Old man tough

[edicehouse]

I am 40 years old (unlike I tell people 21 with 19 years experience), there I said it. Well anyways I have been thinking about my grandfather, and how tough he was. Now he was 5'9" or so, but a tough SOB. We used to go snowmobiling in Upstate New York when we lived there, and I remember one night he came home when I was probably 10 or 11, this was one of the rare times I didn't go with him. Well I hear my grandmother freaking out, keep in mind this is about 3 in the morning, so I get up to see what was going on. I walk into the kitchen and my grandfathers face was covered in blood, with a huge cut under his eye. So they go to the hospital as I stay home. He had 80 some stitches put in. A cable was put across a snowmobile path that clotheslined him while he was doing about 40 MPH. This happened about 30 miles from home.

But my question is, if you are "old man tough" like this do you actually know you are?

 

[Cwalker935]

Sometimes the old guys are a little too tough for their own good. Dad who I just mentioned in my "Today's lesson" had his first heart attack and waited over a day before admitting he needed help, stabbed himself in the leg while dressing a deer and finished dressing the deer before calling for his hunting buddy to take him to the hospital losing 40 % of his blood before the bleeding was bought under control (damn near died), etc. etc. He had a stroke a little over a year ago that should have killed him, was completely paralyzed on his right side, regained his ability to walk after much therapy, and still loves life. That old cat has used all of his 9 lives and stolen a couple of others. I hope I am just half as tough.

 

[KBs Pensnmore]

Along a similar line, but my Mother. My father worked away a lot, she got tired of dirt and mud being brought into the house. She decided to do something about it, and concreted a path down the side of the house leading to the front door, mixing and floating it off, herself. Nothing unusual about that you might say, but the next day, she gave birth to my youngest sister.
Kryn

 

[leehljp]

There is a fine line between being tough and being stupid. Stupid keeps on until they die. Famous last words of a redneck: Hey ya'll, watch this!"

"Tough" doesn't intentionally seek out those dangers, but do often see them coming and attempt to avoid them; if they don't avoid them, they do usually survive them.

I grew up with the mentality of tough: Don't complain about your pain; you accept full responsibility of the dangers you did not know about. It is your fault and you live with it. We didn't invite danger and we were self aware concerning dangerous situations, even when we were in new situations. Kind of like "defensive driving". You never know what the other driver is going to do, but you are aware of each one behind, beside and in front and coming at you, the road conditions and traffic moving patterns. In life in working with wood, welding, building things, mechanical things, I look ahead. Still I run into problems and get cuts, bumps, bruises and knots on my body. LOML says no one gets as many cuts bumps bruises and knots as I do. I tell her that many people do. BTW, I have had the tip of my right thumb cut off back to the thumbnail exit - twice. Once with a fork lift as I tried to save a falling pallet; the other time that same thumb got chewed up with a router bit as the small piece got jammed. (I had trouble explaining to the Japanese doctor "Oh, doc, this is the second time it has been cut off." He looked at me and asked, "You cut it off with a router?" Me:"yes". Him: "How did a router do THAT?" Me: Oh, Doc, Not an internet router, but a woodworking router" which he had never heard of. :biggrin: )

Still, being tough is not complaining and going and doing what you like in spite of the risks it takes to get there.


When I was younger, living on a small farm, I did more than my share of lifting heavy things and moving heavy objects around far beyond what my 5' 10" inch frame should have allowed. I am paying for it today with back and knee issues. I just wish I hadn't been so tough back then. By the way, I played sports the same way, will full intensity. That is how I tore up my knee, trying to act like a teenager when I was nearly 40. :biggrin:

 

[Magicbob]

My Grandmother was the toughest person I ever knew.
She gave birth to my father at home, no doctor or midwife. Dad was washed fed and sleeping, grandma was napping when the doctor arrived. This was not all that unusual at the time 1936 in rural America, but dad weighed over 15 pounds.
Later she worked in a hospital as a nurse's aide until old age despite suffering from a form of muscular dystrophy that made walking very difficult and left her thumbs unable to grip.

 

[KCW]

My father, who wasn't that old when it happened, is the toughest guy I know. A couple of years ago, he came down to help me trim the tree in my front yard. The plan was to do it first thing in the morning, and I told him specifically, to wait until I was out there to start. I think you know where this is going, he started without me, and not even 30 seconds before I got out there, he had cut a limb off, and when it hit the ground, it sprung back into the ladder, and kicked him off. He fell about ten feet, straight to the concrete driveway, and mind you he is a large fellow (6'6" and 300lbs, ex pro football player). I heard it all happen when I was putting my shoes on, and when I got out there, he was laying on his back, with his hands behind his head, and he said to just give him a minute, and he would get up. When I tried to help him up, something was definitely wrong, so I called an ambulance. They took him to the trauma ER to have him looked at, all the while not complaining about anything. After the X-rays and MRIs, the trauma doc came in and was just beside himself at the level of injury he had sustained, with no complaints at all. He ended up breaking his pelvis in three places, all of the ribs on his right side, and cracked 3 vertebrae. Toughest guy I know!

 

[acc78]

I think having a lot of pride has something to do with it too!

Growing up we knew our dad was tough, come home after work looking like he got ran over by a truck sleep a few hours and do it again, seen him accidentally put a nail from his air nail gun into his finger shrugged it off like nothing happened and keep going blood flowing from finger, so many stories of my dad getting hurt and kept on going.

Well the last week before he passed a lot of his buddies he worked with came to visit him and would mention how my dad was the toughest strongest guy they knew followed by stories.

But here is where the pride comes in, the last week of his life he had an itch in his left ear and by that time his left arm was useless, I instead of asking someone to scratch for him, he grabbed his left hand with his right hand, which had lost a lot of strength by that time too, picked up his left index finger and used his right hand to move the left finger to scratch, it was sad but funny as well, that's how I will remember my tough old man as never giving up

 

[GDGeorge]

=->But my question is, if you are "old man tough" like this do you actually know you are?

More likely that you'll know if you're not. For a lot of the toughest people I know, there's not a question that they'll accomplish what they set out to (although there is occasionally surprise when it doesn't happen the way they planned, but that's another story.) The point is that they don't waste time asking whether or not they can accomplish something. For them the answer is yes, plain and simple.

 

[TellicoTurning]

This isn't about a relative, but an older gentleman I knew when I was with TWA... can't remember his name, but think it was George something a half mile long... he was of Turkish descent. George was about 5'2" and likely didn't weight much over 130 lbs... he was at least 60+ years old and in charge of preparing and loading the out bound cargo for the flight line.... he would list the cargo and then load it in the carts to go to the ramp.... most of the time he would use a forklift, but I've seen times when one wasn't available, so George would push on a piece of cargo and if it moved, he would pick it up and load it into the carts.... I've seen him lift pieces that weighed over 200 lbs to a height of about 2 feet and slide into the cargo carts... his face might turn a bright deep red, but he would lift most of what he tried. We tried to promote him into the office because it would be easier on him, he stayed 2 weeks and then asked to go back to the warehouse... he didn't like the desk work.

 

[vakmere]

Tough is a hockey player who takes one to the face and skates off unassisted then comes back. Sidney Crosby for one, Marc Stall another, and the list goes on. Your grandpa was tough enough but not dumb enough to think he was invincible.