I have a son that went skydiving, but fortunately as I get older I don’t have to do much to feel heroic.
Teckla and I went camping! I suppose that exclamation point is silly, but it points out how even trivial things now seem heroic. We were the only gray heads in our tents-only part of the campground. In our section you have to use wheel barrows to get all your gear to the campsites, but the campsites are beautiful. Our neighbors were young families with loads of noisy kids, and one night a drunk couple that fought all night even though their car had a co-exist bumper sticker.
When we went to the other sections to take a shower, we found people our age sitting under the canopies of their huge RV’s. It may be that most people our age can afford RV’s, but I choose to believe Teckla and I are more heroic. Every night, twice some nights, I wallowed on the air mattress, climbed out of the sleeping bag, found a flashlight, put on my sandals, and trekked through the darkness to a restroom full of moths and spiders. It was my nightly odyssey.
We went tent camping, and at our age, that is heroic. This summer I tore out the rotting floor of the garage—a task worthy of Hercules. Yesterday, I took a chain saw and trimmed the rotten ends off of all the huge beams under the floor of the garage—a task Paul Bunyan would envy. The years ahead will be full of adventure and epicness!
