Age is just a number

76. What do you hope to be doing when you are 76? I hope to be alive and well and relaxing somewhere tropical with my husband. A friend of mine, Beverly, who turned 76 yesterday, has more specific goals in mind.

Beverly is a little wisp of a thing that attends just about every one of my classes. You might take one look at her and think "oh, what a sweet little old lady". But then you would get to know her or you would see her keeping up with the "young" women in my class. She is the spunkiest lady I have ever met. She recently told me a story about chasing down some bike thieves in her car with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand on her cell phone, poised to dial 911 when she found the little criminals. Message: don't mess with Beverly!

Anyway - back in the middle of the summer sometime, Beverly started talking about what she was going to do in honor of her upcoming 76th birthday. She couldn't decide if she would do 76 push-ups or climb the rock wall! Can you imagine??!?! This morning, after sweating it out in my class for a full hour, Beverly asked for 6 people from the class to join her in doing 76 push-ups. Many people just ducked their heads and walked out of the room, not to be outdone by someone twice their age. A few people volunteered (including me, of course. I couldn't duck out! How would that look? The instructor can't keep up with a lady twice her age??!?!) And then I guilted a few more into participating as well.

So the 10 of us assumed the push-up position (on our knees, not our toes...don't judge until you try it!) and we all began our push-ups with Beverly counting them off. We got to 10 and the lady next to Beverly started to count up to 20 and so on and so on. By about number 28 I thought my arms were going to fall off and we were only about a third of the way through! A lot of ladies stuck around and cheered us all on, hootin' and hollerin! When we all finished (well, most of us. A few people took a few breaks.) the crowd went wild. It was great!

That was all at about 10:15 AM. My arms were still shaking and burning about 90 minutes later. And tomorrow??? Don't ask me to lift anything. Including my arms.

Beverly rocks! She is living proof that age is just a number. I just hope I still have the gumption to even attempt something like that at age 76!