THE PERILS OF AGE CRINGE IN FEAR IN THE PRESENCE OF THIS OLD FOGY

Today was a test of my resolve. Over the past month, I have had periodic pins and needles in my left shoulder and arm, radiating to my thumb. I'm certain it's a pinched nerve somewhere between my neck and shoulder blade. On top of that, my inner elbows have been suspiciously tender for, respectively, left to right, 2 and three weeks.
Today we were working in the main building, where parking is always a premium, but with several projects going on in main, it's next to impossible. We had to park at the library lot, about a block away. Now, being the apprentice, it's my job to run for and bring material to the job site. Put 10 junction boxes, 20 connectors, 20 couplings, 20 stand off straps, a box of 100 toggle bolts, a box of fender washers and some other shit made of metal in a cardboard box and you've got a pretty heavy load.
Then there's the hammer drill and the battery drill, and the bender, not to mention the tool bag that clocks in at about 35 lbs.... Combine that with the trip from truck to elevator to job site, and I'm covering some serious territory with some serious weight as quickly as possible.
Now to be fair, the journeyman carries his weight as well in regard to his tools and packs the bender or the drill. Oh, yeah, the pipe...I forgot about that, bundles of 10, 10 foot long pieces of metal. My journeyman carries the pipe...mostly because I would probably give some student or faculty member a serious head trauma carrying a bundle like that through the crowded halls of a university.
Did I mention the crowds? Like kicking the top off of an anthill crowds...and us being service people and them being important students and faculty, we're invisible. So if anybody's getting out of anyone's way, well, you do the math...and imagine dodging self important/self absorbed kids and faculty in narrow hallways while balancing a bundle of 10 foot pipe on your shoulder.
The elevators in main are small, the largest barely able to accommodate that bundle of pipe, and it has to be wrestled in, providing there are no students or faculty waiting on the same elevator...if there is, you stand with your load and wait...sometimes three or four cycles.
Now, a 10 foot ladder fitting in one of these elevators is out of the question. The room we are remodeling has 12 foot ceilings. If you are 6ft plus, an 8 ft ladder works just fine and just barely...barely fits in the elevator. We have a new journeyman who is an inch or so shorter than me...he requires a 10 ft ladder to do his job.
He and I carried that ladder up several flights of stairs, after I carried it alone from the parking area to the main building. 10 footers are heavy...even when they're made of fiberglass...let me tell you.
But I did it. And I was proud to do it, all that back and forth, all that heavy material. See, most apprentices are half my age and younger, and the ones I've been around cry like babies about this kind of labor.
In less than an hour I'll be 46 years old and I can still kick their asses!
I feel like Kurtz, only without the crazy.
:)