Ned Luce

Don’t let a bum hip keep you down! If you have a choice that is. 

My choice is to make an effort to see as much of the NCAA basketball tournament as I can. It ain’t hard if you need to spend most of your day sitting on your keister, actually my keister.

Number one seeds, Baylor and Gonzaga, both bowed out early much to BJ’s and my surprise and dismay. One of our favorites, Duke, made it to the Final Four along with one of our not so favorites, the University of Kansas. KU unmercifully blasted the University of Miami 76-50. The Final Four teams are KU, Duke, Villanova, and North Carolina. Arch rivals Duke and Carolina play each other this weekend in their first meeting ever in the tournament.

One of Villanova’s players tore his Achilles tendon which will hamper the team’s ability to beat KU. One of the most celebrated events in the tournament has been the retrieval of the basketball when it got stuck above the backboard. This was done by the Arkansas and Indiana cheerleading squads, once each. Watching all this basketball required me only to sit, the perfect way to endure the hip pain. 

The Port Ludlow Performing Arts presented “Birch Pereira and the Gin Joints” for a upbeat performance on Sunday afternoon. I didn’t go because, well you know. Birch et al are a Pacific Northwest group playing rock and roll revisited. I picked up some of their music on the i-net and was disappointed to miss them. BJ spent time talking with Jonathan Doyle from Port Townsend who filled in on the saxophone and clarinet. 

So, Ned, you have a bum hip. Why don’t you buy a new television? Here we go. Because of the hip, my physical therapist suggested I would profit from a toilet seat raiser which would require less effort from me to stand up or sit down whilst engaged in that most basic of human functions. I thought it a great idea so I ordered one for delivery last weekend. It is not as great as I hoped but it does serve the purpose. Unsurprisingly, the story does not end with a toilet seat. The toilet seat is just the beginning. 

We sleep and eat on the main floor of the house, but most evenings we watch television on the lower level of our home which thus requires me to navigate the steps, hobbling down using my newly acquired cane. Our daughter was out from Seattle and connived with BJ to get another TV for the main floor which would reduce and/or eliminate the pain and suffering precipitated by going up and down the stairs. I confess to not being enthused about the idea because the plan involved moving some furniture about and maybe purchasing some new furniture and contracting for some technical assistance etc. I had several problems embracing the need particularly if my hip was projected to be replaced with a brand new one, which it is. I am also at an age where change is really more frightening than it was when I was younger. Finally, there is the money involved. I can and will spend any amount of money as long as it has the Porsche logo. However, the TV wouldn’t fit in the car. So, the project is slowly moving forward as I arrange for our son and son-in-law to schedule some “help the old folks” time in Port Ludlow. And now we need to pick out a TV.     

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week. 

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident. Contact Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)