Wednesday Wisdom - Real Men Don't Wear Knee Pads

REAL MEN DON'T WEAR KNEE PADS           "A man's got to know his limitations." Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood   I guess it's time to confess to something very un-macho: I sometimes wear knee pads when I work in the garden. My children gave them to me for Christmas and I initially resisted the notion of wearing them. Unmanly and not cool, I thought. But my children also gave me two large bunches of red onion plants, and by the time I had a fourth of them planted, my knees were rebelling against my male vanity. Out came the new knee pads and voila! Sudden comfort! Rebellion over! With my new protection in place, I had the rest of the onions in the ground in no time. Uncool? Perhaps. Un-macho? Without a doubt. Comfortable? Absolutely! One of the nice things about being almost 65 is that I no longer worry what other people think of me. People who love me will keep on loving me even with those goofy-looking things strapped around my legs, and those who don't, don't matter after all. As my hero Dirty Harry said, a man's got to know his limitations. One of mine is that I don't have 5-year-old knees any more, and if I don't take care of the ones I've got, some orthopedic surgeon is going to cut them out and install some artificial ones in their place. No thanks. I think I'll go with the unmanly, goofy-looking knee pads for as long as possible. Thanks, children, for looking out for your old man.