THAT’S THE SPIRIT

The oft heard term “The spirit is willing but, the flesh is weak” comes from the bible. I’m not quite sure where in the book it is. For me to know that would be tantamount to knowing where Mark Twain said, “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” I’m sure he said it, but I don’t have a clue where. Truer words, however, have not been spoken, especially as regards getting older. I think I first began to realize this statement as fact when I turned 40. 30 had been hard enough. As a child of the 50’s and a teenager of the 60’s, we lived by a code that said, “Never trust anyone over 30.” It was a very traumatic birthday. I could no longer be trusted. To counter this slip into an imagined abyss of decrepitude, I carried a Daffy Duck doll in my back pocket which I pulled out whenever I encountered anyone and made a cartoon duck noise as I shoved it in their faces. “That’ll show ‘em that I haven’t grown up,” I reasoned while acting all of 12 years old. But, 30 was psychological. By 40, it became physical. That startling revelation came as I was trying out for a neighborhood softball team. I began loving and playing baseball at around the age of 8. We played every day, without fail, at the Bowers School playground baseball diamond. Even if there weren’t enough guys to make up two teams, we adjusted. There were days when we only had one outfielder per side, so, you would have to “call your field,” which meant that, as a left handed batter, I had to hit it to right field or it was an out. We always made it work. I played in the Little League “farm system” until I was old enough and good enough to play in the actual Little League. I played “Alumni” ball and played for my high school team. By the time I was 19, I was pitching for a semi-pro team in Tennessee and had been asked to try out for the Red Sox. A subsequent broken ankle and trip to Vietnam sorta put the kibosh on those plans, but, I always loved playing the game. The neighborhood softball team was led by my mailman Bernie. He told me about the try outs and I was there with all the enthusiasm I could muster, but, as I looked around, I realized the folly of my excitement as every other player that was trying out was in his 20’s or very early 30’s. They were running around the field with reckless abandon, but, as the coach was hitting balls to the outfield and I was yelling, “I got it,” my knees were screaming, “Sit down, old man.” I made the team as “designated hitter” solely by virtue of the fact that I could punch the ball over the infielders heads and get on base. Then they would put in a “pinch runner.” Inadequate doesn’t begin to describe feeling that were beginning to permeate my self assuredness……OK, cockiness. I began to relate even more in my 50’s while doing improv comedy on a stage in Dallas. I had done quite a bit of improv. I was in 5 troupes over the years. Two were my own and I was a founding member of ComedySportz Dallas. I was having more fun than I had ever had in my career and all was going well, until, once again, “the flesh weakened.” My legs and feet started to hurt on a nightly basis. I was on stage, running and jumping around with, once again, 20 somethings and early 30 somethings, and, when they went out to party after a show, I went home walking like Redd Foxx. I would hobble into the house and yell to my wife in my best Fred Sanford voice, “I’m comin’ to join ya, honey!” As it turned out, I was now beginning to feel the “weakness” not only of the flesh, but of the bones and organs as well. I found out I was diabetic and had heart disease. The spirit was still willing, but it was willing a lot more slowly and with a lot more trepidation. I am now in my mid 60’s and the spirit that was so willing when I was in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, hurts when I do little things like, oh, I don’t know - getting out of bed and moving. Knees, ankles, hips, hair - it all hurts. I suppose I could adopt a positive attitude about it all and insist that my spirit be as devil-may-care as it used to be, but the reality is that the flesh is older and more tired and is now going to take a nice nap!