My dalton magazine column

My left knee hurts the most. It’s bruised and there’s skin missing.
My right bicep aches. I think the muscle may be detached.
My right foot is sore. At first I thought it was broken.
My lower back is twinging and my neck is a little stiff.
Let’s see ... that’s a hurting knee, an aching bicep, a sore foot, a twinging back and a stiff neck.
Geepers, I must have gone to the lake for a day of relaxation!
Yup.
Yours truly and the family unit motored over to lovely Lake Weiss in scenic Northeast Alabama recently. There we met up with the larger Clan Espy to discuss our claim to the Scottish throne. We also swam and fished and played cards and ate and drank.
It was a fine time and as usual I came home with more injuries than a rugby halfback.
I love summer, always have.
But summer doesn’t love me like it once did.
Thirty years ago I swear I could juggle stilettos while riding bareback on a flaming bronco as it forded a stream full of ravenous piranhas and barely get a scratch. Now, I pull a hamstring just unloading towels from the car.
Who stole my invincibility? Who stole my athletic prowess? Who stole my Errol Flynn-like sense of derring-do?
(My wife would argue that the fry cooks at Krystal’s are the guilty party.)
Whoever took these things, I want them back! And I want a few questions answered.
Whatever happened to that towheaded lad who could pick up rocks from his grandpa’s garden all morning, go swimming in the afternoon and then sit up half the night reading comic books?
Whatever happened to the lean, mean teen who would play a softball double-header during the day and then scale the fence at the city pool at midnight for an illicit swim?
Whatever happened to that daring college kid who would come home on the weekends to ride motorcycles, chase girls and go to dust-til-dawn horror movie quadruple features at the drive-in?
Somebody find that guy ... I loved him!
It’s not that Modern Jimmy doesn’t want to do these things. I still try some of them, as suggested by the list of injuries at the beginning of this column.
I ride a motorcycle on occasion and four back-to-back horror movies still sounds like a great way to spend eight hours. But the reality is that many of my former feats of derring-o are now feats of derring don’t.
If I tried to scale the fence for a midnight dip at the city pool today, more likely than not they’d find me at sunup — dangling there with crows eating my eyeballs.
Two hundred and fifty-five pounds just doesn’t sneak as stealthily as 190 pounds. (That’s why you never see any fat ninjas.)
I wish I could tell you that the summers of my youth were spent in rigorous preparation. Wait a minute ... check that.
The summers of my youth were spent in a headlong (and sometimes boneheaded) rush to have fun. I will not apologize for this. You’re only young once and it doesn’t last forever, as I realized the other day when I was bandaging my bleeding knee.
If I could do it all again, I’d do it all again ... except for that part about picking up rocks from my grandpa’s garden. That was a bit much.
----
Our ace layout man Chris Stephens reminded me recently that this is the third anniversary of dalton magazine. Thanks to everyone who has helped produce it, particularly original editor Terry Connor, who did a great job getting it off the ground. Thanks also to our advertisers who have paid the bills and to our readers who have warmly embraced the publication.

(Jimmy Espy is editor of The Daily Citizen and dalton magazine)