Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea
view of activity, I try to make it a practice, where possible and appropriate, to squat down at the front and take my pictures from that angle. That was easy when I was a kid starting out in this business, but over the last couple of years, I have come to realize that prolonged squatting is asking a lot of legs and knee joints. A lot of you have probably seen me in this position at one event or another, never realizing that you were likely looking at a man in pain. But we all have our little bits of pain to deal with in life.

"You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there." George Burns It's a shame for a kid like me to admit it, but I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed by all these aches and pains that is supposed to be reserved of the older set. I'm referring of course to the over-50 crowd. It wasn't that long ago that I would have considered anyone over 40 as old. I stopped thinking that shortly before I crossed that milestone, and I'm rapidly reaching the stage when I'm going to have to rethink 50. More and more of my routine through life is starting to be governed by whether I think my beautiful and sexy bod is up to the contortions required for certain activities. In my job, I frequently have to be in the front row of crowds or audiences in order to take pictures of one thing or another. Since I don't like blocking people's

I realized just how big a bother things could be last week when I had to fix the door to one of our kitchen cupboards at home. The screws in the hinges had come out of the wood, and wouldn't stay in. Now despite by lack of skill with tools, I pretty much knew what had to be done, and had acquired the necessary materials to do the job. Now I had to get at the area where the hinges were supposed to go.

I tried a stool, but I couldn't reach from there. Sitting on the counter was the next thing I tried, but owing to the positioning of our stove on one side and the refrigerator on the other, I wasn't left was much room in which to work. So I tried kneeling on the hard counter surface. It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that wasn't going to work. My knees and shins were already in great pain and things were getting worse.

I briefly considered getting down and finding some sort of pillow or cushion to kneel on. But I recalled all the effort I had put forth to get that far, and hated the thought of retreating before having done anything productive on the job at hand (remember the kitchen cupboard that needed fixing?).

So I did a bit of grunting and actually got on my feet on the counter. I couldn't stand up because someone had inconveniently placed a ceiling in my way.

So I ended up working quickly, bearing in mind how much I enjoy squatting (Not).

The cupboard door was duly re-attached to my satisfaction (and somewhat to my surprise and relief). Now all I had to worry about was whether my legs were up to the daunting task of getting me back down.

Scary thing to have to worry about. I've been having a few

other problems along those lines over the last several months. I find I have discomfort in my left shoulder more often that I should. I'm not sure if it involves the way I carry my camera bag around with me, the way I sleep or the fact that I'm not a young as I used to be (as if that makes me unique).

But the legs have been the real problem of late. I don't think it's a case of lack of exercise, because this job I have requires a lot of walking, which probably doesn't do my cardio-vascular fitness any harm at all. And I'm still able to break into a run, if the situation requires it.

Some movements seem tougher than others. Putting on my socks in the morning has become something of an ordeal. For some reason, the left one is easier to put than the right, but donning both usually results in grunts. And the grunts are louder if my wife is in earshot (partly in an effort to gain sympathy and partly because loud, uncouth grunting is something of a macho guy thing, although I'm probably one of the few macho guys who would publicly admit that).

I'm dreading the coming of winter because that will mean several mornings of torture as I try to get my snow boots on. I really don't mind shoveling out my driveway at the crack of dawn (just don't tell my wife that, okay?). If only I could do it in my bare feet!

But the summer has not been all fun either. It was hard to squat for an hour pulling weeds out of my front lawn.

I even had troubles on my vacation. Beth and I were out in the lake a couple of times, paddling a canoe, something I could have done all day, weather conditions and Beth permitting. I was seldom anxious to have these trips end. Part of the problem is you're supposed to kneel in a canoe (I guess to lower the centre of gravity and avoid tipping). Not only can that be hard on the knees (we put towels in the bottom of the boat to give them a break), but one also has to worry about legs stiffening up.

My trouble with the end of these trips wasn't so much that I was enjoying them (I was). I just puzzled about how I would get myself out of the silly thing when we made it to shore. Both Beth and I are only too aware of the grunting noises I sometimes make when I get out of a car, or up off the couch. Imagine how much noise I make getting out of a canoe!

If this is a function of advancing age, I guess there's not a lot I can do about it, except maybe just grunt a lot, which may not be such a bad thing. When a man reaches a certain age, he finds there are only so many macho guy things he's still capable of.