The splitting maul.

It's a different situation for me because i don't really have access to healthcare. Can't afford health insurance so if i break something ... i live with it till it heals up on it's own. Pain is a good teacher. lol ... i'm kind of a slow learner sometimes. Tore out my rotator cuff for the second time a few years ago. Learned the hard way that it's not such a good idea for a man of my age to be hossing around a 275 gallon fuel tank on his own anymore.

The name of the game for me these days is use your head and not your back. Plan your work and work your plan. Use power tools whenever and wherever you possibly can. Choose your jobs wisely and always ask yourself if the juice is really worth the squeeze.

I've got a friend of 40 years who is a mechanic. We're about the same age and it's the same situation with him. The body is starting to give out after all those years of wear & tear in the trades. He's making regular trips back and forth to different specialists these days for the different problems that are coming up. I think the main thing is that he's like BAM BAM on the Flintstones. He will grab the BFH and go right to town on something if it's giving him a hard time. That's the way he's always done things. That's just his style.

He's stubborn and pig headed just like i am but he's slowly coming round. He was wailing the snot out of a control arm that wouldn't come out awhile back and making an awful racket out in the shop.I went out to see what was going on. We talked it over for a few minutes and between the two of us ... we figured out that all that was needed was a bit of finesse. I pulled on one end and he tapped on the other. The control are came out without too much trouble. The one on the other side was all but effortless.

I guess it's like a lot of things. There's a hard way and an easy way of doing most jobs.



All around though ... guys of our age, who were masters of their trade, traditionally ascended to the role of boss. The job boss ran the job and directed the efforts of his journeymen and apprentices. The younger hands did the bull work and the old fullas did the brain work. It was a sensible arrangement.

It doesn't always work out that way though.

If the Affordable Care Act plans are too expensive (as they often are and were for me for a long time) then you should qualify for Medicaid. It's an imperfect program but it's far better than the vast majority of private insurance programs including the Obamacare ones (that I'm familiar with anyway). Only coverage I ever had as good as Medicaid was back when I had coverage through a union.