Lessons Of Value

Monday was the holiday and yesterday Molly, the trainer who runs Wellness, was out on vacation so no Wellness and Tuesdays is the first day of the week I am back in the gym working out. So today was the first day back for me and I have to admit I was ready to crank the bike and pump weight—I needed to feel the resistance. Wellness starts right at 3:00 pm, if we get there early we are forced to stay in the waiting area till three. Today was even worse because a photo shoot was staking place as the university was developing some new promotional footage for use with brochure and PSAs so we were forced to wait even longer then usual.

I had arrived as usual a tad early and I was surprised to see Stan waiting, sitting cane in hand. I have not had a lot of interaction with Stan but that has been changing the past couple of weeks. Stan is an old guy like me. He is a likable sort extremely verbal some time to the point of being irritating but I have gotten past his verbosity enjoying another from approximately the same part of the twentieth as my self. He's about seven years older then me and he's experienced a bit more life then I. But we know a lot of the some stuff and that is comforting. Stan gets along with people, he was a career solider a colonel or major or something. He was in country during the Vietnam thing and has seen a lot but is not pretentious. Stan has gotten to a point of being comfortable. He is gifted in that he can talk down most barriers a person might throw up whether the person is a child or adult. So Stan and I talked today as we waited the media event to pass. We didn't talk about anything earth shattering we just talked as old guys tend to do.

Stan is still getting over his injury. I first thought he had had a stroke or something, it was not a stroke which incapacitated the old war horse, what ever it was left him heme-pelagic but the rehab has done wonders for his recovery—thank god Stan can still speak

I think if he had lost speaking ability his recovery would have been far worse. Stan has become part of my circle, not a main part but I can tell, probably a significant part. If nothing else he is a main part when I am at Wellness- I think we are there for each other in some strange way. There are other fossils there to be sure and a lot of young ones, some toughs and non english speakers we have little of no communication with. But for some weird reason Stan and I are gravitating together and that is kind of cool. I think I have some lessons to learn from this guy and I want to learn all I can while I can because I think the lessons will be most valuable.