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Commodore Joe Redcloud wrote:
On 17 Dec 2005 14:32:23 -0800, wrote:

Another post concerned an 86 yr old wanting to sail over the horizon
but it had gotten too long, so...........
I was once forced to spend a few days at the harbor of Dog Island in
N. FL cuz it was just too nasty to go the three miles back to the
mainland. While hanging out on the dock, a very frail old lady with
a walker slowly made her way down the dock and into an open 19'
sailboat carefully stowing her walker. Finally, a younger woman
came along and told me that her granny insisted on going into town
for her checkup in spite of the weather. I expressed reservations
about this but she seemed to be a knowledgable sailor. The next day
they came back and when they got back on the dock I asked how it had
been, the old woman shook her head and said "I kept telling her to
take the waves on the quarter, but she wouldnt listen" Clearly, she
knew what she was doing.

People have different abilities at all ages. Some people die of old
age when they are 50, and some people at 99 can dance the boog-a-loo
all night long.

At 84, my father hurt his knee carrying a full bucket of tar up a
ladder to repair a leak in the roof of his house. He wasn't one to go
running to the doctor , but after 3 months it was still painful.

The doctor examined him, and said, "well you have to expect things
like this at your age". My father, without batting an eye, replied,
"That is not true. My other knee is the exact same age and IT DOESN'T
HURT AT ALL!"

At 90, my father complained to his doctor that he was tired all the
time. The doctor asked him if he was still walking every day. My
father replied that he was still walking 6 miles every day. The
doctor suggested that he cut down to 2 miles and see if he was still
so tired all the time.

Commodore Joe Redcloud

That's exactly the remark my own medic made to me when I went to see him
about my left knee, and my reply was also the same. They don't have an
answer to that one. I suspect that the ruptured quads tendon I incurred 15
years ago whist sailing may have had something to do with it, but he had my
notes open at the time, and this didn't seem to strike him as a possibilty.

Guess they are trained at medic school to use stock phrases like this. It
called the no-intervention syndrome, and saves the NHS a fortune in
operating theatre costs! UK that is. In the US, don't they judge your
operability by the thickness of you wallet? ;-))