Sometimes wisdom, sometimes fantasy

A little imagination is good.
Old people are so funny, I love talking to them, if not to learn than at least to laugh. This class makes me think of the the great stories created as people get old and how they hold on to memories of youth to keep them young in heart today. Forget generational storytelling just put yourself into the shoes of someone trying to tell a story of something that happen to them 50 years ago, it can be very funny listening to them fill in the details. It reminds me of a man I met this summer as I came down from a hike on Mt. Washington.
By jeez'm this guy was tough, a black belt in multiple types of martial arts and meaner than a grizzly in mate'n season, he could kick the ass of me and my two friends with one eye closed and both hands behind his back. As he watched us come out of the wooded trail we stopped and he told us a story of his youth and an adventure of epic quantity as he hiked along the Long Trail.
In those days there where no food stops or shelters you had to build yourself a fire with two sticks and snare wild animals to survive. Always catch'n rabbits and porcupine both of which had about as much food value as a modern day potato chip a man could get strong as steel in the matter of a couple weeks. One lucky day he snared a deer and nearly got his faced kicked in (don't ask me how, maybe he was trying to strangle it with his mouth). Long story short this guy came out of the woods able to chew iron and shit wood a true REAL MAN!!! Kids like me and my two friend who had rolled boulders all summer where soft and so are the rest of the youth of this day.
I stayed riveted to his story that is so much better than my own because lots of what he said had some true and it's exactly how I'd like to hike the LT. In spite of multiple breaks due to dentures coming out, plus a hunched back and the cane, after a story like that I shook his hand and escorted him back to his car(he had only come to see the trains go up the mountain and hiking was most likely beyond his ability). Whats wrong with a little senility when it gives you stories like this, with age can come some pretty cool side effects.
If I knew where this guy was right now I would be interviewing him for sure.