This Guy

Who was heading up the stairs at 6:45 a.m. after spending a half hour on the treadmill?

This guy, baby!

Since I quit being a county commissioner my calendar, for the first time since 1973, is just a blank sheet of paper.

This is a little bit of a problem. I've always had a schedule. I raised livestock for a few decades and if you've done that, there's no doubt that you know what you're going to be doing right away in the morning and just before you take your work boots off at night.

Even taking livestock out of the equation, I had an ironclad schedule, dictated by the needs of the crops and the weather forecast. When I moved into my job as a county commissioner the schedule was just as restrictive, although less dependent on the weather. Then the first of the year rolled around, my last term expired, and all those meeting dates were suddenly blank. It's not like I spent fifty years punching a time clock, but nevertheless - a little disconcerting.

Before it arrived, I'd talked at some length of the possibility of a Jammie January. An intriguing idea, but not really in the cards, at least not for me. I mean, I feel underdressed if I don't have a pliers holster on my belt. A few years ago, a neighbor stopped by around 9:00 on a Saturday morning and caught me in sweatpants and a tee shirt. In my defense, we'd had a sleepover, and I was still making pancakes for a gaggle of grandchildren, but I'm embarrassed just thinking about it.

So, I needed to add some kind of activity between checking my email every fifteen minutes and total sloth. It took a while, particularly since I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.

The one thing I knew for sure is that I needed some sort of exercise program. Between getting older and a certain amount of stress eating, I was on the verge of running out of holes in my belt. I didn't know for sure what I wanted out of retirement, but buying a whole new wardrobe was definitely not on the list.

I've never had what one could call an exercise regime. Whenever I'd damage some portion or other of my body, I'd follow the advice of the physical therapist and get it whipped back into shape. I semi-regularly peddled away on an exercise bike in the evenings, if for no other reason than inactivity makes me a little twitchy. But now, with the help of my wife, who is a model of consistency, for two months I've been walking on a treadmill with hand weights for a half hour in the morning and peddling the bike for a half hour at night. I did get a little bit of a break in establishing a new routine because of the current political climate. For many years I’ve been reading a couple newspapers as soon as I get up, but for the past few months I’d prefer to know less and less every day. Exercising is a far less painful occupation.

It's probably not as good as driving to a gym and hiring a personal trainer with a megaphone and a whip, but it's not nothing. I haven't gained any unused holes on my belt, but I haven't lost ground either.

So, I'm calling it a win.

Copyright 2025 Brent Olson