January 18 – “Dipsy doodle”

Well, now I suppose I have advanced to the upper echelon of physical therapy patients.  I have made my way through the excruciating balance machine.  I can walk on the squishy balance beam pads toe to toe.  I can even do a treadmill hike going uphill all the way.  So what could possibly be next? 

She thought of something.  Not anything I would have expected, but I can see how it would be helpful.  She asked me to move along a line sideways, alternately switching which leg went in front and which went in back.  She even had a name for it, but once I realized what she was doing, I told her she had the name wrong.  See, if you just speed it up a little bit, and maybe pick up the knees a bit higher, you have none other than the dipsy doodle.  And what, you may ask is the dipsy doodle?  Ah, well anyone who did time in the defensive backfield at Weis Junior High School under the tutelage of Coach Alcala way back in the late 1960’s no doubt still remembers the dipsy doodle.  Great football drill for warming up before a game or for just passing the time or for getting everyone good and tired before letting us go home.  Who would have thought that a weary football drill would return some 50 plus years later to haunt me?  Sigh.  Oh, well.  Another of those “I’ll never use this in real life” teenage schoolboy whines proven wrong.  Who knows what will be next … Trigonometry?  Physics?  Any foreign language?  Elementary Analysis?  Yikes.  Bring on some more dipsy doodles …

Psalms 130:5 says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.”

Father, thank you for strange and wonderful and somewhat familiar movements that help my old knee get back into shape.  Amen.