Gettin' old.....

ain’t for sissies.......

or so saieth an older friend......I laugh ‘n agree with her but since I seem t’be in a state of total denial, it can’t possibly apply t’me....
‘Course, ev’ry time I look around, the ranks are thinning..
Reminds me of the first twenty mile hike with full pack I took in basic training....We trudged thru the New York State night, about a hundred and fourteen of us as I recall.....’n I kept slowin’ down ‘n moving farther back in the column....from my vantage point at the rear, I cudn’t help but notice that the ranks were thinning...that the carryall (military terminology for a stake-side truck with canvas tarp) kept stopping to pick up those lesser souls that, for one reason ‘n another, fell by the wayside..
My buddy, Denver ‘Bud’ Mullins was one of the first...we were marching side by side in what they termed, route step.....when he stepped in a hole...his hands were hooked inside the straps of his pack ‘n he went face down like he’d been poleaxed....which in a way, he had.....his helmet tipped forward ‘n cracked him across the bridge of his nose ‘n that was the end of his hike.....
We’d only marched a few miles at the time ‘n I helped him into the back of the carryall....he was bloody awful cheerful about it when I staggered in at the end to find him sitting there with a big grin on his face.....
It was summertime ‘n we’d just got out of high school, good old McKell High.....we weren’t doing much of anything.....well, heck! There weren’t a lot of jobs t’go around....or more aptly, there weren’t any jobs t’go around....not then, not around South Shore, at any rate....
Bud ‘n I ‘n Sonny Thompson (Leon to his parishioners) had got some beer ‘n we went fishing out on Shultz Creek.....wasn’t really any fish in Shultz at that time, not to speak of anyway....basically, it was just an excuse to hang out ‘n drink our beer on a warm afternoon....
Sonny was older ‘n was able to buy beer legally 'n now that I think on it, quite possibly with malice aforethought, so I blame him for what happened that afternoon...we should'a been happy, just an idle, carefree summer afternoon but Leon hadda carefully steer our innocent ‘n under-achieving conversation around to matters military.....’n it all ended with the three of us joining the USAF....no wonder Leon went into the church business.....he had a lot to atone for......