Hello, bloggers!

Here’s an update on my work in the studio...

Because of all of the really huge projects I did in 2007 and 2008—going up and down ladders, carrying heavy things up scaffolding, etc.—I pushed the limit of my 75- and 76-year-old back, and my body started to rebel.

One of my great friends in Ireland is a doctor who is a world-wide authority on rugby medicine.  I went to see him for a thorough examination, including X-rays, and he proclaimed that there wasn’t really anything wrong with my back—except that it was 76, whereas my head was 17!

And so I meditated on his advice that I should bring my head and my back closer together...  And I thought, “What can I do?”

Up till that point in my life, my head told my body what to do, and my body did it.  Now, my body tells my head what it can do, and if my head says no, my body just won’t go.

So I had to think outside the box:  accupuncture, exercise, diet, reading everything I could find on agility, old age, and fitness...

There was one doctor who my wife and I read constantly, who had found that the aboriginal people in Australia are climbing trees at age 80 because they were eating certain vitamins and minerals...  Of course, immediately I sent for them and started taking them!

I bought a cane to help take some of the pressure off...  I had magnetic belts...  I bought one of the contour things you see on television because I had something like that about 50 years ago—that’s how far back my back problems go...

I also have a Power Plate machine that was developed by the Russians during the war and then afterwards was used for their athletes...  It has worked miracles for me.  I get on it multiple times a day.

I also did the hanging from straps from the door, and other crazy things that people would probably think I’m nuts if they knew.

But thanks to the combination of everything, lately I’ve found myself not only walking over to the holding trays that hold my huge canvases, but actually dancing and singing again as I’m walking...  doing the two-step, the three-step, the back-step, back to my old 17-year-old self again, having a ball.

I’m sure my neighbors, if they happen to be looking at me through the window, must think I’m an insane person...  but I’m just having a hell of a time!

I’ll tell this old body what to do, and if it doesn’t do it, I’ll kick it in the ass!

You can’t keep an old fool down!

(I hope I don’t eat those words!)

LAMB