

Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune,  the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, and the Alpine Avalanche.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.