How Alan Got His New Bedroom

 

I hurt my left hand, and I have no idea how or when. I just know that it hurts. I don't know what the hell it is with this turning seventy years old thing, but ever since that day in 2019, my shit has been falling apart. My back, my knees, just about everything hurts at some time or another. Old age sucks. I remember my mom coming down to Florida to visit thirty years ago. She had just turned seventy and her knees were messed up. Sure, she lived another twenty nine years, but her knees were messed up that entire time. So the rule seems to be, whatever breaks on you after seventy, it will never work right again.

Top of the page is a photo of my grandfather in 1961. He had just turned seventy five. I'm not sure how he did it. He worked at the Union Stockyards in Chicago for Armour Meat Packing Company for much of his adult life. He was a sheet metal worker and I assume he maintained the metal buildings that the livestock were kept in. In January of 1961 Armour made him retire from his job because he had just turned seventy five years old. I guess the bosses at the stock yards were freaked out seeing that old guy climbing around those buildings, doing all that physical work. So that summer, seeing that he had some free help, my dad had Grandpa up on the roof of our house in Tinley Park. He had him help build the new dormer addition so little Alan would have a nice new bedroom.

(By the way, Grandpa lived for another 26 years, 11 months, and 2 weeks. Eventually his knees also went bad. But not until he was nearly 100 years old.)