MOVING ALONG BUCKET LIST: #1 KEEP GOING

Moving along means picking up and going? Not exactly.

What goes and what stays is not the question of the moment.

Just pick yourself up.

Sounds easy? Not for everyone. But that bucket list is calling.

The current standard for effective walking is ten thousand steps a day.

Ten thousand steps?

I checked the Net for distance.

One mile takes roughly two thousand steps.

I’ll do the math: ten thousand steps is five miles.

Very Well Heath takes it further:

 

You’ll need water, a tape measure, and a dry section of the sidewalk (or a long roll of paper stretched out on a flat surface). Then follow these steps:

1. Wet the bottom of your feet.

2. Walk at your average pace for at least 10 steps.

3. Measure the distance between the heel of one foot and the heel of the next foot in inches.

4. Measure the inches between several steps, then follow steps 5 and 6 to calculate the average.

5. Add the inches for all the measured steps.

6. Divide the total inches by the number of steps measured for your average step length.

 

Where’s My Couch

As everyone on the back nine of life knows, baby boomers are in the midst of their great ‘die-off.’

From sobering titles like, ‘Many Baby Boomers Are Already Dead,’ to ‘DIE! BOOMER! DIE!’ online writers are taking notice.

From google AI:

 

Approximately 2.6 million Baby Boomers are dying each year, and this number is expected to increase to around 4.0 million per year by 2037, with over 7,000 Boomers dying daily as of early 2024.

 

If you’re in manageable health with Michael Jordan-like calves, and read the words ‘moving along,’ it’s not me knocking on the door with a shovel and a bucket of dirt.

However, it is me on this screen saying, claiming, planting a flag, that the more complicated notions you hear about getting up and around, the more likely you are to feel like it’s beyond you, that health is more of a younger persons concern.

“If I have to measure my wet feet to walk, why bother,” doesn’t let you off the hook.

I was a younger person when I heard this: “I’m not worried about my health in old age. I’ve got Dr. Smith and Dr. Wesson on retainer.”

That was my father in-law and I talking about the future. He lived in a house on a hill with a pool and a view, had a yacht, and was the Marina del Rey commodore in a blue blazer and captain’s hat.

He and my mother in-law cruised Culver City on a Honda 750 with a naked lady painted on the tank.

Their other rides were a Cadillac and a T-top Trans-Am.

The future was bright with living big.

One time they showed up like rock stars in black leather pants and a fastback ’69 Mustang.

That was before my wife and I were an ‘item,’ before we were on any radar.

Back then I was one of a group of mid-20 to mid-30 people organizing and planning things to do together.

My plans were usually playing my guitar and writing. In that group my guitar went along.

My future mother in-law first noticed me while I played the touching Townes Van Zandt tune ‘Pancho and Lefty.’

(This versions is from Shane Smith and the Saints’ version and they nail it.)

There I was, pouring my heart into a sad song, and she asked, “Who’s the dork?”

 

We were all moving along years later when Dr. Parkinson’s called my father in-law before Dr. Smith or Dr. Wesson.

We lived the multi-generation life when they moved to Portland.

The old man started off in assisted living, got sicker, and checked into the hospital to die.

My British Royal Navy veteran mother in-law looked like she was going down with the ship, putting in eighteen hour days at his bedside.

I asked the doctor how long he had.

After some back and forth over the approprieteness of the question he said, “two days, maybe.”

I moved him home to save my mother in-law. Two days? I could do that.

First day? Still kicking.

Second day? Less kick, so I gave him a send-off, reminding him of the Marine he was in WWII.

The old man was in what I thought to be a coma he wouldn’t wake from.

I took the role of Drill Instructor and gave him the role of green recruit.

My send off to him was a welcome to Boot Camp talk.

My Army boot camp experience came in handy.

He woke up in the middle of it.

I said, “Trainee, don’t eyeball me, boy.”

He got so angry he lived five more years.

As his trainer/caregiver we walked it out every day.

Was it a good idea?

From Michaeljfox.org:

 

Exercise is one of the most powerful treatments for Parkinson’s disease.

Many ask about the “best” exercise routine for Parkinson’s.

Most doctors say a safe, enjoyable regimen that helps manage your personal symptoms is the best approach.

 

Safe, Enjoyable, Exercise Regimen

When exercise experts talk about their field of study they say things like ‘exercise regimen.’

It means, “get off your dead ass and stop making excuses.”

It probably sounds better in Latin.

 

It’s not the right equipment, not the right shoes, the gym is too far, the garage too crowded, the air too hot, the air too cold.

I’d like to walk but I don’t know how far I should go, or for how long.

I don’t have anyone to walk with.

 

This from substack.com:

 

Baby boomers today are what gerontologists are now calling the “young-old”, and which others call the “new middle age”. 

75 percent of baby boomers live in nice houses in nice suburbs, drive private cars to work or play, don’t much like paying taxes, and think that they can keep living this way forever.

They can’t. In about 2026, the first baby boomers will hit 80, when they become the “old-old.”

 

If you want to stay in the ‘young-old’, start stepping up or you’ll be stepping off.

I know people who walk at a 3mph clip for eight miles.

Call it 16,000 steps.

I’m on a pace like this based on my phone health app:

Averaged over 8,084 steps over the last 7 days.

This year I’m walking less on average than I did in 2024.

5,126 steps a day in 2025.

5,439 steps a day in 2024.

 

PS: This looks like I need to pack my phone everywhere to get a more accurate reading.

PSS: 10,000 steps are five miles, 10,000 hours is a little over a year. We’ve got time to add another 10K of something? 10,000 what?